Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

People are complicated. Love is not.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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

Republicans in disarray!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

He really is that stupid.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I was promised a recession.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You cannot shame the shameless.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Spell It Out…

Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Spell It Out…

by | 234 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

… For the MAGA kids in the peanut gallery…

SRSLY, though: This would seem to be a strong indicator that the suits at the NYTimes have decided that propping up Trump would be pursuing a sunk cost fallacy. The king is dead, long live the king! cry the Very Serious Media Persons.


Admit it, though — you’d have to be paid a lot to touch that thing, too…

As always, Twitterati: Sharing is caring!

Reader Interactions

234Comments

  1. 1.

    laura

    I sure hope that trumps many, many minders have more than a few fresh pairs of trousers on hand today. That pigshagger is going to be one raging shite-bag for sure. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t back out of the debates.

  4. 4.

    Wapiti

    @laura: Yeah, he’s in a bad position (Good!). Weak if he backs away from the debates; exposed to questioning if he debates.

    Sucks to be him.

  7. 7.

    Just Chuck

    And that 300 mil is just for the above-board (sort of) loans.  He undoubtedly owes more to people for whom merely breaking legs is a love tap.

  8. 8.

    PPCLI

    From a Lemieux tweet above:

    The EMAILS/Wikileaks stuff were nothingburgers but they mattered in part because Trump talked about them all the time, and this is a REAL scandal

    True, but there was more going on.

    a) Wikileaks (a Russian intelligence Op.) understood enough to keep things in the news by dribbling them out bit by bit, regularly, so there would always be some new toy for journalists to play with.

    b) Wikileaks prefaced the emails with prefaces that gave distorted summaries of what was in them. Lazy journalists naturally relied on and quoted the summaries rather than the utterly innocuous emails themselves.

    c) Journalists were either too dumb, too cynical, too lazy, or most likely a combination of all three, to keep themselves from being manipulated like puppets to keep serving the Wikileaks narrative.

    The American journalistic community really has a lot to answer for.

  9. 9.

    randy khan

    Whatever else you think of its coverage, the Times has been very good on Trump’s finances – the Mary Trump tax return story, the huge unraveling of the history of his business, and now this.  You have to wonder if it’s because the Times knows that the serious New York real estate people – who will be there forever – hold Trump in contempt.  Or maybe they just have reporters who are good at this stuff.

  10. 10.

    feebog

    The first question from Chris Wallace to Trumpov tomorrow night better be “who do you owe all that money to?”

  13. 13.

    Brachiator

    The tax story is consuming all the news headline oxygen. Fewer stories about debate prep or any nonsense that Trump might be spewing.  Even news about the Supreme Court nominee has been shoved out of prime space.  Except of course at Fox News and other right wing sites, which form an alternate universe of dumb news stories.

    Trump cannot be a happy camper. He is being hit in his only vulnerable spot: his pride.

    Remember the reaction when John Edwards was caught paying $400 for a haircut? Trump paid $70,000 on hair care. How is that even possible?

    How much for make-up?

  14. 14.

    dexwood

    I’d love to see Biden look into the camera tomorrow night and say everytime Trump golfs at one of his clubs, you hard working, American tax payers finance his many days of goofing off on the job. Then, give the number of times it’s happened and how much it has cost.

  16. 16.

    p.a.

    I’m not judging ’till I get Ross Douthat’s take?????

    ETA: Odds on some ‘national security event’ requiring donnie’s presence turning up by the debate start?  Any Cubans on other Caribbean islands?

  17. 17.

    Ken

    @Geoboy: Is it wrong of me to just keep playing it over and over?

    No, provided it’s a healthy activity that’s helping you to work through your issues and become a better person.

    Death Becomes Her has my favorite example of the opposite, where repetition just digs the channels of pathology deeper.  My second-favorite example would of course be Trump’s twenty-minute Tulsa ramp-and-water diatribe.

  18. 18.

    ET

    98% of tRump voters are idiots, conmen, blind, and/or brainwashed. This won’t change any of that or his vote total. Should it? Yes, but he has spent 4 years grooming them like a pedophile grooms children.

  19. 19.

    germy

    @Geoboy: 

    He’s pissed! And you just know right now he’s abusing the shit out of his underlings. Screaming at them “How could you let this happen??”

  20. 20.

    Ken

    @p.a.: Odds on some ‘national security event’ requiring donnie’s presence turning up by the debate start?

    If not this debate, then the other two for sure.  But I wouldn’t count on this gang coming up with something believable, or at least not anything that most Americans think is important. I think someone earlier posted about a border dispute between two of the former Soviet republics?

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @Brachiator: 

    Remember the reaction when John Edwards was caught paying $400 for a haircut?

    Remember AOC getting trashed by the RWMFs for her $250 cut a year or two ago? Which is like $75 in Edwards dollars. [OK, not really, but you get my point]

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @ET:

    Yes, but he has spent 4 years grooming them like a pedophile grooms children.

    Funny you should mention that: TPM tells us of a report that the Murderer-in-Chief wanted Princess Vanka to be his running mate in 2016. The report did not specify which meaning of “mate.”

    ETA: Apologies to those who felt I should put a trigger warning in there.

  24. 24.

    Ken

    @prostratedragon: You know how sometimes you have a “private” conversation REALLY LOUDLY SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR?

    That’s so old-fashioned. Nowadays you just “accidentally” butt-dial a reporter before starting.

  27. 27.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Brachiator: They aren’t even being subtle about the hypocrisy any more. Yes, $70K for Donny’s haircuts, millions for his golfing trips, that’s all A-OK. But one golfing trip or haircut bad for a Dem.

    We pledge not to replace a Supreme Court justice in the year before an election. Nah, we’re going to push this one through in the weeks before the election, and we’d do it without a hearing if we could.

    I’m seeing ads already using “deficits are bad” (therefore we can’t afford Democratic program X)

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @Ken:

    That’s so old-fashioned. Nowadays you just “accidentally” butt-dial a reporter before starting.

    “Dial” is so old-fashioned.

    Also, it’s been a really long time since my butt was small enough to “dial” a number. Like, never.

  31. 31.

    CliosFanBoy

    I had to bury my cat this am.  She was an outdoor cat, a feral that I took care of.  So I buried her in my garden by her favorite spot. She had been sick for several weeks. She was losing weight, so I got her a prescription medicine for her thyroid and special prescription food. but it did not help. She stopped eating a week ago. Yesterday I found her on my front step, that’s where she waited for me to come outside so she could stay with me when I gardened or just sat on the porch. She greeted me but could not stand,  so, I sat with her and gently pet her and talked to her. After a few minutes she died peacefully. she had waited for me to come say good bye.

     

    FWIW .  (She could not come inside. My wife is very allergic and our dogs not cat friendly.  She had a house in our garage with a water-bubbler and food and a litterbox. )

  32. 32.

    Ohio Mom

    I’m thrilled of course to see all this plastered across the front page of the NYT, and the timing makes me giddy.

    But really, other than the specific amounts, didn’t we know all of this already? That Trump cheated on his taxes (he all but admitted it in one of his debates with Hillary), owes gobs of money, is a money launderer, has been breaking the Emoluments Clause and stealing from the public fisc since day one?

    Well, educators know that some students need a lot of repetition in order to learn material, and I guess those among us who fit that description are getting it.

    Next up, the shocking news that Putin has been influencing and directing Trump.

  33. 33.

    gene108

    I remember the reaction Bill Clinton had for his $400 haircut at LAX, on Air Force One, in 1993 where the MSM mindlessly repeated right-wing bullshit about the haircut holding up air traffic for four hours. White House Press Secretary George Stephanapolus was grilled about this huge scandal the next couple of days.

    One thing that helped Obama was the internet. If someone started bitching about four hour delays, his folks could pull up flight records in real time.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    Yowza, details on Brad Parscale’s involuntary hospitalization from a FL TV outlet. He beat up his wife, was drunk, ranting and slurring and waving a gun around. A cop he knew lured him outside, where another cop took him down when he refused to get on the ground as ordered. Lucky for him he’s white and well connected. Could have ended very differently otherwise…

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    @randy khan:

    Whatever else you think of its coverage, the Times has been very good on Trump’s finances – the Mary Trump tax return story, the huge unraveling of the history of his business, and now this. You have to wonder if it’s because the Times knows that the serious New York real estate people – who will be there forever – hold Trump in contempt. Or maybe they just have reporters who are good at this stuff.

    I’m not sure that “serious New York real estate people” hold Trump in contempt. He is one of their own.

    New York media have always loved Trump.  He was the Swinging Bad Boy real estate mogul. Even other old fart rich East Coasters were amused by Trump. He was living their fantasy.

    Even though there would be occasional stories about Trump’s business failures, this was typically soft pedaled.  Business reporters never went hard on Trump and could have years ago. And they certainly could have gone hard on him when he seriously began running for president.

    And Trump’s bragging to society reporters, including Maureen Dowd, who covered Trump’s social life early on, left trails that could be followed. And yet the business reporters never seemed to ask the society reporters close to Trump the obvious questions.

    But the Times did not seem to seriously investigate Trump’s finances until 2018:

    Over a months-long investigation, the Times reviewed more than 100,000 pages of financial documents — bank statements, financial audits, cash disbursement reports and canceled checks. They included more than 200 tax returns from Fred C. Trump, the President’s father, and other family partnerships and trusts. The Times also interviewed some of the President’s father’s former employees and advisers.

    Part of the reason for this is quite simple. Trump’s tax manipulations are not unique the the Orange Grifter.  His fellow real estate moguls use the same dodges. And the New York upper crust, including media executives, like where they live, in properties provided by Trump and his buddies, and may even have a few dollars invested in various real estate LLCs.

  37. 37.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ohio Mom: Yes, we know it already. I’ve been hearing for years that the real reason Trump is hiding his tax returns is that he’s squandered his fortune and is deep in the hole and bailing desperately–that it would lay bare the falsity of his identity as a shrewd business mogul.

    This makes it THE STORY, though, for a few news cycles at least. It’s substantiation. It makes it harder to just claim this is all just something liberals made up (Trump is claiming that, of course, but this is all over every front page now).

  39. 39.

    germy

    @Brachiator:  Remember the reaction when John Edwards was caught paying $400 for a haircut?

    I remember right wing media calling it a $400 haircut, but then it turned out the barber was paid that money because the candidate made use of his shop for the whole day for interviews, and he had no other customers.

  40. 40.

    Geo Wilcox

    I wonder if he even has a real home. I mean a lot of domestic expenses are business expenses according to those tax records.

  41. 41.

    James E Powell

    @PPCLI: 

    Journalists were either too dumb, too cynical, too lazy, or most likely a combination of all three, to keep themselves from being manipulated like puppets to keep serving the Wikileaks narrative.

    They weren’t dumb or lazy. They were determined to publish negative stories about Hillary. Whether it was orders from their bosses or their own personal hatred of her, they were eager to smear her.

  42. 42.

    Ohio Mom

    Clio’sFanBoy: my condolences. I hope you take comfort in how much you meant to your cat. That she waited for you to say goodbye says everything.

  44. 44.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    David Frum:

    You can read Trump’s tax returns two ways: either Donald Trump is the greatest tax cheat in US history – or he is a financial desperado hopelessly in debt to God knows who & needs every dollar he scams from Secret Service golf car rentals just to pay the electricity bill.

    Why can’t he be both?

  45. 45.

    Captain C

    @p.a.:

    Odds on some ‘national security event’ requiring donnie’s presence turning up by the debate start? Any Cubans on other Caribbean islands?

    Given Donnie’s abysmal relationship with the national security community, I’d say unlikely, other than the possibility of an incompetently generated and clearly fake one ginned up by Jared or someone else in Donnie’s PR team.

  47. 47.

    MisterForkbeard

     

    Replying to @LemieuxLGM
    he also has hundreds of millions in loans coming due that he clearly has no method of paying.

    This isn’t really true, though. After he leaves he can easily make that money selling classified secrets to adversaries. :)

    Which is the point, I know.

  52. 52.

    JAFD

    Alert to the Mahler stans !

    This Thursday night’s “Live from Carnegie Hall” (rebroadcast) will ne Michael Tilson-Thomas, the San Francisco Symphony, and an all Mahler program

    9 EDT on WQXR.org.

    And I hope everyone’s inscribed in the Book of Life for 5781 !

  54. 54.

    Nicole

    @SFAW:

    Remember AOC getting trashed by the RWMFs for her $250 cut a year or two ago?

    AOC pays $250 to look fabulous.
    Trump pays $70K to look… well…

    That, my friends, is Exhibit A of what it is to have good genes. ;)

  55. 55.

    Kent

    @randy khan:Whatever else you think of its coverage, the Times has been very good on Trump’s finances – the Mary Trump tax return story, the huge unraveling of the history of his business, and now this.  You have to wonder if it’s because the Times knows that the serious New York real estate people – who will be there forever – hold Trump in contempt.  Or maybe they just have reporters who are good at this stuff.

    I expect this is it.  They probably have a BAZILLION deep cover sources in the NYC real estate and finance world who despise Trump and are willing to dish on him.  The NYT has been covering that beat for what….150 years?

  57. 57.

    blacque_jacques

    @clay: echoing people in threads below, I also hope he gets the help he needs…so he’ll be fit to stand trial or at least testify for the prosecution.

     

    Nagorno-Karabakh, man that takes me back…Madison Square Garden ’86, Pay Per View. Knockout in the 11th round. Easily one of the five best fights I ever saw.

  59. 59.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Captain C: Oh, it doesn’t have to be real. He can just pull out a toy Playskool phone, pretend to get a call, and say, “sorry, have to leave the debate, important Presidenting stuff.”

    “And by the way, I win.”

  60. 60.

    Kent

    @Brachiator: I’m not sure that “serious New York real estate people” hold Trump in contempt. He is one of their own.

    I’m not so sure about that.   Trump has basically cheated and sued every single partner and person he has ever been in real estate business with.  There has to be a LOT of NYC real estate people who are still “butt hurt” about dealing with Trump and despise him.  When you cheat on a real estate deal you aren’t cheating on some blue collar dude in a diner in Ohio, you are cheating another commercial real estate person on the other side of the deal.

  61. 61.

    Nicole

    @CliosFanBoy: I’m so sorry to hear about your kitty.  I’m glad you were able to be with her at the end.  May we all be so lucky, to be able to leave this world feeling the comforting touch and presence of someone who loves us.

  62. 62.

    germy

    NBC News: According to police records, Parscale had 10 guns confiscated from his residence, including several rifles. Police described Parscale as being under the influence of alcohol.

    Police say they observed bruising on Parscale's wife, Candace, and she stated he has hit her. https://t.co/v3t3Ot4XIw

    — Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) September 28, 2020

  68. 68.

    James E Powell

     

    @SFAW:

    AOC is going to be trashed by right-wing media for her entire life. She is the embodiment of everything they hate.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    @JPL: Don’t know if there will be a domestic abuse charge, but the cops took the guns according to the article. Thanks to the Parkland survivors, we actually did make some progress on gun control here, despite wingnut control of the state. There are red flag laws that might keep Parscale from getting his weapons back, at least right away. If his wife has any sense, she’s already stripped the place bare and fled to an undisclosed location.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    Reddit commenter on the Pascale story.

    Man, if Donnie really wanted Hillary to go to prison, he should have hired her.

  73. 73.

    Kent

    @Gin & Tonic:Ken: Armenia and Azerbaijan are on the brink of war, yes.

    Is this worth a separate front page comment thread?  I have to admit I haven’t read up on this and don’t know the issues.  Is there an underlying Christian vs Muslim thing going on here?  My vague understanding was that past conflicts were over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is essentially that region’s Kashmir.  But I don’t know if there is anything new today.

  75. 75.

    PJ

    @Brachiator:

     

    @Kent:

    Many NYC reporters saw through Trump’s schtick and reported him as the bloviating conman that he is (see Pete Hamill: https://meaww.com/1989-jimmy-breslin-pete-hamill-v-donald-trump and Jimmy Breslin’s reporting on him: https://www.newsday.com/opinion/jimmy-breslin-s-columns-on-donald-trump-1.13288319) but also noted that the schtick worked on lazy reporters.

    I also would suspect that many, if not all, commercial real estate people in NYC have contempt for Trump.  I personally know of one incident involving redevelopment of a site upstate in the ’00s where Trump’s behavior was so comically disrespectful that there was no chance in hell anybody would enter a deal with him.

  77. 77.

    Ocotillo

    I know many of us are snake bit because of the perfect storm of 2016 but we got this.  Here’s why.

    Trump will retain his base of 38 to 42% of those who will vote this cycle.  Nothing will shake them loose.

    In 2016, there was some percentage of low information people who decided, why not give this “businessman” a shot, after all the country should be ran like a business.  Now that they have seen the consequences of their roll of the dice, they won’t be making the same mistake again.

    You had your third party dead enders some of whom figured Hillary had it in the bag and voted for Stein or Johnson or whoever.  Some of them will still do the same (idiots) but some of them will be scared straight.

    People 65+ went for Trump in 2016.  This year they are polling in favor of Biden.  Add to that, some percentage of them are dead and will not be voting this cycle.  Add to that, people between the age of 18 and 22 will be voting in their first presidential election and the yoots are overwhelmingly anti-Trump.

    Both sides are motivated.  The MAGAts are flying their flags and having boat parades etc..  While there in not a similar cult for Joe, there is motivated base of people who are willing to crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump.

    Hillary was a flawed candidate.  Don’t get me wrong, she would have been an excellent president but she had been attacked for 25+ years by the right wing slime machine and that had enough of an effect on low information votes that there was just something about that woman that they did not trust.

    Comey, enough said.

    All of this adds up to a landslide for Biden/Harris.

    We don’t get to relax but we can stop giving ourselves ulcers.  Here is why we cannnot relax.

    1.  Vote suppression.  It’s real and it will be on steroids this year.
    2. Foreign interference.  Putin is the obvious culprit and while I think Xe is tired of the Orange menace, he does like how he can manipulate the guy.  Kim has to like Trump being in charge.  Bibi is getting what he wants as is MBS.  Iran may be the only nation that would have an interest in hurting Trump in the election so they are outnumbered.
    3. Trump has already told us his plan.  He is going to tie this thing up in the courts and get his Supreme Court people to pull a Renquist.
    4. We need every down ballot race we can get, not just the Senate.
    5. It’s the election year that determines who gets to draw up the Congressional and state legislative districts.

    So, to summarize, there is still tremendous work to be done but do it joyfully and with optimism, not fear.  My prayer is Joe does not want to try and heal the nation by letting this felon walk.  Lock him up!

  79. 79.

    patrick Il

    So, those are his debts, what are his assets? What is the balance ? Can his income stream from his properties manage the debt. Would the sale of some of his assets be able to payoff the 1 billion ?

    Probably not. If you figure in upcoming  lawyers fees after the Justice department stops working  for him he has some pretty big fees coming up. Not to mention court cases by the  numerous angry ladies waiting in the wings

  80. 80.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @CliosFanBoy:

    As fellow animal nuts, we like to share in the joy as well as the sorrow of having these creatures in our lives for an ever so brief period. Losing them is never easy and it never gets easier. I know as humans we’re wired somehow to believe in an afterlife so I always imagine our pets are out there somewhere, either waiting for us or floating along supported by the love we gave them during their lifetime. And the loving memories we carry with us until we’re gone.

  83. 83.

    Hoodie

    @clay: Yeah, more like a potential murder/suicide, his wife is lucky she’s still alive.  This guy has probably always been violent and abusive, and he’s a big dude.  Note that she didn’t call the cops when he beat her up, so that may not have been new.  It may be that this was the first time he had escalated things this far and she was afraid he’d kill her.  I don’t have much sympathy for him or anyone else who volunteers to be a Trump dignity wraith.  It’s not like there weren’t plenty of prior examples to serve as a warning.

  84. 84.

    germy

    NEW YORK — A federal appeals judge on Friday questioned why Manhattan’s district attorney declined to execute a grand jury subpoena for President Trump’s long-sought tax returns when it appeared after a recent court order that prosecutors had an opportunity to do so.

    Judge Pierre N. Leval said he believed that the order issued Sept. 1 by a separate three-member panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit was meant to pause a lower court’s dismissal of Trump’s renewed bid to kill the subpoena — but that it did not prevent the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), from collecting the president’s financial records from his accounting firm in the meantime.

    “The stay was a stay on dismissal of complaint,” Leval said during questioning of a lawyer for the district attorney. “It was not a stay on execution of subpoena.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-tax-returns-appeal/2020/09/25/c8f425c8-ff45-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html

  87. 87.

    unknown known

    @Ken: Donnie, duck out of the debates? AND GIVE UP BEING ON TEEVEE IN FRONT OF LOTS OF PEOPLE?

    Don’t think he has that in him.

  89. 89.

    germy

    @Baud:  @Kay:

    Here is info on that news outlet:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4_News

    in 2003, Channel 4 News broke the story of the Dodgy Dossier which led to a political crisis in Britain.

    The story of the Conservative Party’s election expenses scandal was first broken, and then pursued for over a year, by Michael Crick.

    In March 2018, an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News explored the campaign activities of Cambridge Analytica.

  90. 90.

    Patricia Kayden

    The Pope is throwing stones.

    Pope Francis: Tax evasion is part of a "structure of sin." He also quoted this article: "It has become evident that those who do not pay taxes do not only commit a felony but also a crime: if there are not enough hospital beds and artificial respirators, it is also their fault." pic.twitter.com/OGNKAizh2N— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) September 28, 2020

  93. 93.

    germy

    @Baud:

    That’s what I thought at first, too.

    UK media is a mystery to me, but they seem on the up and up.  Not a Murdoch property or anything.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @unknown known:

    More and more Trump speaks in a kind of Right wing internet code. I don’t think it’s comprehensible to regular people. I think he’s likely to be baffling at the debate, like “WTF is he talking about?” – you have to have followed every single Right wing outrage, fake scandal and conspiracy theory since 2012 to know what he’s talking about.

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Remember the reaction when John Edwards was caught paying $400 for a haircut?

    I remember right wing media calling it a $400 haircut, but then it turned out the barber was paid that money because the candidate made use of his shop for the whole day for interviews, and he had no other customers.

    Yeah, all these stories, usually about Democratic Party candidates spending big money on haircuts and such, are nonsense and cheap political potshots.

  97. 97.

    patrick Il

    Police say they observed bruising on Parscale’s wife, Candace, and she stated he has hit her

    She should divorce him now while he still has money.

    I apologize for being so transactional .

  98. 98.

    Another Scott

    ??Tonight at 7pm:??EXCLUSIVE: Channel 4 News investigation reveals a huge Trump campaign data leak, exposing how 3.5 million Black Americans were listed as ‘Deterrence’ – to try to stop them voting in 2016.#DeterringDemocracy pic.twitter.com/wkxKfbynu6

    — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 28, 2020

    The flood of leaks continues.

    This is my shocked, shocked face.

    And you know they want to try it again this year.

    Grr…

    (via Popehat)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  104. 104.

    germy

    @Brachiator:  As I recall, the subtext of the “conservative” reporting was that the Democratic candidate was an effeminate and vain fop who was out of touch with real American manly men.

  108. 108.

    germy

    In 2016, Donald Trump had files on 200 million Americans and had 3.5 million Black Americans listed as “DETERRENCE” in order to keep them from voting.

    These will be in the news cycle for exactly 6 minutes.

    I’m sick.

    https://t.co/d6l1jXHybN

    — Imani Gandy ☄️?? (@AngryBlackLady) September 28, 2020

    i’m gonna VPN my ass into the UK and try to watch this.

    — Imani Gandy ☄️?? (@AngryBlackLady) September 28, 2020

    Angry Black Lady will let us know what she finds.

  109. 109.

    sdhays

    @dexwood: 

    You know, being President is a challenging job and it’s important to get outside. I golf, Presidents going back (whoever) have golfed. But none of us golfed every weekend. And none of us had the US government paying our own company for the privilege of protecting us at our own golf courses. Every single time Donnie here takes a break, he’s not just spending taxpayer money. He’s funneling it directly to himself.

  110. 110.

    gene108

    @James E Powell:

    AOC is going to be trashed by right-wing media for her entire life. She is the embodiment of everything they hate.

    It’s not her politics, it’s her appearance. She’s good looking, and conservative men know they have no shot. They’re jealous some soy-boy-latte-sipping-hipster dude’s going to be dating her, and not them.

  113. 113.

    PPCLI

    @germy: Interestingly, the question (on Fox and Friends) didn’t ask about how much was paid in taxes. It asked open-endedly about the size of the loans. Don Jr. changed the subject immediately. That is something they clearly want to avoid.

    Journalists, please take note.

  115. 115.

    prostratedragon

    @germy:  Yeah, saw that later on –my penalty for being late to the thread. So C4 does have some kind of contact with CA people. I presume the report will go into whether other groups got this strange “deterrence” designation.

  116. 116.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Seems more likely that all this financial churn is money laundering. Nobody makes loans of that magnitude to an idiot loser just to watch the money burn. Mueller should have followed the money when it came to investigating connections with foreigners.

  117. 117.

    Kent

    @germy:@Brachiator:  As I recall, the subtext of the “conservative” reporting was that the Democratic candidate was an effeminate and vain fop who was out of touch with real American manly men.

    As I recall, there was a lot of video of Edwards endlessly preening in front of the camera that did not look good.  It ended well, we got Obama in the White House not Edwards.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    I’m not sure that “serious New York real estate people” hold Trump in contempt. He is one of their own.

    I’m not so sure about that.   Trump has basically cheated and sued every single partner and person he has ever been in real estate business with.

    That’s kinda how the New York real estate business works.

    There has to be a LOT of NYC real estate people who are still “butt hurt” about dealing with Trump and despise him.

    I don’t know. Trump always got favorable news coverage, always got invited to all the right upscale parties and charitable events.

    So, while there are some claims that Trump is despised (based on some random searches on the topic:

    “Regardless, TL,DR: Everything I’ve heard is that he’s considered a joke in serious NYC RE circles.…”

    “Most NYC real estate professionals know that Donald Trump is not really in the real estate business, so he doesn’t have a “reputation” as such.…”
    “I’m not a real estate professional so I’m afraid that I can’t offer any insight into what NYC real estate professionals think of him.
    Nonetheless, the two anonymous answers to this question more or less conform to what I have heard others in NYC real estate say is their opinion of Trump. Unfortunately, that means my answer is third hand hearsay and so is as reliable as Trump’s toupée.”

    Not surprisingly, few have gone on the record.

    Last month, The Real Deal reached out to nearly 90 New York City real estate executives to find out what they think of Trump’s latest reinvention. Of the list, 40 did not respond while 31 refused to participate. The list of “no commenters” included some of the biggest names in the business such as Bill Rudin, Anthony Malkin, Joe Moinian, Jonathan Resnick, Steve Spinola, Dottie Herman, Barbara Corcoran, Larry Silverstein, Donald Zucker and many others.
    As it stands, NYC real estate seems to want little to do with the most talked-about developer in America.
     

    And even here you found a few friends and strong Trump supporters.

    And of course, the Kushner family, including Young Jared, also made their pile in real estate.

  119. 119.

    Kent

    @gene108:It’s not her politics, it’s her appearance. She’s good looking, and conservative men know they have no shot. They’re jealous some soy-boy-latte-sipping-hipster dude’s going to be dating her, and not them.

    That’s why all those lame-ass blogger types keep challenging her to debates and such.  It’s pure petty harassment.

  121. 121.

    PPCLI

    @James E Powell: I remember when NY’s Attorney General Schneiderman made lots of noise about how many actions he was going to take against Trump, etc. But none of them ever seemed to happen.

    Then it turned out that Schneiderman had serious skeletons in his closet — various exceedingly abusive relationships over the years. And it turned out that at least one of his victims had contacted Trump’s lawyers some time previously. Cohen was involved. And then people pointed out various tweets from Trump that were broad hints about what he knew about Schneiderman.

    After Schneiderman resigned and someone else became NY AG, things really started to happen fast.

    I get the same vibe from Vance. He needs to look like he is gung-ho about holding Trump accountable, but somehow he keeps letting delays happen without going for the jugular. There is no doubt in my mind that he’s compromised, as Schneiderman was.

  123. 123.

    prostratedragon

    @Chief Oshkosh:  Isn’t the point of using the money laundry that you eventually get back something that looks legit? At some point I always figured he’s on the hook for scheduled remittances or “participations” or something in addition to formal loans, so he has to keep up the cash flow and is supposed to skim only as much as necessary to maintain the front.

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    I’m not sure that “serious New York real estate people” hold Trump in contempt. He is one of their own.

    I’m not so sure about that.   Trump has basically cheated and sued every single partner and person he has ever been in real estate business with.  There has to be a LOT of NYC real estate people who are still “butt hurt” about dealing with Trump and despise him.

    An attempt at response got thrown into moderation. Let’s see if I can distill the main point.

    There is not a lot of on-the-record comment about Trump. He gets invited to the right parties and charitable events, so he is at least tolerated.  But especially after he decided to run for president, a lot of silence:

    Last month, The Real Deal reached out to nearly 90 New York City real estate executives to find out what they think of Trump’s latest reinvention. Of the list, 40 did not respond while 31 refused to participate. The list of “no commenters” included some of the biggest names in the business …

    As it stands, NYC real estate seems to want little to do with the most talked-about developer in America.

  126. 126.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    As I recall, the subtext of the “conservative” reporting was that the Democratic candidate was an effeminate and vain fop who was out of touch with real American manly men.

    I guess. And there is always the lame attack that if rich political candidates really cared about the poor, they would give away all their money.  But since Republicans want people to be rich, it’s OK for them to be greedy, exploitative plutocrats.

  129. 129.

    catclub

    @Brachiator: Even though there would be occasional stories about Trump’s business failures, this was typically soft pedaled. Business reporters never went hard on Trump and could have years ago.

     

    Almost all business reporting on rich people is fluffy.

  132. 132.

    L85NJGT

    Sooo…. GOP donors were paying down his Russian mob loans through opaque campaign slush funds?

    ….and maybe a sleazy campaign manager didn’t grok why pinching from those bags would be a problem.

  133. 133.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    @PJ:

    I also would suspect that many, if not all, commercial real estate people in NYC have contempt for Trump. I personally know of one incident involving redevelopment of a site upstate in the ’00s where Trump’s behavior was so comically disrespectful that there was no chance in hell anybody would enter a deal with him.

    A couple of attempts at response keep getting kicked into moderation. There was a 2016 story which specifically asked NY real estate people about Trump; 31 of 40 refused to respond.

    Of the others, there was a split of pro- and anti-Trump sentiment.

    But I note that he has always been invited to the right parties and charitable events with other moguls.

  134. 134.

    Kent

    @Chief Oshkosh:@prostratedragon:The money wasn’t laundered FOR Donny, it was laundered BY Donny.

    Exactly.  That’s basically the entire point of many/most of his hotels in places like Panama.  He is providing a money laundering service and taking a cut.

  135. 135.

    catclub

    @Kent: They probably have a BAZILLION deep cover sources in the NYC real estate and finance world who despise Trump and are willing to dish on him. The NYT has been covering that beat for what….150 years?

     

    Still terrible reporting judgment. Since they probably had the same sources in 2016 and could not be bothered to stop reporting on Hillary’s emails.

  139. 139.

    MattF

    @gene108:

    @James E Powell:

    AOC is going to be trashed by right-wing media for her entire life. She is the embodiment of everything they hate.

    It’s not her politics, it’s her appearance. She’s good looking, and conservative men know they have no shot. They’re jealous some soy-boy-latte-sipping-hipster dude’s going to be dating her, and not them.

     

    Someone who can dance.

  141. 141.

    catclub

    from CNN business section:
    Dow rallies more than 450 points on hopes for a stimulus package
     

    I think, that is not happening anytime before january.

  142. 142.

    Van Buren

    @Brachiator: This is the real scandal, and it won’t get a whisper of coverage. The games Trump played to avoid taxes are not unique to him. Neither party, nor the MSM, has any desire to point the spotlight at this.

  143. 143.

    prostratedragon

    @Chief Oshkosh:  Yeah, that’s what I said, or at least meant. He is the launderer, and so is the one who has to make remittances of some kind to the customers; they’re paying dirty cash for cleaned-up-looking cash.

  144. 144.

    Brachiator

    @PJ:

    Many NYC reporters saw through Trump’s schtick and reported him as the bloviating conman that he is

    BTW, I totally agree with you here. But it is still noteworthy that there was never serious investigation by the NY Times or other supposed journalistic heavyweights.

    But lots of coverage of his partying.

    ETA: I was home sick now and again years ago when Trump got into a scrap with The View’s Rosie O’Donnell. She verbally slapped him down, but I remember Barbara Walters noting that Trump was her friend and asking O’Donnell to dial it down. I found it interesting that Trump clearly had friends among the NY Establishment, even among people who were supposedly liberals or moderates.

    But from experience and observation, I’ve learned that money likes to hang out with other money, often without regard to political ideology.

  145. 145.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    I have to say, $70,000 to look like that?!?! Apparently you can con a con man. Wouldn’t surprise me if that hairdresser has a higher net worth than DJT at this point.

  148. 148.

    Kent

    The most absurd thing about Trump is that if he had simply took his father’s $500 million bequest and dumped it into a plain Jane index fund he would be obscenely more wealthy today.  The stock market threw off about 10%/year during that entire time.  He could have pulled out 5% a year which would have been $25 MILLION per year and still would have tripled his money.

  149. 149.

    Bill Arnold

    @PPCLI:

    a) Wikileaks (a Russian intelligence Op.) understood enough to keep things in the news by dribbling them out bit by bit, regularly, so there would always be some new toy for journalists to play with.

    FWIW, Roger Stone had a part in the dribble-leaks-out tactic, fairly sure. The timing looked like his, or an acolyte’s.

  152. 152.

    trollhattan

    @PPCLI:

    b) Wikileaks prefaced the emails with prefaces that gave distorted summaries of what was in them. Lazy journalists naturally relied on and quoted the summaries rather than the utterly innocuous emails themselves.

    NB Newly installed AG Barr pulled this very stunt with his fabricated Meuller Report summary, which Serious People took to mean the Meuller Report had no harmful information pertaining to the president*.

    Entertaining postscript. AG Barr suffered no consequences for his obvious lies.

  154. 154.

    There go two miscreants

    @gene108: White House Press Secretary George Stephanapolus was grilled about this huge scandal the next couple of days.

    Yet apparently he learned the wrong lessons from this!

  156. 156.

    trollhattan

    Heard on BBC last night that Erik Prince is con$ulting with Chinese corporations on security measures for their Belt and Road projects in Africa and the Middle East. These bastards always land on their feet. I suppose that means his sister will become president of Yale or something after this gig dries up.

  159. 159.

    Just One More Canuck

    @CliosFanBoy: My condolences. That reminds me of our beloved Scully – I went out one morning and came home to see her in the garden in the same spot as she was in when I left. I went up to her and found that she couldn’t move her legs.  She nuzzled my hand and purred for me but it was time (she was 17 and still the scourge of chipmunks in our neighbourhood)

    We got Elsa the wondernut a few months later, but I still miss Scully

  160. 160.

    trollhattan

    Meanwhile.

    A group of wildfires in the Napa-Sonoma area collectively called the Glass Fire quadrupled in reported size between Sunday evening and Monday morning, from 2,500 acres to 11,000 acres, according to Cal Fire. It is now threatening more than 8,500 structures, most of them homes, and is uncontained.

    The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office issued another round of urgent evacuation orders just before 7:45 a.m. for three main areas: all of Trione-Annadel State Park; the zone just south of the state park and north of Bennett Valley Road, located southeast of Santa Rosa city limits; and the region bound by Petrified Forest Road and Porter Creek Road, west of the Napa-Sonoma county line.

    Evacuation orders within the city of Santa Rosa included the neighborhoods of Skyhawk, Melita, Oakmont, Pythian and Stonebridge.

    Cal Fire at 6 a.m. Monday said mandatory evacuations had been ordered in the Napa County city of Calistoga for everyone southeast of Lincoln Avenue, which makes up about one-third the city of roughly 5,000 people. The order includes all of the Chateau Calistoga mobile home park.
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article246061010.html#storylink=cpy

  161. 161.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: trump sometimes reminds me of some alien lizard, with the force field that makes him appear human starting to wear down. If tomorrow night his face momentarily goes blurry and a 12″ forked tongue flicks out, I would not be too surprised.

  164. 164.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: More and more Trump speaks in a kind of Right wing internet code. I don’t think it’s comprehensible to regular people. I think he’s likely to be baffling at the debate, like “WTF is he talking about?” – you have to have followed every single Right wing outrage, fake scandal and conspiracy theory since 2012 to know what he’s talking about.

    Not just him, my FB friends who like Trump talk like that too. Part of the time I don’t really know what they’re posting about. It’s like they belong to some kind of “secret society” or something. The problem for them is that no one else understands what the hell they’re talking about.

  165. 165.

    Aleta

    @Van Buren:  My sympathy.  I’ve done that.

    My good, my noble, in their prime,
    Who made this world the feast it was,
    Who learned with me the lore of time,
    Who loved this dwelling-place!

    They took this valley for their toy,
    They played with it in every mood;
    A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,—
    They treated Nature as they would.

    –RW Emerson, from Concord, 1838
    (For his deceased brothers)

  168. 168.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: I DO NOT LIKE this. Republicans’ help in winning the election is fine, but the transition team? They should get nothing.

  170. 170.

    Another Scott

    @CliosFanBoy: I’m very sorry.  :-(  I’m glad you got to say goodbye to her at home, especially in these very trying times.

    Remember the good times.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    Soprano2

    Someone on Twitter wondered if Parscale got a “target” letter, meaning he was the target of an FBI investigation, but it’s more likely he knew about the leak of information to Channel 4 in Britain.

  175. 175.

    prostratedragon

    In a twitter thread about the Cambridge Analytica (CA) leak, someone mentioned this article from 2016 about the Trump campaign marketing apparatus. (Turned out I’d bookmarked the thing back then.) In that article Bannon, Parscale et al. talk explicitly about which voters they wanted to suppress, which tactic was presented as an alternative to mobilizing efforts among White non-college graduates:

    Instead of expanding the electorate, Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. “We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans.

    Examples of suppression operations in the article were such as targetted advertising to those three groups that featured lies or manipulated factoids about Hillary Clinton. At the time there was much ado about CA’s supposed use of genetic algorithms and the like to simulate the effects of their campaigns. The data that Channel 4 got might have been intended for that use since the techniques need big data, and that might account for the “deterrence” tag, to give something easily grabbed by a database query or turned into a parameter. It would be good to know what they were doing but not admitting to in that article by way of voter suppression, since we know that more active measures as from olden days are trying to take hold again.

    CA folded up shop in 2018 and in typical fashion some of its principals scurried off to Emerdata where I think there is zero chance that they have mended their suppressing ways.

  177. 177.

    Kent

    @trollhattan:Heard on BBC last night that Erik Prince is con$ulting with Chinese corporations on security measures for their Belt and Road projects in Africa and the Middle East. These bastards always land on their feet. I suppose that means his sister will become president of Yale or something after this gig dries up.

    I’m trying to imagine what the Chinese actually have to learn about state security.  I guess what Prince brings to the table is the mercenaries.

  179. 179.

    prostratedragon

    @MagdaInBlack:  Yeah, it’s been suggested that he knew nothing that Jared didn’t. And we know what Jared thinks about people’s very lives, so, I mean, just their mere votes …

  180. 180.

    danielx

    Got my first haircut in six months on Saturday, eighteen bucks with tip, and it doesn’t look like I have an orange-dyed dead possum on my head.

    On the other hand, I suppose creating that whole artificial structure every day would be serious work. Plus being in close contact with such a diseased personality….

  181. 181.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:

    Bingo (IMHO). It’s plausible deniability for any…overzealous actions that if committed by PLA soldiers could be awkward. Plus he’s got his Saudi connections.

  183. 183.

    Kent

    @Matt McIrvin:@germy: I DO NOT LIKE this. Republicans’ help in winning the election is fine, but the transition team? They should get nothing.

    Transition team is all about lining up appointees for the thousands of executive branch agency positions that will be opening up.  And then doing what you can to manage a smooth transition of power within each agency.

    I’m not sure what the wife of a former Senator has to offer other than perhaps a rolodex full of Republicans.   I honestly suspect this is just for show and is really just performance art designed to affect/influence other prominent Republicans.   But you are right.  She has no business being on the actual transition team in any meaningful position.

  184. 184.

    trollhattan

    @Soprano2:

    I’m reading speculation the cops are framing a domestic abuse situation as a prevented suicide, because they know him or somesuch. Because Trump people are all lovely people that’s unthinkable.

  185. 185.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Matt McIrvin: Getting an honorary role on the transition team is pretty much bupkis. Whatever Cindy McCain is doing it’s not important.

    Not sure who the other republican on the transition team is.

    @Kent:  She has no business being on the actual transition team in any meaningful position.

    I think the obvious answer here is that she’s not in a meaningful position. The wife of a senator isn’t going to be helpful on the transition team no matter who she is, not in a real capacity.

    What she can do is allay Republican fears and recommend liaisons to Republicans and that’s about it. Maybe she can have a say in “Senior Dumbfuck Republican Outreach Officer” or somesuch.

  186. 186.

    catclub

    @trollhattan: Bingo (IMHO). It’s plausible deniability for any…overzealous actions that if committed by PLA soldiers could be awkward.

     

    I would guess that also the Chinese have some concern for ethnic Chinese in those countries. Round eyed devils can be… useful.

  188. 188.

    catclub

    @Kent: if you have not read Michael Lewis’s  “The Fifth Risk”,  do.

    all about the transition – and how Trump fucked it up — quel surprise.

  189. 189.

    prostratedragon

    @Chief Oshkosh:  I’ve seen too many descriptions of money laundering that make it seem as if it ends with the overpaying for something, as if these people are happy to take their booty in white elephants. Those bucks are supposed to keep on their merry way.

  191. 191.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Kent:

     

    I’m trying to imagine what the Chinese actually have to learn about state security. I guess what Prince brings to the table is the mercenaries.

    What he brings to the table, in addition to non-Chinese warm bodies attached to guns, is an understanding of western strategies and tactics and how to counter or defeat them.

  192. 192.

    Kent

    @catclub: if you have not read Michael Lewis’s  “The Fifth Risk”,  do.

    all about the transition – and how Trump fucked it up — quel surprise.

    I haven’t read that book but I’m pretty aware of how badly Trump fucked it up.  I sometimes wonder how much more fucked we would be if a competent but equally vile Republican like Ted Cruz had won the election.  A lot of the stupid shit that Trump does gets tossed out in the courts or goes nowhere because there is no follow-up

    If Biden wins then the transition is going to be an absolute epic cluster fuck on the order of Saigon in 1975 as the Trumpistas loot and burn their way out of office.

  193. 193.

    JoyceH

    Hey, does anyone know why Trump had that presser yesterday? Was it to get out in front of the tax story or was there some sort of announcement he wanted to make and the tax story was a blindsiding? I’m just curious why Giuliani and Christie were there.

  194. 194.

    Immanentize

    @MisterForkbeard: Agree.  C. McCain is not on the transition team, she has been named to the BOARD of the transition team.  The transition (dog willing) will probably be nominally run by Harris with some killer ObamA veteran in charge.

    PLUS.  Cindy McCain?  Arizona y’all?

  195. 195.

    Matt McIrvin

    If Biden ends up with a cabinet full of Republican daddies I’m going to have to apologize to every Bern-it-down Jill-Stein-loving dead-ender out there, and I don’t wanna do that.

  196. 196.

    Immanentize

    @prostratedragon: overpayment is a classic and specific red flag in money laundering situations. E.g. +- you can legally pay for a car with cash if you have it.  But if you pay over sticker (or even at) price, it would be a money laundering red flag.

  197. 197.

    Kent

    @Immanentize:@MisterForkbeard: Agree.  C. McCain is not on the transition team, she has been named to the BOARD of the transition team.  The transition (dog willing) will probably be nominally run by Harris with some killer ObamA veteran in charge.

    You mean with some killer Obama/BIDEN Administration veteran in charge.  One thing that Biden isn’t going to need outside help with is the transition.  He probably knows as much about staffing up and running the executive branch as any person alive.

  198. 198.

    germy

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Actually no. He has everyone on board. He has quite a number of progressives, moderates and a minuscule amount of Republicans. He’s building an inclusive coalition and team. That is something everyone should want.— Dixieann (@Dixieann18) September 28, 2020

    Also, here is the list of his transition team. It’s mostly progressives, minorities and moderates. https://t.co/SvGSHapz7W— Dixieann (@Dixieann18) September 28, 2020

    Full list of co-chairs and 15 members of the advisory board + additional senior staff/previously announced transition staff. Cynthia Hogan, who was on the VP search committee, is also joining the transition team pic.twitter.com/2TmBO0SUyi— Johnny Verhovek (@JTHVerhovek) September 5, 2020

  200. 200.

    lurkypants

    @Brachiator:

    Trump always got favorable news coverage, always got invited to all the right upscale parties and charitable events.

    No, he didn’t, because he didn’t actually *give* to charity, which was the whole purpose of those events.  He might have pushed his way in, but he wasn’t a contributor. Plus, have you ever seen him at the Met Ball or front row at Fashion Week?  Vanky did a little better, but no one was putting her on the cover of Vogue.  It’s not that NYC society doesn’t go for self-promoters and people of questionable moral compasses — hello, Sackler galleries and the Koch brothers’ support of the NYC Ballet! — but you actually need to put your money where your mouth is to be taken seriously.  He doesn’t.

    The coverage he got?  All tabloids.  The Archie Bunkers in the outer boroughs love the guy, but did you notice how few people in the City actually voted for him?  Sick of his self-promoting ass.

    And by the way, anyone remember this?

    https://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11868552/donald-trump-star-tax-break

    In June 2016, Crain’s New York Business got hold of his property tax bill somehow and discovered he was getting a middle-class property tax abatement for NYC homeowners.  I’d gotten it myself when I lived there and owned an apartment; you get it automatically if you’re a homeowner and your taxable income is below a certain threshold.  He huffed and puffed that this had to be a mistake, the mayor’s office said it had to be a mistake, and it all sort of went away, but I figured it was one more piece of evidence that he was broke.

  202. 202.

    Kent

    @Matt McIrvin:If Biden ends up with a cabinet full of Republican daddies I’m going to have to apologize to every Bern-it-down Jill-Stein-loving dead-ender out there, and I don’t wanna do that.

    Only if you can pull them out of winnable Senate seats.   I mean, I’d put Mitt Romney in charge of say….IDK, the UN if it meant that Dems could take a Senate seat in Utah.  But that isn’t likely and I can’t think of any palatable Republican Senators in winnable states.  So no, we don’t need any GOP Daddies

  204. 204.

    Kent

    @catclub:there is no sticker in real estate.

    Sure there is.  It’s called an appraisal.   And if you pay seriously over or under the appraised value for a property it will raise red flags with the IRS.

  207. 207.

    catclub

    @Kent: who pays the appraiser? I have heard of a similar thing in the bond rating agencies before 2008 (Plus it is the same way now).

  209. 209.

    catclub

    I noticed this headline at Bloomberg:  There’s Less Than 1% Chance of Catching Covid-19 Flying, Says Airline Exec

     

    Now suppose 200,000 people fly.  Every day. Somebody may be less numerically savvy than necessary.

  218. 218.

    James E Powell

    @germy:

    The TV story is definitely worth watching. I do think that I saw a story about this targeting in social media to discourage voting a few years ago. Apparently the Democrats had nothing like it going their way.

  219. 219.

    Brachiator

     

    @lurkypants:

    No, he didn’t, because he didn’t actually *give* to charity, which was the whole purpose of those events.  He might have pushed his way in, but he wasn’t a contributor.

    Fair point. I did a quick search and see that in the old days Trump would turn up at Studio 54 a lot, but supposedly never danced.

    I was never a Trump fan, or thought about him at all. But if I ran across an issue of Vanity Fair, I would notice his name among guests in the front page sections covering parties and events. Guest or someone who barged in, I couldn’t say. But nobody kicked him out. And as I noted, people who were clearly part of the Establishment would claim to be friends.

    And I see stories now about him swooping into the Hamptons and picking up millions in campaign donations.

    So I don’t know how plugged in he is or has been, but he’s got a few friends in that crowd.

    And yeah, he probably used Ivanka to get on some invitation lists.

  220. 220.

    dww44

    @CliosFanBoy:  What a very touching story.  For some reason, your recounting of your cat’s end of life story just brings tears to my eyes. Probably because I can see her going to your front steps for some affection from you, outside cat that she was.  Thanks for being such a good person.

  222. 222.

    Kattails

    @CliosFanBoy: Oh I am so sorry to read that, but that she knew  and trusted you so well as to wait for you, and hoped for that last touch, means absolutely everything. Making me all misty. Caught this late, hope you see my condolences.

  223. 223.

    J R in WV

    @CliosFanBoy:

    That’s pretty sad, but a well told story of her last days. I’m glad she had you to look out for her – she obviously cared for you and wanted to see you one last time. Thanks for sharing her last little bit of time with us. Tears!!

    I’ve sat with several loved critters in their last moments, always a moving experience.

    Take care, keep in touch!!

  224. 224.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Ran across an interesting point; these rallies Trump does is a big part of his revenue.  That would explain the Virus Denial from Trump because with out his rallies he is out of money.

  225. 225.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    A lot of the dumbdonnie story is international. Companies and people doing things that strike most of us as criminal activity and likely are, in more than just the US. He’s “invested” money (debt actually mostly I’d bet) in many parts of the world. His last place of money borrowing has been reported to be one branch of Deutsche Bank in Germany, that the USA devision wouldn’t deal with him. All sorts of rumor and innuendo that Vlad is paying him. It isn’t as simple as he is.

  226. 226.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Geminid: Someone in that Twitterverse just asked for everyone’s political hot takes and, boy, there are a lot of Uighur-genocide denialists out there in rose twitter land.

  228. 228.

    Ruckus

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Seems not all that big of a source of revenue when he’s pulling in some pretty sparse crowds for a president. They’d have to be paying quite a bit per person and there have been rumors that he’s paying some to show up.

    He seems to be rapidly getting down to having only flop sweat left, so much happening that is very not good for him all at once.

  229. 229.

    StringOnAStick

    @CliosFanBoy: You’re a good human, and she knew that.  I’m so glad she trusted you and wanted to be with you in her time of need, and you were able to be there for her.

  230. 230.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ruckus: That’s really not my point; Trump deliberately let all those people die just so he could raise a few hundred dollars on rally merch.  The man is a Carny Side Show Hauker. It’s like Mega Church Pastors who refuse to stop service so they can make the payments on their private planes.

  231. 231.

    J R in WV

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Mueller should have followed the money when it came to investigating connections with foreigners.

    After catching Mueller’s congressional testimony very carefully, I wonder if he should have accepted that assignment at all.

    He sounded like on older guy who is in deep denial that he has lost several steps, and needs to quit trying to do important stuff. Like hang out with the grandkids he doesn’t really know from working 60 hour weeks all his life.

    Such a big opportunity, squandered by Robert Mueller, in my opinion.

    No counter-intelligence investigation? Don’t bother protecting America from foreign enemies? OK, go home, let someone who cares do this job!!

  232. 232.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    …The transition (dog willing) will probably be nominally run by Harris with some killer ObamA veteran in charge.

    PLUS. Cindy McCain? Arizona y’all?

    I’m thinking Arizona is now just about in the bag, now when we get a begging email from politicians out there (We have contributed to quite a few AZ Dems!) half the money is destined for the DNC. Mark Kelly this morning. I hope and expect their delegation is nearly completely Democratic after the votes are counted.

  233. 233.

    dww44

    @J R in WV: I’ve not doubt that Mueller was far too conservative in his handling of this matter.  However, I do believe his ability to go after the Russia connections and the Trump money issues was placed off limits at the outset by Rod Rosenstein and then at the end he was betrayed by his supposed friend, William Barr, who obviously, upon assuming the AG office, proceeded to shut down the investigation post haste.

    As Mueller is almost exactly my age, but not of my politics, I’m waiting to see if he will ever come out and speak publically. Of course, it does no good if he doesn’t do so in the next 30 days.  He probably won’t do anything at all, which saddens me greatly.  Another lesson learned by us lefties that placing faith in the supposed men of integrity in the Republican party is likely a fool’s errand.

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