He works for his FiL selling trucks in Nigeria; his stake in the company is $1.53.
Records in Nigeria tie him to inactive business & to “Tantra Beverages, a now-defunct company that was set up to sell an ‘erotic drink’ that ‘gives men & women the ultimate stimulating push’”
NYT: “raises questions”
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 3:10 PM
The NYTimes regrets {snerk} to inform us — “Trump’s Middle East Adviser Pick Is a Small-Time Truck Salesman” [gift link]:
President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East adviser, Massad Boulos, has enjoyed a reputation as a billionaire mogul at the helm of a business that bears his family name.
Mr. Boulos has been profiled as a tycoon by the world’s media, telling a reporter in October that his company is worth billions. Mr. Trump called him a “highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the international scene.”
The president-elect even lavished what may be his highest praise: a “dealmaker.”
In fact, records show that Mr. Boulos has spent the past two decades selling trucks and heavy machinery in Nigeria for a company his father-in-law controls. He is chief executive of the company, SCOA Nigeria PLC, which made a profit of less than $66,000 last year, corporate filings show.
There is no indication in corporate documents that Mr. Boulos, a Lebanese-American whose son is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Tiffany, is a man of significant wealth as a result of his businesses. The truck dealership is valued at about $865,000 at its current share price. Mr. Boulos’s stake, according to securities filings, is worth $1.53.
As for Boulos Enterprises, the company that has been called his family business in The Financial Times and elsewhere, a company officer there said it is owned by an unrelated Boulos family.
Mr. Boulos will advise on one of the world’s most complicated and conflict-wracked regions — a region that Mr. Boulos said this week that he has not visited in years. The advisory position does not require Senate approval.
The confusion over Mr. Boulos’s background — and his failure for years to clear up misunderstandings until questioned this week by The Times — raises questions about how thoroughly Mr. Trump’s team vetted his nominees. The team was caught by surprise by allegations of sexual misconduct against Pete Hegseth, the pick for defense secretary.
A spokeswoman for the Trump transition team declined to comment…
So, as far as this story goes, the elder Boulas is Vice-President in Charge of Paperclip Procurement for his father-in-law’s ‘far flung’ truck dealership. Gosh, you’d think Jared’s important Middle East financial owners contacts would’ve given him a heads-up earlier! (Or maybe they did?)
… In Michigan, home to the largest-percentage Arab American population in the country, Mr. Boulos pitched Mr. Trump as the candidate best positioned to bring peace to the Middle East.
“He was a superstar,” said Yahya Basha, a Syrian-American doctor and political donor in Royal Oak, Mich. “People loved him.”
Mr. Trump carried the state, helped by heavily Arab-American precincts in the Detroit area.
Mr. Trump will take office at a time when the Middle East is as unstable as it’s been in decades. Israel remains at war with Hamas and Lebanon is devastated by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Syrian rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad, the longtime dictator.
What role Mr. Trump intends for Mr. Boulos is unclear.
In an interview, Mr. Boulos said that his White House responsibilities would involve “advising on the Middle East and Arab countries,” but declined to elaborate.
“The position is private,” he said. “It’s an adviser position.”
Worth reading the whole multifaceted saga, if you’re in the mood for low-rent swashbuckling. One can practically smell the ketchup dripping down the walls of Mar-A-Lago!
mrmoshpotato
How deserving for a pile of shit conman to get bitchslapped like this.
Horatius
Over/Under on how long it’ll take Dementia Donnie to forget this fact?
dnfree
Wait, is this really Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law?
Steve LaBonne
Jared wants nothing to do with his FIL’s shitshow. He has his own contacts and can enrich himself without help from shitforbrains.
Chetan Murthy
@dnfree: Not that I really care, but …. does this mean that Tiff married a (shudder) poor-ass grifter ? That a Trump got grifted ? Perish the thought!
Steve LaBonne
@Chetan Murthy: On the other hand, Tiffany is the one he wanted aborted.
NotoriousJRT
The confusion over Mr. Boulos’s background — and his failure for years to clear up misunderstandings until questioned this week by The Times — raises questions about how thoroughly Mr. Trump’s team vetted his nominees.
NYTIMES-born yesterday. And again today!
scav
The scriptwriters, ha! Kudos for working in the chef’s kiss detail of Nigeria to this otherwise somewhat bog-standard bit of charlatan selling vaporware daytime drama plot.
mrmoshpotato
@Horatius:
Are we talking seconds or minutes here?
mrmoshpotato
@Steve LaBonne: Fred should’ve been aborted.
mrmoshpotato
@NotoriousJRT: LOL! Well put!
Chetan Murthy
@NotoriousJRT: Once upon a time, there were these people called “journalists” who thought their job was to find out the truth about things like “close advisor to President-elect appears to be a grifter”. Those people seemed to work for organizations called “newspapers”. How quaint that all must have been.
Poe Larity
@Steve LaBonne: You misunderestimate the opportunity in the ME now for Jared to shake down a few more billions.
Donnie will go back to KSA and dance again.
Jackie
O/T: Does anyone besides me think TCFG inviting world leaders to his inauguration is a power play world leaders refuse to play? By accepting/attending would be bowing the knee that they (hopefully) will refuse to do – embarrassing TCFG.
ETA I’ve been offline dealing with converting old to new phone, so if this has already been discussed ad nausea, forgive me.
prostratedragon
@scav: And he’s only tenuously Nigerian at that.
Being someone whose surname, but not family, is associated with lucrative business (“We’re not those —s.”), I appreciated this:
prostratedragon
@Jackie:
“converting old to new phone”
You have my condolences. Just know that your travails should not need repeating for some time.
Chetan Murthy
@prostratedragon: Hot damn, this is delicious!
NaijaGal
Damn – I grew up in Nigeria believing that the SCOA Motors/Boulos Enterprises owners were billionaires. They’ve been in what’s now Nigeria since 1926. Not sure how Tiffany’s father-in-law is related to the founders.
bbleh
@Horatius: @mrmoshpotato: he may know it or not, and he almost certainly won’t remember it unless reminded, but it’s kind of irrelevant. What matters to him — what’s REAL to him, in large part because it’s REAL to the people responsible for his election (and for a buying into a lot of his grifts) — is whether it’s on TV. If some network (or maybe major paper) bangs on this story — Trump “Adviser” Turns Out To Be Con Man, or even something milder — it will be real for him, and he’ll be angry. Otherwise … ain’t no there there.
NotMax
@Poe Larity
And to once again fondle the orb.
toine
@NotMax:
Well, orb-fondling is pretty sweet…
mrmoshpotato
@bbleh: You forgot to mention it being REAL to the orange shitstain’s syphilitic brain mush as well.
toine
I still don’t get how he got more than 2 votes, his own and Mike Pence’s, in the election… Seriously, even if you are a die hard R or someone who barely pays attention to politics, there is a record and a lived experience of him being president before, right?
NotMax
@toine
The Mayflyification of collective memory for swaths of populace continues unabated.
toine
@NotMax:
You can count on Americans doing the right thing after they have tried everything else? :-)
NotMax
@toine
“Only to 10, Mudhead.”
– Porgy Tirebiter
//
N.B.: I do recognize your Churchill reference.
Jay
On the bright side, as far as we know, he’s not in bed with the ruZZians.
bbleh
@toine: And you can’t say we don’t TRY, no SIR!
NotMax
@Jay
Eschewing redundancy? Gabbard has that base covered.
smike
Test.
Ignore this entry, please.
Jay
@smike:
Consider it ignored.
JoyceH
Wait. You saying that Trump the Savvy Business Mogul didn’t bother to vet the family his daughter was marrying into?! Man, I hope this story goes big. Trump has done a lot of worse things, but this one makes him look ridiculous.
Quaker in a Basement
When the quoted article said the man’s stake was worth $1.53, I thought that it must mean one-point-three billion. Or at least million. But no!
The man’s stake in the business where he works amounts to a buck fitty three!
Jay
@JoyceH:
Guy claimed to be a Billionaire, was reported in what passes for journalism in the US as a Billionaire, and a quick search leads to a Corp worth a couple billion dollars, that just happens to be owned by a completely different family with the same last name.
What is this vetting thou speakest of?
Martin
George Santos showed how easy it was, right in the NYTs front yard.
NotMax
Totally boring OT (anything rather than keep talking about you-know-who).
Black Friday report. Six relative bargains ordered through Amazon that day, which they split up into three separate packages.
Item 1 originally scheduled to arrive December 11. Did arrive December 11.
Items 2, 3, 4 and 5 originally scheduled to arrive together December 11 now marked “delayed in transit” (though tracking shows that package on the island since the wee pre-dawn hours of 12/11), now rescheduled for December 14.
Item 6 still remains scheduled for arrival December 18.
sab
@NotMax: OT: My stepson is having a proper Friday the 13th. A valve in his upstairs (only) bathroom broke, flooding the bathroom and the basement below it. He called Dad who isn’t a plumber at 3 am. More sensible girlfriend looked for actual plumbers. They found a 24 hour plumber. I only just realized that plumbing is like obstetristics: a lot of your calls are night calls.
ETA That OT at the top was added later.
sab
@JoyceH: Rumor has it that he does not care about Tiffany at all because she is not model thin. Just another pretty girl.
NotMax
@sab
Oh my. Good on the girlfriend.
sab
@NotMax: We love that girlfriend. She is amazing. She has been on her own in the world since her mom died when she was sixteen. She is miraculous at coping with things.
Baud
@sab:
Good thinking by Dad’s girlfriend.
sab
@Baud: //. Hopefully Dad doesn’t have a girlfriend since I am his wife. Stepson’s girlfriend is amazing.
Aren’t you the pedant tonight? I will analyse where I went wrong there communicating.
HeleninEire
Good morning, morning crew. I am in Dublin! Unfortunately for a funeral (the mother of one of my best friends) but it’s nice to be back.
sab
OT: I am going to be obnoxious about repeating this, but don’t let your cats run loose.
We have ADT so we have cameras around. I check it every day for critter activity. We have three regular cats who come through. The guy with white socks comes through daily. Trots in from the side then trots around the house then heads west into the next yard.
Last night he did his usual in back, then headed down the driveway He speeded up at the bottom, and was missed by a car a cat-length before he got across the street. Not a typo. Not a car length. A cat length. Maybe a foot.
That experienced outdoor cat almost got killed by a car because he did a stupid thing. One time in his regular life.
Baud
@sab:
You were fine. Don’t let my silliness trouble you.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
My condolences.
p.a.
I won an “ember” rechargeable heated mug at an event several years ago. It’s black. Nice, use it daily. I also have a black mug I use to heat water in the microwave. You can see where this is going, right? This am, put water in the ember, put ember in the microwave. 15 seconds later… what’s that smell? Oh feeeeerrrrrkkkkk. Like when those high tech lightbulbs burn out x 50. Kitchen fan running, window open 27°F.
Then noticed an apparent small split in a heating element in my toaster oven.🤬
HeleninEire
@Baud: Thank you.
Jay
@HeleninEire:
I am glad that you are back in Dublin,
Sorry for the reason.
My condolences for both you and your friend.
HeleninEire
@Jay: Thank you. It’s nice to be in such a familiar place. I so love this city.
Jay
@HeleninEire:
The only people who don’t love Dublin, are Glaswegans.
Geminid
I’m just glad the culmination of Syria’s Civil War happened before Trump and his Team of Clowns took over U.S. foreign policy. Biden’s team has been behind the curve throughout, but that’s not such a bad thing; our influence Syria was limited anyway and at least we didn’t get in the way.
Same with Lebanon. It looks like the ceasefire there that took effect November is going to hold. We did exercise a lot of influence in that outcome and we still do. This ceasefire required a sustaned and concentrated effort, and not just on the part of the State Department. The CENTCOM Commander, Eric Kurilla, was in South Lebanon Wednesday looking over the shoulders of the implementation and monitoring staff as the first unit of Israeli forces withdrew and the Lebanese Army took over. Then Kurilla left the matter in the hands of another American general who’s in charge. Hopefully they’ll “git ‘er done” before Trump’s people get a chance to “screw ‘er up.”
I mean, the idea of this Boulos guy kibbitzing at that headquarters is simply ludicrous. He’s a lightweight with no qualifications other than being a member of the Lebanese diaspora. There are be plenty of intelligent, accomplished people in that group– looking at you Honus!– but Boulos sure isn’t one.
Future Secretary of State Rubio has the elements of a competent Secretary of State but I doubt if he’ll exercise much power. You can bet that International Relations professors won’t be talking about the “Rubio Doctrine ten years from now. Eventually, Trump and the rest of his posse will screw something up and Lil’ Marco will get the blame. Then Rubio’s Foggy Bottom stepping stone will turn into a trap door, and Secretary Stefanik will take his place. I doubt if professors be talking the “Stefanik Doctrine” either.
Trump’s can still do a lot damage overseas. Ukraine obviously is in the greatest danger. They need the US’s active support and they won’t get that from Trump. Taiwan will be at risk in a Trump administration as well.
But seems to me the rest of the world might not get hurt much by Trump’s Isolationism. The Middle East might even benefit. The US has been very active there over the past 25 years, and it’s like the only good work we’ve done is patching up damage we did.
I actually think the nations in that region, and the people in them, are in the best position now they’ve been in this century, but most of that is their own doing, not ours. They know it too, and they also know Donald Trump and how deal with him. They also know better how to deal with each other now.
Here I’m talking about Egypt and Turkiye, the two most populous nations in the Middle East; the Gulf states of Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the four wealthiest; Jordan and Iraq; and Syria, which I expect to be on good terms with all these nations very soon.
I’m excepting Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. That’s 9 1/2 million Israelis and 4 1/2 million Palestinians. Those people aren’t in best position they’ve been this century, not by a long shot. They may see a durable ceasefire in Gaza that would at least stop the bleeding by the time Trump takes office. But that alone won’t improve the Palestinians’ political situation and as for the Israelis, they have deep political and social divisions. It will be a struggle to resolve them in years if they can be resolved at all.
I’m also excluding Iran, which I think is a special case of its own. For one thing, I think Iran won’t be too involved in the politics of the region for a while. They were very involved until recently, but they’ve worn out their welcome among the Sunni states. Iraq is majority Shiite but it aligns more with Turkiye and the Sunni Arab states than with Iran.
For another, Iran’s Islamic Republic does have not have broad support among its people; not just the government but the Islamic Republic itself. And now the Axis of Resistance that the mullahs have been bragging about for decades just blew up in their faces, and in sensational fashion. The compelling scenes of Syria’s revolution have impacted people around the world, and it seems like they would have an especially big impact on Iranians. I think there is a real possibility we may be watching a revolution in Iran before too long.
Baud
@Geminid:
Isolationism is a best case scenario for the next four years.
lowtechcyclist
@NotoriousJRT:
Indeed! Sure looks like they just took him at his word about everything, until just now.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
It still only “raises questions.” It hasn’t even reached”clouds and shadows” level yet.
JoyceH
I hope there’s more follow-on reporting to this story. Like, was Tiffany deceived into thinking she was marrying into a billionaire family? She knows first hand what the billionaire lifestyle looks like, and managing a company worth less than a million doesn’t fund much in the way of yachts and private planes.
Elizabelle
@HeleninEire: Great to hear from you. Condolences on the reason for your visit, but am sure your friend is comforted to have you there.
Elizabelle
Again, I cannot believe how someone who would not benefit from the exposure willingly steps into the spotlight. Envoy to the Middle East! Maybe he will end up Ambassador to some African country (that needs trucks) now.
Makes you wonder how many Anna Delvey (fake heiress) types are out there.
Meanwhile, top NY Vichy Times story today is RFK Jr.’s lawyer wants to revoke approval for the polio (!) vaccine.
And a roundup of six childhood diseases. Hello, 20th century. The Trump administration. Everything old is new again.
Gift link (for any anti-vaxxer pals):
Six Childhood Scourges We’ve Forgotten About, Thanks to Vaccines
Most Americans, including doctors, have no memory of the devastating diseases that routinely threatened children until the 1960s.
Geminid
@Geminid: Speaking of Syria, from Ragip Soylu:
Jay
@Elizabelle:
RFK’s Brain Worm think’s it’s wrong that the Guinea Worm has been eradicated. Will nobody think about biodiversity???????
Quinerly
@JoyceH:
I read somewhere that Lindsay Lohan introduced them. Met somewhere partying in Europe during Trump’s administration. Greece maybe???
Boulos is several years younger that Tiffany.
MagdaInBlack
@Quinerly: They met at Lindsay’s club in Mykonos. Yes, I’ve been googling =-)
K-Mo
Anyone else picking up a Dodi Al Fayed vibe?
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
“P-E-P-E-P, more Pep Pills!”
Quinerly
NYT reporting atty for RFKJr has called for FDA to revoke approval of polio and 13 other vaccines.
He’s helping Kennedy pick federal health officials for the administration.
Entire article is worth a read.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/health/aaron-siri-rfk-jr-vaccines.html
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jackie: You have my sympathy about the phone conversion. My main computer crashed yesterday. Mr DAW is working on it, but I’m temporarily on a laptop and my phone. They’re ok devices. I just don’t have any of my information on them.
Elizabelle
@Quinerly: It is horrifying.
But: Vichy Times: you helped bring this on. A recession was always just around the corner. Honest! And you were allergic to running photos of Biden — assume he is doing nothing, nothing! — unless it was to whinge about his advanced age.
Quinerly
@MagdaInBlack:
Heart emoji!
I carry around so much useless info in my brain. I need to update my “retrieval” system. I just remembered reading something when they met and noticing how young and skinny he looked. I think Tiffany is pregnant or maybe she’s had the baby?
I remember her mother’s guest appearance on “Designing Women.” Loved that show. The Fabulous ’80’s.
Related: “the bigger the hair, the closer to God.”
Quinerly
@K-Mo:
Very much so. First thing I thought when I read the first article about them 5-6 years back.
MagdaInBlack
@Quinerly: My husband and I both loved “Designing Women.”
Tiffany is pregnant. My non-guilty pleasure is celebrity gossip.
Quinerly
@Elizabelle:
Didn’t see that you had already posted this until now.
Polio is still floating around. This guy also wants to get rid of rubella and diptheria vaccines too. Hep B for food handlers.
I have a new doctor (finally). Meeting her for my first visit early January. I have a list of questions regarding updating all vaxes from childhood. Plus, I never had any of those 1960’s childhood diseases…mumps, chickenpox, etc. I’m definitely due for a tetnus shot. (My dad almost died from lockjaw in the 1950’s)
Miss my healthcare providers in St. Louis. Same doctors and dentist 30 plus years there. Fucked up system in Santa Fe. Don’t get me started.
Elizabelle
@Quinerly: My mother’s 13 year old brother died of lockjaw after falling out of a tree. It was horrifying, and traumatized my grandmother for years.
Will put up the link and some excerpts once a morning thread is up. Some of the childhood six can still kill, even with treatment.
Quinerly
@MagdaInBlack:
I was very shocked to learn a few years back that Dixie Carter was a Republican. Hal Holbrook was not. I adored them together.
Loved Jean Smart on “24.” Glad to see her popping up on shows again.
Another Scott
If not friend, why friend shaped?
Have a good Friday the 13th everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ramalama
@HeleninEire: That’s rough, sorry.
One of my favorite authors is from (No) Ireland. Over the years I’d been reading his blog featuring many writers from the south and all over Ireland to learn that there’s an incredible wave of crime … fiction happening there. Which I didn’t think was my thing but I changed my mind. Some of the writing is incredible. Pick up some books if you can.
Geminid
This morning’s Politico Playbook tells me Ben Wikler will appear on MSNBC’s The Weekend this Sunday. Reps. Catherine Clark and Barbara Lee will be on the same network’s The Sunday Show.
And here’s some Appointment TV!
NBC’s Meet the Press will feature both Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday. Peggy Noonan will be on the panel. I’m thinking of mimosas and ham biscuits for brunch.
Quantum man
@mrmoshpotato: Pico-seconds.
Ramalama
@Another Scott: LOVE this.
Kind of reminds me of
“Banned words in Mrs. (X’s) classrooms:
Skibidi toilet
Rizz
Sigma
Donut
Mewing
Alpha
Skibidi Ohio Rizzler
LeBron James Sunshine..”
They are not allowed to say any of the above or else suffer some kind of consequence…
I couldn’t stop laughing just typing out some of the banned words. The list offered up by a teacher of one of my niblings. I asked my sister if the kids were still claiming to be ‘legally blind,’ which came from another banned list put up by some manager at a fast food joint several years ago.
She said, “Any day now.”
Elizabelle
@Ramalama: OK, you can’t just say that without divulging the author’s name!
Crime fiction must be way interesting from elsewhere. They have to be more inventive and focused, since not as many guns.
Ramalama
@JoyceH: If she married the wrong Boulos, how does she / they afford their presumably luxurious lives? I mean, the wallet wants what the wallet wants.
Ramalama
@Elizabelle: I meant to and forgot!
Adrian McKinty! I love his non-USA books, all of them.
Plenty of guns since much of his work – not all – is set during the time of the Troubles.
Rose Judson
@Ramalama: I had been resisting looking up “Skibidi Toilet” for the better part of six months until this comment.
I do not feel enlightened after reading about it. Endarkened, rather.
Anne Laurie
From everything I’ve seen, Tiffany’s mom (very wisely!) kept her as far away from her biodad’s orbit as she could. I don’t think Tiffany knows much more about ‘what the billionaire lifestyle looks like’ than any dedicated Kardashian follower. What she does know (is familiar with) is what hanging at the edge of a gang of dedicated attention-seeking hustlers looks like, and quite possibly that’s what she recognized in her now-husband. (Just as it seems like her older sister Ivanka bonded with Jared over their shared background as the neglected ‘dutiful’ children of vicious, criminally-inclined grifters… )
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Well, they can’t call him a liar, that’s reserved for Biden.
HeleninEire
@Ramalama: I love his Sean Duffy novels. My mother was born and raised in Belfast so I can relate!
Quinerly
@Geminid:
Two of the things (other than my parents and our old oceanfront beach place) I miss about NC are real country hams and Eastern NC barbecue. My good friend I met out here years ago traveling (Mississippi chick who lives in Moriarty, NM) has a son who just retired from Raleigh Police Department. Kay is significantly older than I am, and I think he will be making more treks out to see his mother. I’m ordering up an entire country ham. If I could get him to go to Ayden, NC, I want Bum’s Barbecue. Ayden was my mother’s hometown, and where my parents are buried (where I will be buried). This time of year I was always driving from St. Louis to NC for Christmas with them. And I always brought back barbecue and country ham from Ayden.
Ayden is also the home of the world famous “Collard Festival.” 2 days to paying tribute to that beautiful and tasty leafy green. Big parade with collard themed floats. One of my biggest regrets was not competing for Collard Queen. Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda. Would have loved to have been able to put that on my resume. Winking, Devil emoji.
Quinerly
@Elizabelle:
How horrible.
Elizabelle
Anne Laurie put up the morning thread.
Anne Laurie
I’m guessing the same way petty hustlers have always managed ‘luxurious’ lives, at least in the short term: Charming invitations / housing / gifts / ‘loans’ out of people with more money than sense; borrowing from financial institutions who don’t yet realize how fictional their projected-income spreadsheets are; getting under-the-table payments from rubes looking to meet the Great & Terrible Ozymandias… or from Trump campaign staffers willing to pay them to stay away from their donors!
geg6
Fucking hilarious. He gets his daughter to marry the son of a conman with not one bit of vetting. He thought he was conning Boulos and Tiffany, who he obviously cares nothing about, and all the while, he’s being conned. The media will not blame him or even give a shit because they suck but I’m glad to hear about it because it is fucking hilarious. I need a laugh.
Geminid
I hope your friend’s son brings you that ham. Ham buiscuits are great. They beat the hell out of avocado toast, that’s for sure.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
For sure!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ramalama: I really like his Sean Duffy series.
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid: Watching those three calls for Everclear, not mimosas.
Anyway
@Geminid: geez, why the knee-jerk gratuitous slam?
signed, biscuit-h8r who has avocado toast for dinner multiple times a month
Suzanne
@JoyceH:
I’m not sure this is true. She apparently was brought up largely by her mother in California and Ivanka had to talk TFG into giving Tiffany an allowance. I don’t think she grew up with quite the degree of privilege and entitlement as the rest of them. (Of course, that is relative.)
Suzanne
@HeleninEire: Many condolences to your friend and to you!
Kayla Rudbek
@Jay: it’s a great city but a nerve wracking place to try to ride a bike
Ramalama
@HeleninEire: The Bloomsday Dead series is terrific, too. But yes. Sean Duffy for the win.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: seconded
@HeleninEire:
Ramalama
@Elizabelle: Before he became famous (God love him, he barely scraped by), Adrian had a very active blog. Commenters befriended one another, and we all discussed books. Adrian kept a very interesting list of stuff to read. After some time he just closed up the comments, and the blog is now just ‘there.’ But follow him on social (I have to see if he’s left Xitter) and you’ll see his book recs.
glory b
@Steve LaBonne: Does he though? Remember, Jared almost crashed the family business over the 666 5th Avenue debacle. They were about to lose everything until Trump embargoed Qatar, starving them into agreeing to take on the Kushner debt, even though they had turned him down earlier.
I’m convinced that MBS buddied up to him for intelligence. He was the only one who went to daily intelligence briefings. He’s not bright, his high school recommended that Harvard NOT admit him, he didn’t have the qualifications. His family wrote them a big check.
I don’t think they have any use for him now, but he has $1 billion to soothe his hurt feelings.
glory b
@Anne Laurie: Yes, you’d be surprised. My guilty pleasure is watching “American Greed (CNBC).”
I’m always AMAZED by what people can get away with that way.
People who fake being heirs to massive fortunes, having successful inventions, etc., never cease to amaze me. I can’t believe so many people are sooooo gullible.
They take their word for things & Never check.
Ella in New Mexico
Dang, even down to the kid he ignored the most, every single Trump spawn inherited the “I am a heat seeking missle for greed, deciet, cheating and grift” gene
Seriouly, of all the people in the world she crossed paths with she met this guy’s son and decided he was The One
Soderbee
@Quinerly:
I’m a NC native living in Oregon. We had a friend from back home mail us a care package with multiple brands of country ham slices to sample. I’ve kept them in the garage fridge and pull one out each month or so. Don’t have to ration them because we could get him to send more but……
Collards – I miss those too. We do eggs Benedict with collards and country ham (no muffin) for special occasions.
Fried okra and Mt. Olive sweet cube pickles. I wanted to order a case of the pickles but shipping would break the bank.
But the state seems to have been co-opted by Mega. So sad.
JoyceH
Something that puzzles me. There IS a Boulos Enterprises owned and run by a different family of the same name. This fellow has swanked around for years letting people believe that was his company. Why didn’t the other family set the record straight long ago?
Quaker in a Basement
@Jay: And Corkonians. Up the Rebel City!
dnfree
@Elizabelle: My father’s cousin died of lockjaw in 1925, when they were both five years old. Two kids sliding down a wooden wagon bed at a family party. The wagon had been used to carry manure. The cousin got a splinter and my dad didn’t. Lifelong memory for my dad also.
Geminid
@Anyway: How do you know that was really a slam, and that I wasn’t just having fun? I do that sometimes.