Devin Nunes is Just Asking Questions

 

Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes says he has hundreds of thousands of smaller MAGA investors in Trump Media, and they are calling him asking why the stock is tanking, so he filed a complaint with the SEC and says Biden is conspiring with Wall Street bankers to screw him. pic.twitter.com/ZxTEmxeN0J

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 20, 2024

Something about Truth Social puts me in one of those "can't place where all the emotion is coming from" moods, somewhat akin to when Trump gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Art Laffer. I guess it's my strong feeling that shitty economics threatens livelihoods and personal savings--it isn't a game. Supply-side economics does not work in practice. It's an upwards transfer of wealth that has led to increased income inequality and which holds back growth because there is no incentivization for long-term investment or worker protections. 

Something about Trump, the man, the myth, the legend, is trapped in a 1980s elephantine "greed is good" vision of worshipping sacred golden calves. He's wealthy, so he is supposed to be a job-creator--look at how he created a job for Devin Nunes, a man so intelligent he sued an internet cow for defamation for linking to true stories like a thin-skinned goober who never heard of the "Streisand effect".  

Trump is like an icon of a different time. "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and all that. That time sucked and the people sucked.  Even Trump's rivals kind of sucked. (Everything was the worst.) 

Anyway, Nunes is looking beyond the Trump Media fundamentals, to blaming the "naked short sellers" for the devaluation of the stock he had to answer for when frankly, the business hadn't done anything yet. (And they will do something--they will be a streaming service for stuff you just won't get anywhere else on the internet, which I promise you is not a thing.)

Ivanka is Very Unsympathetic

 

Ivanka Trump asks to pause NY fraud trial, says testimony during ‘school week’ creates ‘undue hardship’ https://t.co/Zyt3MRa7ru

— CNBC Politics (@CNBCPolitics) November 2, 2023

She lost this bid, but just taking in the whole nonsense of it: this woman has worked outside of the home--why is testifying during a weekday any different? Her husband can take a day off to watch the kids. She can afford a governess. She can park the wee'uns with their step-granny at Mar-a-Lago. Regular working moms all over the country who leave for work every weekday have made some arrangement for their kids with little complaining.  

They have to do what they have to do. 

This reticence on Ivanka's part sure looks an awful lot like trying to be kept out of the conversation for reasons. Things aren't really going great with her brothers' testimonies. He dad is the kind of guy you wouldn't exempt from consideration of throwing his kids under the bus. 

"I'd love to testify but I have kids" is bound to be topped. I'm still trying to work out how "I sign everything without knowing any better because I just work here" Donny and Eric "I pour concrete and sometimes work on financial statements for no particular reason" are going to escape some heat. Ivanka--man. I wish this trial extended to her odd trademarks or that we'd hear about how Jared benefitted from his "foreign policy experience", business-wise. 

But as with her father's plan of constant delay, she already seems to be speaking volumes. Testifying will be bad for her in some way. For her father too, I suspect. 

TWGB: Flipping Bricks

 

Well, here's to having the kind of week in the news where a journey into TrumpWorld actually feels like a bit of a vacation. And before I get things started, let's hear it for this week's TrumpWorld winner, though he doesn't even know it, Jim Jordan, for not becoming Speaker of the House. I used to joke about a tough job as "leading the clowns and following the elephants"--and that's what GOP Speaker would look like right now. Jimmy--enjoy doing less. I hope to enjoy you doing less and less in the future. It suits you. 

Now on to TrumpWorld--obviously, the big story this week is out of Fulton County where Sidney Powell and now Kenneth Chesebro have entered plea agreements with cooperation.  This does a handful of things--shocks TrumpWorld because some folks probably thought Powell was too batshit to get flipped: nah, she's a lawyer and figured out how screwed she was--and with the addition of Chesebro, um, probably Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani should be getting on the phone about getting correct, you think? 

By admitting guilt, they are highlighting that the conspiracy was real and by agreeing to talk about it without Trump and the other co-conspirators getting the benefit of watching those speedy trials get played out for them, they are giving some folks specters of not a penny or a dime dropping, but a whole Coinstar machine falling out. Happy Halloween being haunted with the ghosts of felonies past and sentences future, you guys!

TWGB: Trump's Loss

 

Seems like just yesterday when Donald Trump was coming down that escalator in the iconic Trump Tower to announce his bid for the presidency, and we all heard he paid people to show up. He was already fantastically famous due to his reality tv program which depicted him as a very successful businessman, albeit with an entire fuckton of editing. The reality has always been a lot more complicated.  As in, very legally complicated. Just so, so, so complicated.  Trump was already knee-deep in litigation over Trump University--a fraud. 

Since then, he's had to pay $2 million and shut down his fraudulent Trump Organization charity, his business has been found liable for tax fraud, and now, in a summary judgment, NY AG Leticia James' bank fraud case against him has been substantially bolstered--Trump and his family loses their business, and Trump even parts with that golden escalator. 

TWGB: Here's to the Losers

 

Once upon a time, in a far-off land called TrumpWorld, a would-be king promised there would be "so much winning" that people would get bored of winning.  I still don't know what that means, and I've studied it like it was my job. It sounds like something a conman would say. But lately--there has not been a lot of winning. One term, two impeachments, three marriages, four indictments, five deferments, six bankruptcies  (six point drop after missing the first GOP primary 2024 debate), seven trials, probably going on eight (Arizona? Michigan?) or even nine. 

The losers for August 30th include Pete Navarro, who can't claim executive privilege that Trump didn't claim for him and will go to trial in a whole minute for contempt. He seems to have thought Trump won in 2020, (or alleged to), but the sign held up behind him reminds us Trump most certainly did not. And any rational person would realize that, by the utter lack of Trump in the White House right now. Navarro tried to wrest the sign away from the protester and was advised he was on camera and you know. 

Loser. 

Comeuppance

 

When your day started out like:

New York Attorney General Tish James announces a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and his three adult children for alleged fraud and misrepresentation. https://t.co/CQT6q6yZEY https://t.co/Cb3nAnqKOe

— POLITICO (@politico) September 21, 2022

(And she said it like, "SDNY, Manhattan DA, DOJ, you follow?")

and then the Eleventh Circuit went:

BREAKING: Appeals Court panel *grants* DOJ request for a stay of parts of Judge Cannon’s ruling. pic.twitter.com/dx2aGZGjDU

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 21, 2022

(I mean they cut Judge Cannon up over jurisdiction and the declassification canard and the whole shebang. Turns out, when national security is at stake, the concerns of the USG are more important than the ego of a former president.) 

And now you're sitting on Hannity's show like:

Oh my God!

Trump says that there doesn't have to be any process in declassifying documents. In fact, he can do it just by thinking about it!

Then he wonders if the FBI was looking for Hillary's emails when they raided Mar-a-Lago. pic.twitter.com/vmmVnYI309

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 22, 2022

(2016 was six years ago. The FBI was finished with Hillary Clinton's emails six years ago. There are more important things Trump was hoarding in #Docugate or whatever we are calling this scandal.) 

That's a bad fucking day. Absolutely no notes required.

TWGB: The RNC Banana Stand

 

Once upon a time, I used to work irregular hours so I would catch these judge shows on daytime tv before work, and found that there was a common scenario of women who would trust these boyfriends who would just be down on their luck, and out of a job for a little while, and next thing they know, their dude's phone and car note is in their name and messing up their credit...

I guess what brings this to mind is that the RNC is footing the bill for some of former President Donald Trump's legal costs pertaining to his real estate business. The international, multi-billion dollar supposedly flush Trump Organization. 

Like, okay? Because, this is really quite wild to me:

The RNC is not paying some of the president’s other bills, such as those for his court battles over the House Jan. 6 committee’s requests, said the person familiar with the RNC’s decision. 

“As a leader of our party, defending President Trump and his record of achievement is critical to the GOP,” the party said in a written statement. “It is entirely appropriate for the RNC to continue assisting in fighting back against the Democrats’ never ending witch hunt and attacks on him.”

So get that? The stuff that has directly to do with his campaign (which would be their somewhat tangentially-related motive to pay for; especially since so many others in the party are involved, no?) they aren't interested in, and the stuff to do with his personal business they do?  Is that not backwards? Like, defend his "Stop the Steal" bullshit as just the cost of doing business with a grifter during a political campaign (totally legit political party expense) and let Trump sink his ownself over his admittedly lifelong shoddy business practices(avoiding inspection of whether a party leader was using political funds for a wholly personal business) --wouldn't that make more sense? 

I mean, it seems like Trump's business practices were bad and look bad. You've got your bank fraud on one hand, your tax fraud on the other. Assorted insurance frauds. It's fairly extensive. But Trump has only ever been involved in two elections! That we know about, because maybe he lent his notorious creative financing models to the RNC and they became a great dirty outlet for money laundering including from foreign/illicit sources (which is a fraught allegation I will leave to your dot-connecting abilities and stuff already federally charged about). 

So here's my ridiculous and probably just wildly speculative take on this: is it possible that the RNC is footing Trump's legal bills because he has something over them? Because really, a political party with any grit at all could cut loose a politician who lost his last election (badly!) and made a spectacle of himself in the process. Unless they thought he'd make a spectacle of them in return because they were a hollow, money-directed enterprise with no principles whatsoever. 

Just a thought. I mean, it's not like his first impeachment wasn't entirely about extortion, right?

Right?

UPDATE: It boringly enough could just be a bribe on the RNC's part to keep him from forming another party, but honestly? Do they think he's really capable? (I dunno. I would just like to see it.)

TWGB: No Moneyman Can Win My Love

 

So: Allen Weisselberg and the Trump Org have been indicted with multiple counts in a 15 year tax avoidance scheme where many company officers received "fringe benefits" that were not reported for tax purposes. This is a good start. It probably should involve more years but there's statutes and whatnot. Anyway, bags of cash in the form of rent, tuition, and other nifty expensive shit kept top bosses happy so they didn't have to pay tax on their full compensation and went about their jobs (and I dunno, I'm not a lawyer, let alone a mob lawyer, but when folks in your employ are paid extra--it's because you expect extra--like keeping shtum about things that might otherwise be very interesting.)

Trump and his kids aren't named in the indictment--but I feel like we will get to that at some point in this investigation. I find it hard to believe randos not named "Trump" got special compensation and people actually named "Trump" working for that company did not. Have you seen these large adult children? 

Anyway, the charges here definitely imply lots of IRS tax fraud, and I would like to hope DOJ follows up on that part, because cha-ching. 

Anyway, Weisselberg is pleading "not guilty" because he is very loyal and has been comfortable for a long time and is totally stalling and maybe he thinks Trump still has some pull to help a brother out. I don't know about that, and I definitely suspect someone else is already diming out every bit of what Weisselberg could already offer, except for a few pieces. It might not matter whether Weisselberg "flips"  (All Trump scandals presume Trump is guilty and the only question is whether associated parties talk--you ever notice that?)