TWGB: Wheels Within Wheels

 

I joke from time to time that we aren't ever leaving the 2016 election, and it's not actually that funny--we're in 2024, but the Trump hush money trial feels like old home week, what with characters from earlier in the Trump Saga popping back up. This week, we will hear from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who plead guilty to a campaign finance violation regarding Stormy Daniels, Last week, in a story that was overshadowed by the trial, former 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort decided to step back from his involvement with the 2024 Republican National Convention--for which he was going to work for free, as he did for Trump's campaign. 

"Free" for a value of "access to our political infrastructure" which actually does have value. 

We are never leaving 2016. The Russian disinfo op that tried to blame Ukraine for the DNC hack that profoundly affected the 2016 election (in Trump's favor?) still has echoes in the Trump impeachment and the current-day GOP House still trying to impeach Joe Biden. The story of what happened to Stormy Daniels, now a little bit better understood as coerced sex--a situation not much different from the "casting couch" or the cartoonish image of a boss chasing a secretary (just imagine it in the White House) reminds us of all the stories we just barely heard in 2016 in the wake of the Access Hollywood video, which were drowned out by Wikileaks.

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.)

TWGB: Raining Bad Pennies

 

This post is brought to by Bell's Theorem, karma and the tendency of criminals to return to the scene of the crime. If this opening sentence doesn't make sense, wait for it. I've been waiting for the NY civil trial decision and the immunity thing like all of you guys. The waiting is either the hardest part as Petty proclaimed, or the special sauce as hedonists everywhere have discovered to their throbbing surprise and delight. 

Discovering that Trump's data protection suit against Christopher Steele was rejected was a fun thing to trip over on a Thursday morning. There's no good reason to have brought that case, and no good reason to file it when it got filed except--as a warning that Trump will try to sue you eventually if you say mean things about him ever? I don't know UK law, but this was rejected for statute of limitations, which really feels to me like he didn't want the suit, just the message the making the suit sends. And his campaign paid for the pleasure of a lolsuit. (Level Law--the firm--it's in his FEC reports. Donors are paying for the pleasure of Trump satisfying his grudges.)

Trump's predicament is dumb. What if there were a suit that had to deal with the data in the dossier, which would be rehashing shit that could have come up in 2016--NOW?! Me? I think there were a LOT OF THINGS we could have discussed about Trump in 2016 that we didn't. And now it's 2024, there's SO MUCH MORE. 

TWGB: It Really Ties the Room Together

 

Breaking News: Thomas Barrack, a friend of Donald Trump and one of his top 2016 campaign fund-raisers, was indicted on federal charges of violating a law requiring lobbyists for foreign interests to disclose their work.https://t.co/G8FNAZWqGs

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 20, 2021

I couldn't help but chuckle to myself when I read about Barrack's arrest for working on behalf of UAE to influence Trump, because, goddamn it, didn't everyone? Well, maybe not UEA (although, I mean, Elliott Broidy) but you know. Barrack influenced Trump's campaign speech in a way favorable to UAE the same way Manafort influenced Ukraine policy during the 2016 campaign. He wrote an op-ed just like Mike Flynn did his oped for Turkey. (You know when Giuliani wasn't palling around with Russian-affiliated Ukrainians he was also doing his bit for Turkey, right? It's hard to keep things like this straight, but I do try.) And everyone knows Trump for whatever reason was always trying to have good relations with Russia. So what was the stated Trump foreign policy? 

Right: America First.  It's a punchline like "The Aristocrats" is a punchline, and the joke is pretty scandalous if not outright foul.

I was a little surprised that it didn't have anything to do with the Presidential Inaugural Committee stuff (I guess that was top of mind for me, thinking about how Allen Weisselberg was looped into that mess and yet they weren't going after him for that right now, either), but then I started thinking about Thomas Barrack the way one does.  Because he ties the room together. The little story that kind of never got to be the scandal it should be about what for all the world looked like the US was supporting SA and UAE blockading Qatar--and how Jared Kushner ended up getting his big old steaming 666 Fifth Ave debt taken care of (well, if the Chinese won't help...what can one do?) Barrack was right there.

Oh yeah, and then there was that madcap scheme he had with Flynn to sell nuclear tech in the Middle East because you know what? Why not? (You might wonder why Flynn, a paranoid Islamophobe, would think this idea was great, and the answer I have for you is, uh, well money, right? Because whenever I see that bantam rooster crowing about his patriotism, I feel like like I just ate a whole tinfoil sandwich.)

There's probably more there, but it's late at night and I'm just thinking about how that 74 year old wealthy dude is going to sit in jail thinking about stuff until next Monday. 

And I can't help but chuckle.