Would I Call it Weaponization?

 

Somewhere, deep down, I feel like nothing is ever over with Republicans. Forget Benghazi or tan suits. They are going to get weird and bring up Chappaquiddick or Alger Hiss or Robert Byrd's Klan connections out of the blue.  So what do I think when Jim Jordan thinks maybe he'll target Hillary Clinton with a new investigation?

If Hunter Biden wasn't already done to death, why would the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy turning their lonely eyes to Hillary Clinton again hit any different?  I mean, Kevin McCarthy, the current and obviously temporary Speaker of the House explained out loud where people could hear that the email investigation hurt Clinton intentionally. And current crank James Comer admitted in the same vein that the investigation into President Biden's family members is supposed to help Trump. 

He still hasn't found what he's looking for, of course. The GOP can't keep track of their whistleblowers. To the extent they exist they are being paid by Trump insider Kash Patel who is a witness in the Mar-A-Lago document scandal and the first impeachment over the Ukraine president's being extorted. So that's not obviously sleazy as hell, right? 

But in the funny old round world kind of way, it comes out just now that the Trump DOJ was already investigating the Clintons via the Clinton Foundation, and they had nothing. See, unlike Trump's slush fund that he called a charitable enterprise which had to be shut down, and his kids had to go to mandatory don't run a charity as a slush fund school? The Clinton Foundation has been on the up and up. 

So--see how that seems like weaponization? And the thing where Trump get tried in courts and actually has done stuff is not weaponization? And how Durham had nothing, and most Republicans seem to be kind of distracting from 1/6 or the documents scandal by deflecting and whatabouting to other stuff? 

It's like they want to pretend "both sides" are equally as bad and they really aren't. And I would through very gritted teeth like to suggest the media report it that way, because sometimes, there are not two sides to everything (sorry current CNN management!) but one side is actually very bad, even seditious. And even undermines the very concept of rule of law via extreme partisanship. 

And what I mean by that isn't hard at all to see or hear if you're paying attention. 

Some Very Legitimate Business!

 

You know, it's not for me to question the ethics of a congressman who announces he's leaving the US House right about....now-ish, because he already has a really plum job lined up. It might look like he cast around for a job because his new district didn't look as friendly. Sure, some people might say that the only reason Trump wants Devin Nunes on board is their political relationship (and Nunes' abiding loyalty to Trump) but I don't know. He does have recent media experience, if you want to count trying to sue Twitter and a parody cow account. 

Hm. I don't know if that goes against the branding of Trump Media & Technology Group as being all about the freedom of speech, but that might be the least of the problems with anything bearing a Trump brand. 

My original take on Trump's media group is that it's got some big scam energy. Looks like that's not just me--the SEC is very interested in how this plan came together. There's good reason for it besides Trump being involved at all, but I've got to say, when you've got a twice-impeached former president who is going around still making Big Lie noises about the last presidential election, and that guy just happens to be someone who can't operate a charity anymore, ran a fraudulent "university" for six years, and has always been kind of money-laundering adjacent in his business practices--I mean, really? This guy whose Trump Organization is under indictment? Whose taxes may have been fiddled for years? 

I just have a hard time believing that really honest people would be putting their money where Trump's mouth is. It seems like the offering always was about employing the One Weird Trick of knowing when to dump out of it. But then again, some people do put their trust in Trump, I mean like Deutsche Bank--they were always willing to give the sucker a better than even break. Maybe Patrick Orlando just likes the cut of Mr. Trump's jib.

Ah, well, people do stupid things with their money I guess. The poor trusting souls, they are. 

A NY State of Mind

In a power move or so today, the state of New York did two key things that I am really excited by--the state senate approved a bill to vacate double jeopardy where a person was convicted of federal crimes only to be pardoned by the president, and also resolved to release NY state tax information to the US congress upon request. This comes a couple of days after AG Letitia James filed a lawsuit against the IRS and the Department of Treasury for not complying with legally mandated records requests. 

This all serves as a great reminder that even if GOP Senators, House Members, and Cabinet members want to toady up to the White House, states can still signify, and of the many investigations currently ongoing into President Trump and all his dealings, there are currently NY state cases regarding his taxes and how he used his "charitable" foundation as a slush fund. He doesn't have any leverage regarding the state, whatever he may have over the US DOJ.

I love New York for other reasons--it's a beautiful state! But today reminded me of the importance of state governments and why federalism remains an important part of our republic. 

TWGB: Persistent Illegality

There's something indelibly shady about Donald Trump that casts a kind of fug around the people in his orbit and all the things he does. Maybe not for his base, the brain-wormed bastions of MAGA minions who believe Trump's turds can be polished into gold, but for the people who have become increasingly dubious not about Trump's good intent, but whether he's ever capable of it. Take his charity--oh, wait. NY has already taken it. The Trump Foundation has been ordered to shut down and sell off its assets (such as portraits of Trump, purchased with Foundation money and presumably on display at properties he holds) due to "persistent illegality". 

Trump is not a generous man; he is tighter than a flea's withers and about as small about his purse. He once basked in applause for crashing a charity event for which he gave exactly nothing whatsoever. For kids with AIDS.  Washington Post's David Farenthold during the 2016 campaign did a bang up job of trying to track down whether there was even a whiff of the philanthropic about Trump, and found that Trump's foundation was made up of other people's money as of late, distributed to satisfy Trump's own needs. Sometimes the donations out of the fund looked like a reward for doing business with the Trump Organization. And looking at the 990's, I wondered myself if the foundation was being used as a Trump Campaign Kickstarter. He used Trump Foundation funds to donate to the campaign of Florida's AG Pam Bondi, who had settled the Trump University complaint for him. Trump can brag that he never charged his foundation for rents or whatever using his properties, but this is because his "board" (which included his children as fiduciary members) didn't apparently have any meetings. (But is that really so--see the Trump's structuring of their deal for a golf outing for St. Jude. Sad thing is, Eric Trump might have wanted to do better, but that old Donald Trump shadow just fugged him up.)

But this post isn't really about the persistent illegality of the now-defunct Trump Foundation (anyone in the market for a Trump portrait, though?) but rather, what the TrumpWorld aura seems to do to people--take Flynn's sentencing delay. The same day that we heard about the Trump Foundation being kaput, Mike Flynn (having been wished "Good Luck" by the former boss) thought he was going to have a great time at his sentencing because Mueller said he shouldn't have any jail time, and his defense agreed, except for the whining about it. Because the FBI was being meanies asking him questions like he was supposed to be responsible like the head of some kind of intelligence agency and whatnot, you guys. And they wanted him to be truthful which was supposedly amazeballs and tew much. Gah, adulting, amirite?

Now, I outsource my legal opinions these days because I was a literature major which means I should doubt my capacity for close readings, but I have complaints with the reading where Judge Sullivan was incorrect for dropping the T-word. Flynn has a clear violation of FARA in addition to making false statements, plural. There is more redacted in what's up with Mike, and Sullivan has read it. Flynn was given a great deal, and trying to insert some conspiracy theory nonsense in the proceeding was dumb as hell and those supposedly intemperate words were about waking Flynn's ass the hell up and reminding him that to whom a fucking raft has been given, a failure to float equals drowning. Maybe Flynn thinks a pardon is his best bet, but the legal wheels are trying to get him on the cooperating path. Trump's good luck nod is wishful that nothing has been given up. But it would be out of Trump's actual make-up to deliver without seeing the goods. He is not charitable. 

What's fascinating is to see what Trump's recent maneuvers post the terrible day where Flynn's sentencing is postponed (contingent upon his very good cooperation with the Mueller investigation) and the death of his slush fund. Oh, wait--and the revelation that he signed a letter of intent regarding Trump Tower Moscow, because that could be a big thing. See, that--that right there, makes the statement he made about not having an financial interest in Russia during the 2016 campaign a total lie, and also makes Rudy Giuliani, who admitted that maybe there were talks about a Trump Tower Moscow up to November 2016 but that no LOI was signed, a bit of a liar, unless he was just being blindsided by the kind of thing Trump wouldn't necessarily see fit to share with his defense counsel. 

Because he is innately shady. Made of shade. Shadulent. Foggular. Of and pertaining to a thing very much of not clear and clouded with complications. 

Anywho, when his NSA is possibly a little bit treasonous and his charitable foundation is a slush fund and he's been caught with his wee hands in the Moscow Tower cookie jar, of course the next day he is pulling out of Syria and cancelling sanctions on Oleg Deripaska. (I never know where Deripaska really stands in Putin's estimation, do you?) I do know ISIS is probably not really a victory because the Pentagon says it isn't. But since when did Trump trust our nation's best intelligence? (And maybe we know one of his hand-picked intelligence geniuses did a failure to be anti-ISIS because of being on Turkey's payroll.)

Am I saying Trump is making presidential decisions based on his personal animus, his need to deflect, his natural shadiness, his allegiance to foreign powers? I don't even know! But there is a shadow of persistent illegality about things Trump does. We can't just assume his reasons are any good, ever. 

Questions for Ted Cruz

Two basic Qs every reporter should ask Beto today: (1) should the “caravan” be allowed to cross illegally into Texas? (Beto refuses to answer.) And (2) did your campaign dollars illegally fund their doing so? https://t.co/5HcePn3AGs

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 2, 2018

Does Ted Cruz Tweet something like this because (1) he doesn't like his internal polling very much or (2) because he doesn't like himself very much? Because it just seems to me you'd had to be some kind of schmuck to shoot past "George Soros and the Democrats" are funding the caravan (which, as I've pointed out, makes no sense--not before an election we sure as hell wouldn't have!) to "my opponent is funding them"--when it should be clear these are desperately poor people walking a couple thousand miles because...

They have nothing. They aren't funded: they have nothing. And whatever someone might want to do for them might be considered one's moral duty to help the least of us. If one ever believed in such a thing.

UPDATE: Ah--apparently, Cruz's calumny was based on an O'Keefe lie, and O'Rourke's staffers were discussing a donation to charity that was being conflated with the caravan. Cruz and O'Keefe are entirely made of bullshit.

Trump Skimmed Money From Cancer Kids

I've decided that if there was one thing I do in this life, it will be constantly telling people how trash Donald Trump and his entire family is. Donald Trump decided this activity for my life by running for president. I could have never bothered with him beforehand. But then his trash-ass ran for president, and his entire trash family supported him. All of a sudden, I was like an Anglophile researching the Royal Family. Any bit of news about Team Trash Trump became my favorite thing--and luckily, Donald Trump himself has been sheer grifting trash for ages.  He's scamtastic. He's the unfiltered id of thinking bullshit can be spun into gold.

So, the breaking news where Donald Trump insisted his son Eric's foundation regarding cancer kids pay it's way with respects to Trump-owned golf courses and a host of padded expenses? It sounds pretty disgusting, making Trump basically the equivalent of a scumbag who boosts donation jars at convenience stores. He skimmed cancer-kid donations.

That is not okay. It is way not okay. It sort of says Trump isn't charitable (although Farenthold already told us that much.) Trump is always a problem.

UPDATE: And Eric is pretty awful, too.

Eric Trump: Democrats are "not even people" https://t.co/JNyIkBeKCW pic.twitter.com/8rGNaPhmgN

— The Hill (@thehill) June 7, 2017

Was the Trump Foundation Used Like a Trump Campaign Kickstarter?

One of the interesting things that was discussed at the VP debate was a comparison of the Clinton Foundation and the Trump Foundation. Mike Pence wanted to make an issue of the money from assorted bad actor nations that might have flowed into the Foundation, but I always silently add "which was used to buy medication for children with AIDS" every single time I hear it, because it's basically the sort of work the Clinton Foundation does, and they use more than Pence's quoted 10 cents on the dollar to do their charitable work, and they don't personally benefit from it except in that "warm glow of altruism" kind of way.

The Trump Foundation story is a little less clear-cut. Senator Kaine got his dig in about the Foundation buying Trump portraits--which is a true thing! He also used it for other assorted personal business--apparently. He hasn't himself donated to his Foundation in some time (since 2008). (The Clintons donate to their own Foundation, of course. They give away about 9% or so, just about tithing rate. They might have more liquid funds than Trump does, though.) But what is downright amusing is the possibility that the selective giving of the Trump Foundation within recent years might have helped lay the "foundation" (ha?) of his current presidential campaign. Because that is really not ethical.

I mean, we could seriously ask why do evangelicals like Trump and come up with answers like "Well, authoritarianism" and "Loving the redeemed prodigal". But his offering wads to Family Leader and Billy Graham and all, might also be pretty persuasive. I've looked over the 990's for the Trump Foundation (you can too!) and make your own mind up. I notice there are quite benign and hardly political donations there, too--like the Police Athletic League and the Drumthwacket Foundation (that's the New Jersey Gubernatorial manse historical preservation outfit). There's a lot of stuff like the National Inclusion Project and the Michael J. Fox Foundation that I'm pretty much in favor of, too. But there is an open question whether some of the activities of Trump's foundation are explicit self-dealing--in a way altogether different from the bogus insinuations lodged about the Clinton charity.

I feel like there's a false equivalence afoot when these things are mentioned in the same breath.

Keeping Up With Trump is Exhausting

Sometimes, a blogger doesn't even know where to start with a presidential candidate like Donald Trump--I completely agree with Upyernoz that stories that were exceptionally fascinating, like his violation of the Cuba embargo, his slut-shaming of a former Miss Universe over a fake rumor of a sex tape (when Trump himself has appeared in a porno and wanted his second wife to pose in Playboy--the latter being exceptionally tacky because I read it as Trump wanting to display his trophy) don't even get full traction, because no sooner does someone start looking into a lead, there's more crap! Fresh crap made daily! If blogging is your side-gig, there just aren't enough hours in the day to take in the full scope and breadth of The Donald's wretchedness, and it's mostly up to full-time journalists (like the estimable David Farenthold) to get into the nitty-gritty. But there's so much nitty! And it's so gritty, people!

So let's say you are interested in how Trump used his Foundation's money to pay a contribution (or bribe) to FL AG Pam Bondi. It might equally interest you to know that this is not new "pay to play" behavior for Trump, because he has used his various corps and cut-outs to donate significant sums to state government candidates for various reasons. It might equally interest you to know that the NY AG just issued a "cease and desist" letter to the Trump Foundation to stop it from raising funds because they aren't set up to solicit them. Both ends of that story are basically really shady behavior in a "black letter" kind of way--they don't "look wrong". They are.

Let's say the story of Trump's singularly weird obsession with Alicia Machado bad-mouthing him to the extent that he went on a "wee hours" Twitter rant this past Friday--it might also interest you to know that  alumni of his long-running reality TV series "The Apprentice" also found him to be kind of a sexist pig.  But you might miss that story, because no sooner do you see it, than you find that he has basically labelled vets with PTSD as "weak".  (Great shades of his infamously tone-deaf "I like people who weren't captured." Still and always missing every point about what bravery is--sometimes you don't win every battle but the pride is in attempting, and service members who suffer trauma are not weak, they are deserving of our respect and decent care.)

Even the most basic not-simpatico things, like how he could screw over US steel producers by buying from China (who he now wants to tell us screws us over at every chance--with whose help, Deadbeat Don?) might escape notice. I see so many stories that as a blogger, I feel like I ought to give a shout-out to in order to signal-boost his basic dishonesty and fraudulence. But great gosh almighty! It's exhausting to keep up with someone who is a graduate course in how to be extraordinarily shady. He is on a level of ethically non-fit that sinks the needle. It's like the behavioral equivalent of the "Gish gallop", where so many untrue statements are made that it's crippling to the discourse to swat them all. Might I suggest the "Trump Trots"?

I will try to canter alongside the best I can.

EDIT: Also he did business with an  Iranian bank linked to terror.  So whatever. Worked with Gaddafi too. It's just borderline awful--but sort of a proof of the general premise.

The Clinton Way

There are lots of ways to follow up on a story--you can just wholeheartedly print what your sources turn over to you, which can be a bit one-sided depending upon your sources. You can sift through all the data until you have a steaming mess of nearly unintelligible, but fair and balanced "both sides" journalism. Or you could actually follow up on a story, data point by data point, until a bigger picture emerges, thereby doing the journalism thing in a somewhat more pure form. In other words, it's not enough to describe what something "looks like" or "could be construed to be"--the trick is to arrive at what actually "is".

For which, it helps to understand what "is" means. Is a donation to a charity that does not pay a salary to Madame Clinton the same thing as donating either to her or her campaign? Nope. Do the aims of the Clinton Foundation and the goals of certain arms of the State Department have overlap? Insofar as making a positive difference in the lives of people--yes. It might help to understand what the Clinton Foundation does.  The organization is transparent about their donors.  It does valuable, even life-saving work, with a very high proportion of donations going directly to fund the work. It is not remotely a slush fund, nor is there really any evidence whatsoever that merely donating to the Foundation ever influenced Clinton's conduct in the duties of her office.

Which is why the claims of a AP article regarding donors to the Foundation reaching out for meetings with Clinton is a kind of weak link to make a "pay to play" assertion". It would be reasonable to ask--out of how many people she met with overall, how many were donors? But it also makes sense to question, weren't some of them people she would have met with in the regular course of State business anyway, and whether they actually received anything in return from her--that she alone could have approved? Not following up on whether the appearance of impropriety actually equaled impropriety is very meaningful.  See, leaving people with the impression that there is something "there" when no "there" has been found is irresponsible. Sometimes, there is an ethical duty to say "We did not find an actual 'there' there."

The reason why this matters should be apparent--but let's say it isn't--we have an election before us  where one side delightedly trucks in conspiracy theories. There is a lot to be said for the aphorism that rumors spread while the truth is still putting on its shoes. Leaving open a narrative based in a biased view against an organization based on how "some people would view" the appearance of the data without disclosure that the naked facts nullify that narrative is irresponsible.

When we have crowds chanting "lock her up" regarding a political figure, wouldn't it make sense not to try her by leaving the court of public opinion open to unproven nonsense, when it could easily be disproved? Or is there truly a set of "Clinton Rules"--where any appearance of a critical issue is simply bad for Clinton, whether it is valid or not.

And what I think is astounding, is the idea even by people reporting the story regarding the Foundation responsibly, that the Clinton family can not maintain the charity with some few changes. Why drop something for the sheer sake of appearance? If there is nothing actually, factually wrong with the organization, and the work is good and lives depend on it--why would someone shaft it for better press--when better press ought to be the outcome of a fully-vetted story?

I dunno but some people go out of their way to keep Clinton scandals alive, and it's ghoulish. Think of the children, would you? Namely, the ones who benefit from what charities like the Clinton Foundation does.  And consider whether we really want to make fundraising for good causes a liability for people with the pull to get good shit done. This whole thing strikes me as simply uncivil.