Archives for February 2019

Day 783 Thursday February 28, 2019

613 Days to the 2020 election and 691 Days to Inauguration Day

Michael Cohen testified yesterday in an open committee hearing.

Let’s start at after the end of his testimony to the question of “Where do we (or does this) go from here?”

I agree with Donnie Deutsche this ends with RICO charges brought against the Trump organization as a criminal enterprise and the dismantling of said enterprise and the principals going to jail. That would be Donald Sr, Donald Jr, Ivanka, Eric, Jared – at a minimum, and it couldn’t happen to a more despicable criminal organization. Although, I guess the Italian mobsters who actually kill people are pretty despicable too. As far as I know that is not something the Trump organization has done, but the rest? Oh boy.

I, having just read Andrew McCabe’s book, am now quite expert on RICO. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act is used to indict a whole organization. It’s used when there isn’t one crime you are trying to arrest for but rather a series and pattern of criminality. It is typically an organization headed by one person who directs others to commit crimes on behalf of him or herself, or for the benefit of the organization. There usually isn’t a formal organization or written agreements, but rather there are understandings. I say this because you aren’t going to find direct written evidence of something like say, “We are a criminal enterprise involved in …” But rather you will find a pattern of communication and understanding. 

When Michael Cohen said that Donald Trump didn’t tell him to lie but rather repeated the things he wanted Cohen to believe and say that were Trump’s version of what he wanted people to believe (which were in fact lies) is the way Donald Trump operates.

There will be much said in the future about what was said in yesterday’s hearing. One of the most interesting was one that happened very near the end. The committee went in its questioning by seniority, I believe, and alternated between Democrat and Republican until they ran out of Republicans. At that point there were three or four more Dems left and they were the most junior. By that point in most hearings all the good stuff has already been revealed and there isn’t much meat left on the carcass. That was not the case here. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had her five minutes it didn’t take her whole time to deftly have Mr. Cohen reveal that Donald Trump was guilty of inflating his asset values for insurance and banking entities and deflate them for tax purposes. This would lead to insurance fraud, making false statements to banks, and tax fraud. She then followed up with questions that earned her praise from the former prosecutors that are now commentators (There are a lot of them because Trump fired them all.) Ocasio-Cortez asked who could corroborate what Mr. Cohen had said and would it be a good place to look for this evidence in his tax returns and where might they be found.

Her questions were spot on, to the point, and designed to get the maximum amount of information in a limited time. She even yielded back some of her time. 

This as opposed to the Republicans who seemed to have all been given a very limited playbook. Not one Republican ever asked a question related to the point, subject, and purpose of Mr. Cohen’s testifying to this committee. That’s pretty stunning. They made no attempt to try and ascertain any facts. The only thing they wanted to do was discredit Mr. Cohen. It’s hard for me to figure out who was the most odious among them. Virginia Foxx, whom I think is the stupidest woman in the House, was smart enough to only ask the same sort of demeaning and insulting questions that all the rest of them asked, and after a few questions yielded her time to, I think, Jim Jordan so he could go on with his snarky innuendos. 

I think the Republicans wanted to establish that Mr. Cohen had lied. Of course, this was known before the hearing even began. But just in case you didn’t know it, they brought it up again, and again, and again. Did I mention that the Republicans said Mr. Cohen was a liar? This was not the only stunt they pulled. There was the delay the hearing stunt because the members didn’t get the statement from Cohen 24 hours ahead of time. This is laughable after all the times they’ve not even shown people bills until they are on the House floor ready to be voted on. 

Around the time this was going on a Republican House member wanted to delay the vote on the House bill to stop Trump from declaring an emergency to build the wall because he and his fellow Republicans hadn’t had time to go over the language of the bill and make markups to it. Sounds reasonable right? Yeah, sounds reasonable until you realize that the whole bill is this (via a direct cut and paste from the House website):

JOINT RESOLUTION 

Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on February 15, 2019. 

• 1  Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives
• 2  of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
• 3  That, pursuant to section 202 of the National Emer-
• 4  gencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622), the national emergency de-
• 5  clared by the finding of the President on February 15,1 2019, in Proclamation 9844 (84 Fed. Reg. 4949) is here- 

2 by terminated. 

 

Let’s be clear, the Republicans, for whatever reason have no interest in governing, in finding out the truth, they seem bent on staying in power, and if not in power mucking things up as much as possible.

The most egregious example of a Republican stunt was Mark Meadows’ bringing a black woman out to stand there as he went on to say that she works for Trump and she has never seen or heard him say a bad thing about black people. Gee. Can she talk? This was so outrageous to every woman of color that I saw on TV (Representatives, commentators, interviewees) that they all spoke up. And when Meadows got called out for it he was offended because someone had insinuated that he was a racist. Hey, Mark we aren’t saying you are a racist. Oh no. We are saying that anyone who hauls a black woman out on a committee room, points to her and says she works for a man and that she’s never heard that man use racist language is pulling a racist stunt, okay? No we’re not saying you’re a racist, just because you pull racist stunts, talk like a racist and act like a racist. 

btw By that evening there were videos up of Mark Meadows saying racist things.

Then there were all the great quotes from the hearing. The one I liked the best was when the Republican whose name started with a G (Gore? No. Gauss? No…who cares.) started a question about someone being a liar (and despicable human being) and Michael Cohen asked him, “Are you talking about me or the president?” 

Then there was the one that listed what the Democrats were interested in and what the Republicans were interested in. Democrats: treason, tax fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, … Republicans: Is Michael getting a book deal?

And oh, Michael’s a liar.

613 Days to the 2020 election and 691 Days to Inauguration Day

PS What’s this? A check, signed by the president? For hush money payments? ( No no no for legal services via a retainer agreement. Oh there was no retainer agreement? Oh. Well, hum. It doesn’t say for “hush money payment” on the check. For all we know it could be a down payment on a Bentley. Am I right? Am I right? Did someone mention Michael Cohen is a liar? )

Day 782 Wednesday February 27, 2019

614 Days to the 2020 election and 692 Days to Inauguration Day

Well, today is the day Michael Cohen is due to publicly testify in front of a Congressional committee. It’s hard to predict the reaction. There are certain things he can not talk about because of on-going investigations. Those are matters relating to the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in our 2016 election (which seems like it was eons ago!) However, this leaves lots to talk about. Cohen who was one of Trump’s closest advisors for years knows a lot. There are court filings that mention an “Individual #1” and it is assumed (or stated) that that person is Donald Trump. It’s one thing to have everything point to that fact; it’s another to have it openly stated. Individual #1 is – to use the terminology of the Nixon Watergate era – “an unindicted co-conspirator.” That means that someone worked with you to commit a crime and they haven’t been charged. In this case, if the person was charged and found guilty they would be a felon. This is to say then that in most cases and given the likely probabilities the president of the United States is a criminal, a felon. For those of us who have been following these proceedings this is nothing new. However, if you are in the 30-40% who seem to side with Trump no matter what, there might be a new day, a reckoning. That is the part that is hard to predict.

Will the argument be “Well, I know he’s a criminal, but I’m sticking with him.”? This would be a variant on the “Well, he’s a business man…” argument. Let’s deal, once again, with the “he’s a businessman” claim. He has run businesses – true. Most of them have been closed private companies. The only public stock business he ran went bust. Any public venture he ran was either a scam and/or went bust. His private businesses seemed to have fared the same fate. What he has been pretty good at is convincing a lot of people that he’s a class guy and you should want to spend a lot of money investing in one of his real estate deals. The kind of people who seem to think Trump is a class guy seem to be shady characters. They may not even think he’s a class guy, but rather a conduit to move money into what appears to be legitimate business from what clearly was not. There’s a term for this and it’s called money laundering. That seems to be something Trump is pretty good at. So was Paul Manafort.

Trump seems to have one sales pitch, which has been very successful in conning the suckers. It’s the pitch he used for Trump University and the pitch he used to run for president. The wording and the phrasing is the same. 

The claims he makes are easily proven to be false. Yet that doesn’t seem to bother those being lured in. I understand that. Who wants to admit they’ve been snookered? At some point you say I’ve had enough. There are many who put money up to get training from Trump University only to discover that they got little or nothing except in debt. 

In the case of Trump University which was shown in court to be a scam Trump got out of it by paying a twenty five million dollar fine, I think to the State of New York. There should have been charges brought against him in Florida but he avoided that by bribing (I mean making a political contribution) to the state’s attorney general for $20,000 which went to her campaign re-election. This somehow this brought her on board and she never filed charges against Trump, and is still hanging around him. What about the claimants in her state? What about them? They’re screwed.

In fact, when I look at a lot of these Republicans they all have a similar M.O. Mike Pence did numerous sleazy power plays while governor of Indiana. His excuses and back room power plays to shut down women’s health clinics in that state were particularly egregious. These were similar tactics used by John Kasich in his state. Thom Tillis before he left the state legislature in North Carolina gave his staff huge pay raises while cutting teacher salaries and to add insult to the injury then approved a two million dollar construction project to build a covered walkway between the two chambers on the North Carolina legislative houses. 

These guys seem to be able to fail upwards, which I find astonishing.

I keep hoping that they’ll get their comeuppance, and hopefully before they create too much more damage. Every once in awhile they face reality, but not often. Trump faced it in the United Nations when those assembled laughed in his face. He recovered quickly. First was the smile, and his comment that he hadn’t expected that reaction. I guess he thought he could unload his pile of steamy bull and they’d buy it like so many others. Or at least they’d keep quiet, like so many have had to endure. (I think about Jerry Brown having to keep his head down while Trump stood there and kept saying the wrong name of the town they had just seen that was burned to the ground. Trump “Pleasure”. Brown “Paradise”. Trump “Pleasure”. Brown “Paradise”. Trump “What?”

Bankers who dealt with Trump when his casinos in New Jersey were in trouble said that he didn’t seem to understand the basics of the problem. That he didn’t understand the numbers. It seemed he had not taken accounting or economics, which if you are a CEO, is kind of important to understand that stuff.

We also had the sudden retirement of Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court. This opened the path for beer boy Brett the K-man to get appointed, but why did he retire so suddenly? He had already picked his interns for the next session, had everything going along and then – boom – he retired. Why? Why indeed. His son worked for Deutsche Bank and was the principle bank that loaned money to Trump once no one else would. It was Kennedy’s son who was the one approving those loans. Why was this bank willing to loan money to Trump when no one else would? Was Anthony Kennedy worried that a case might come in front of the court involving his son and Deutsche Bank? Was he afraid he’d have to recuse himself and the vote would be 4 to 4? If he got off the bench then Trump could bring in another zealot like Gorsuch and the vote would be 5-4 and his son’s ass would be saved. Is that what he was thinking? (You betcha.) btw Current betting is that the money for Trump via Deutsche Bank came from Russia, if so they were merely a conduit for illicit money to be funneled to what appears to be a legitimate business. There’s a word for that, what is it? Oh yeah, money laundering. Wouldn’t that be illegal? Like felony illegal? Like time in the big house illegal?

In two hours at 10am Mr. Cohen is due to testify. Will this be that moment of truth for those Trump supporters? Will those people who have said, “Well, he’s a businessman …” realize that no he’s not that he’s a con man and they’ve been duped? That’s he’s a criminal? That he’s a mean petty bully? That he’s a narcissistic delusional fool? That he’s a terrible negotiator? That he’s a coward when it comes to actually firing someone?

What Cohen says will be revealing I’m sure. How revealing? I don’t know. What the reaction will be from the Trump supporters is hard to say. Will they have to see the president cuffed and booked?

My current fantasy is that Donald and Sean (as in Hannity)  both get arrested and booked. I don’t know what for, I don’t care. I like the thought. Then the next day while Rush is tugging on the front of his shirt trying to let some of the steam from his BS waft into the air in his studio that he get arrested and cuffed. 

Listen, I can dream. And no I’m not putting up pictures of people with crosshairs on them. Like some folks and organization are doing. 

Have a nice day! 10am Cspan-3.

614 Days to the 2020 election and 692 Days to Inauguration Day

PS The walls are closing in.

Day 781 Tuesday February 26, 2019

615 Days to the 2020 election and 693 Days to Inauguration Day

America has always been a country of opposites. De Tocqueville wrote of this in his 1835 classic “Democracy in America.” He observed America much as a social scientist would today. For individual liberty, but observing that if one acted alone they would get crushed by the powerful. He believed in individual rights while respecting the rights of others. However, he feared the extremes of democracy. He saw it as a balance between liberty and equality, between the individual and the community. He saw America as competing between its vitality and its decadence. He saw much of a country’s ills as a struggle between rich and poor. As a desire for equality, and a fear that it might come true. Has much changed since de Tocqueville toured America?

Technologically yes, but the underlying fears, struggles, courage, and fight? I think not. 

I was struck by discussion last night of how Trump takes the advice of Putin over his own sources and allies. This is stunning on its face and even more alarming as one digs deeper. It quickly reaches a comedy of the absurd, which makes “Midsummer’s Night Dream” or “Elixir of Love” seem in the realms of possibility. We now have a president of the United States who trusts the word of our biggest adversary over that of anyone else. It’s a manipulation by opposite forces. We have a Republican party that works steadfastly for a small minority – the rich and powerful. To add insult to this is their labeling legislative bills with titles that are the exact opposite of what the bill actually does. The tax cut is a perfect example.

Also, interestingly. many of the Republicans embrace Ayn Rand. Paul Ryan insisted that everyone upon becoming a member of his staff read Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” He obviously did not understand that the very practices Rand was railing against were the very things he and his Republican colleagues were trying to institute. 

Now we have our president going to what was the capital of North Vietnam to talk with the leader of North Korea. Many fear that he will give away something else, something big, in return for nothing, like he did on their last meeting. Given that as far as anyone knows the only preparation the president may have done was to talk to the Russians about what he should do. At least, that is what they are boasting. Surprise, they will have their representatives in Hanoi too. Pure coincidence. 

Last time Trump and Kim met Trump gave away our doing military exercises with the South Koreans. Something both Russia and North Korea have wanted for decades. What did we get in return? Nothing.

Now people are worried that Trump will agree to a peace plan. On the face it sounds reasonable doesn’t it? That’s the danger. If there is peace then why would South Korea need American troops in its country? In fact, the North Koreans could then claim we were foreign occupiers. North Korea’s goal is to unify the two countries under their rule. Russia’s goal is to diminish U.S. presence. In one blurt Trump could hand both a huge gift. Will he do it? I’m betting yes.

Why? He’s an uneducated, incurious, lazy fool. 

He is driven to do the opposite.

He is desperate.

We live in scary times.

Meanwhile, the not too subtle attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes continue. First it was she doesn’t live in her district. Now it’s that her field office isn’t set up. She said it would be ready in March. OMG! That’s like four days away! The horror. Why didn’t she do it right after she got elected? Blah Blah Blah. Well, let’s see. Every media outlet wanted her to appear. She championed The Green New Deal, which has the nation buzzing, and has put the focus on climate change and what to do about it, once again.

She talked about taxing the rich, making education and health care affordable, and she has made working proposals for each. This has driven the right wing to distraction, because fundamentally what she says makes sense. They are twisting themselves and her words in knots. 

615 Days to the 2020 election and 693 Days to Inauguration Day

PS The Mall of America. We are being taken for a ride.

Day 778 Saturday February 23, 2019

618 Days to the 2020 election and 696 Days to Inauguration Day

Yesterday Corey Lewandowski was on and he was trying to be kind and respectful. That lasted about thirty seconds when he launched into what seems to be a favorite of the Fox News and right wing folks which is this, “You want to talk about Russia and collusion? Why isn’t anyone in the mainstream media talking about Hillary Clinton and the Russians? That’s the only collusion!”

Okay, in a nutshell, the reason no one in the legitimate press is talking about what you claim is that your claim is baseless. No one in the Clinton campaign colluded with Russians. Period. But for Mr. Lewandowski and his folks of a similar ilk, let me “refresh” your memories. The Clinton campaign did pay an American firm to continue it’s opposition research on Donald Trump. In case you forgot this research was started by Republicans. Once Trump secured the nomination the Dems picked up the tab.

The American firm was Fusion GPS. It does research using publicly available materials. When they were approached the first thing they did was to buy all the books on Donald Trump and read them. Then they looked at all the publicly available court cases involving Mr. Trump, of which there are a lot. He is reputed to be the most sued and litigant man in America. They also looked at all publicly available legal records like deeds and corporate documents.  Their research left one giant hole. Trump was spending a lot of time in Russia, yet he had little to show for it. The question in their minds was, “What was Trump doing in Russia?” There weren’t many, if any public records. They turned to a man in Britain who is a specialist on Russia. Michael Steele was the British government’s expert on Russia. He not only knew all the players but knew their personalities and foibles. Fusion GPS asked Steele to find out what he could on Trump and Russia. He wasn’t given any particular guidance. The question was open ended.

At the time Michael Steele was first asking around there was quite a bit of general knowledge on the street. In other words people were talking freely. This changed, but at first there was quite a bit that could be gleaned in that fashion. Some of it was shocking. There was the story of Trump staying at the Ritz in Moscow. A place famous for having its rooms bugged. It was said he hired two girls to come in and piss on the bed, because it was the same room President Obama had stayed in. Trump must have still been upset about Obama making fun of him at the Correspondence Dinner. But come on Donnie, be a good sport. It was you who kept saying Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii. It was you who said you had sent people to that state and we’d all be very surprised by what you had found. Yet, nothing was found was it? 

Steele wrote up a group of sixteen reports. These were whatever he had heard. It wasn’t confirmed or corroborated, but to date much of it has been verified, and as far as I know, nothing has been shown to be false. His revelations got one person within Putin’s government killed. Steele turned his stuff over to Fusion GPS who in turn gave it to the Dems that paid for it. Some of the things that Steele discovered so alarmed him that he wanted to tell U.S. authorities about it. Fusion GPS demurred. Finally, Steele said he had his own contacts and the firm wouldn’t be involved. Steele met with CIA folks in Italy. His concern was that what he had learned about Trump made him believe “a crime was in progress.” When nothing came of the CIA tip off, Steele gave it to John McCain who gave it to the FBI. 

Separately and apart from this the FBI had already launched an investigation into Trump based on the drunken boasting of a Trump operative in London. This was a top “very good man” according to Trump when he appointed him, but after George Papadopolis’ boasting he got reduced to “I hardly knew him” status (ie coffee boy.) This boasting about having dirt on Hillary Clinton and that it came from the Russians, so alarmed the Australian diplomat in London that word filtered back to the FBI and it was this incident that caused the FBI to open a case about the Trump campaign and Russian interference. 

Others have boasted about having contacts with Russia, notably Carter Page. 

As to the Hillary emails we have Roger Stone, Randy Credico, and Jerome Corsi who have been linked to Julian Assange and Russian GRU fronts (called cutouts. In this case, Gucifer 2.0, and others).

We have meetings between Trump folks and Russians. There is the well known meeting in Trump Tower in which several Russians were there that have been linked to the Russian government. At that meeting were Trump Jr., Manafort, Kushner and others. 

There were multiple meetings and conversations between Russians and Michael Flynn. Jeff Sessions had his secret meeting too.

These are just the things I can remember off the top of my head. 

Now to be fair let’s look at the meetings between Clinton people and Russians. Total number of contacts between Clinton, Clinton campaign, Clinton people and hangers on with Russians – the total is ….

Wait for it:

0

ZERO

ZILCH

Nadda.

So for Mr. Lewindowski and all those on the right who are jumping up and down about “Why isn’t Hillary being investigated?” The answer is because there is no evidence and hence no reason.

As for Trump? There’s lots to look at.

I hope your memories have been refreshed.

618 Days to the 2020 election and 696 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Flores, Guatemala