Category: Right Wing Coup

Trump’s foundation appears to be a front for paying debts

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Will the Justice Department Investigate the Trump Foundation?

Vanity Fair reports:

According to the suit filed by Underwood, who took over the A.G.’s office after her predecessor, Eric Schneiderman, resigned over abuse allegations, the Trump Foundation “was little more than a checkbook for payments to not-for-profits from Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization.” Here’s a taste of the allegations regarding how the family charity misappropriated its funds…

[…] Underwood also charges that the foundation, whose board members include Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, violated campaign-finance laws by “illegally provid[ing] extensive support” to the then-candidate’s 2016 campaign, despite being explicitly prohibited from “participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of a candidate.” E-mails show campaign manager Corey Lewandowski dictating charitable expenditures which you’ll surely be shocked to hear appear dedicated to helping Trump get elected. (“Is there any way we can make some disbursements this week while in Iowa?” Lewandowski wrote to a staffer shortly before the Iowa caucuses.)

Trump campaign had stolen Clinton emails ‘more than a month’ before WikiLeaks

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

prehuman trump

You’d almost think there was some kind of collusion with Wikileaks:

The company that ran then-candidate Donald Trump’s data operation in 2016 reportedly obtained Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails more than a month before WikiLeaks published them.

In a column for the British magazine Spectator, BBC correspondent Paul Wood revealedthat Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct company which was in charge of microtargeting voters for the Trump campaign, was in possession of Clinton’s emails at least a month before WikiLeaks was known to have them.

“The (now shuttered) British company did the Trump campaign’s data,” Wood explained. “Its speciality was ‘microtargeting’: individual messages tailored to individual voters, delivered by email, Facebook and Twitter.”

“The US intelligence agencies believe that Russian internet ‘troll factories’ were also pushing out pro-Trump propaganda on social media: sometimes fake news, sometimes real news, such as the hacked contents of Clinton’s emails,” he continued. “The question is whether this was done in coordination with the Trump campaign.”

Wood said that he had information from an “American lawyer” who knew that Cambridge Analytica was in possession of the emails, which U.S. intelligence agencies later determined were stolen by Russian hackers.

An American lawyer I know told me that he was approached by a Cambridge Analytica employee after the election. They had had the Clinton emails more than a month before they were published by WikiLeaks: ‘What should I do?’ Take this to [special counsel Robert Mueller], the lawyer replied.

Russian trolls pushing Cali independence

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

IMG_8234

I’d like to think that people are too smart to fall for this crap, but they’re not. And that makes our country far too vulnerable:

As a result of US Senate hearings into possible Russian influence on the election, Twitter recently released a list of accounts banned from the network because of ties to the Internet Research Agency, a St Petersburg-based “troll factory”.

One of the accounts on the list, @CalifroniaRep (the misspelling is deliberate), was a backer of the #Calexit campaign. Trending has seen a partial list of the now-deleted @CalifroniaRep tweets, including dozens which used the #Calexit hashtag. The Twitter account was also linked to other social media accounts advocating the secession of California from the United States.

There are also indications that the election night #Calexit trend – the hashtag was mentioned 100,000 times in the course of a few hours – was artificially driven by automated bots or fake accounts. Several of the most retweeted messages under the hashtag were posted by accounts with just a few hundred followers. And some of those tweets were retweeted thousands of times, an unlikely – though not impossible – occurrence.

Lots more details, go read the rest.

The waiting is the hardest part

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

However fucked up the various people around Trump are, I can’t believe that Michael Cohen doesn’t understand that Trump doesn’t care about anybody by himself. The sooner he gets arrested and cooperates, the better it will be for everyone:

The Dictator Show, live from Singapore!

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

The signs are all there. What are we going to do about it?

Reporters crowded into a Singapore auditorium Tuesday, expecting President Trump to walk out and announce the results of his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Suddenly, two huge screens on either side of the empty podium came to life. Soaring music boomed over the speakers, and the reporters were bombarded with a montage portraying North Korea as some sort of paradise.

Golden sunrises. Gleaming skylines and high-speed trains. Children skipping through Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, North Korean flags waving between images of Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Lincoln Memorial. In a split-screen shot, Kim Jong Un waved to an adoring crowd while President Trump stood beside him with his thumb in the air. The pair appeared over and over again, like running mates in a campaign video.

The film went on like this for several minutes, with brief interludes of missiles, soldiers and warships interrupting the fanfare. Some journalists, unable to understand the Korean-language narration, assumed they were watching one of Pyongyang’s infamous propaganda films. “What country are we in?” asked a reporter from the filing center.

But then the video looped, playing this time in English. And then Trump walked onto the stage and explained that the film was not North Korean propaganda. It had been made in America, by or on the orders of his White House, for the benefit of Kim. “I hope you liked it,” Trump told the reporters. “I thought it was good. I thought it was interesting enough to show. … And I think he loved it.”

How Trump is getting away with treason

~ susie

Trump Putin

The media keeps breaking it into little pieces! David Corn for Mother Jones:

In this ongoing fight, it is Trump and his bumper stickers versus a media presenting a wide variety of disparate disclosures that come and go quickly in a hyperchaotic information ecosystem, often absent full context. No wonder then that a recent poll found that 59 percent of Americans said Mueller has uncovered no crimes. In fact, he has secured 17 criminal indictments and obtained five guilty pleas. Accurate news reporting alone does not always carry the day.

The Russia scandal is the most important scandal in the history of the United States. President Andrew Johnson was impeached (but not convicted) because he violated an act of Congress to remove a secretary of war. In the Teapot Dome scandal, the secretary of the interior in Warren Harding’s administration leased federal lands at low rates to private oil companies, presumably in return for bribes. In Watergate, a president and his aides engaged in political skulduggery against political foes. President Bill Clinton lied about a sexual affair he had with a subordinate in the White House. All these scandals raised serious questions about integrity in government. But at the heart of the Russia scandal is the most fundamental issue for a democracy: the sanctity of elections.

An overseas enemy struck at the core of the republic—and it succeeded. Trump and his minions helped and encouraged this attack by engaging in secret contacts with Moscow and publicly insisting no such assault was happening. This is far bigger than a bribe, a break-in, or a blow job. And, worse, the United States remains vulnerable to such a strike.

Yet the full impact of this scandal does not resonate in the daily coverage and discourse. In many ways, the media presents the Russia scandal mostly as a political threat to Trump, not as a serious threat to the nation. And many Americans, thanks to Trump and his allies, view it as a charade. All this shows how easy it is for disinformation and demagoguery to distort reality. That is a tragedy for the United States. For Trump—and Putin—that is victory.

Deja vu all over again

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

If you loved the 2008 crash, you’ll love Trump’s tariffs:

The World Bank is warning that trade tensions between the United States and other countries could hurt global trade as badly as the financial crisis did in 2008.

In its Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank warns that tariff increases would have “severe consequences” for global trade and could cause a decline similar to that seen in 2008, or worse if tariffs are increased beyond the maximum level allowed by the World Trade Organization.

“A broad-based increase in tariffs worldwide would have major adverse consequences for global trade and activity,” the report reads. “An escalation of tariffs up to legally-allowed bound rates could translate into a decline in global trade flows amounting to 9 percent, similar to the drop seen during the global financial crisis in 2008-09.”

The World Bank’s assessment comes as President Trump has levied steep tariffs on U.S. allies, prompting other countries to impose their own retaliatory tariffs.

Whatever it was you wish you’d done before the last crash, I’d do it now. If you have a 401K, call the broker and put your money in an index fund.