Trump Administration - Festering Skidmarks

[LFC]

Trump's media partner is as awful as you'd predict.

Trump’s social network has a new partner, and it’s exactly what you’d expect.

TRUTH Social is linking up with an online video provider that is known for hosting content that won’t make it past YouTube’s moderation policy. It’s called Rumble, and it’s become a favorite of a range of fringe characters, including QAnon supporters, far-right extremists, and anti-vaxxers.

It also already hosts videos from a number of Trump world figures, including Donald Trump Jr.

Like other right-wing tech firms, Rumble brands itself as a bastion against “cancel culture.”

🚨 Rumble will not be bullied by cancel culture, and here is a prime example on how we will fight back to protect creators.https://t.co/3Kkbc6kv2C
— Rumble (@rumblevideo) December 14, 2021

In practice, it hosts a wide-ranging array of content. The company pays former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) to “challenge the status quo,” for example.

The companies said this week that Trump Media & Technology Group — which controls TRUTH Social — will receive cloud computing services from Rumble, and that Rumble will provide video and streaming for TRUTH, along with an unspecified, planned “Subscription Video On-Demand Product” called TMTG+.

[LFC]

Can you remember any time either party ponied up a big, fat chunk of change to help anybody associated with them pay their personal legal bills that had nothing to do with politics? They truly are the Party of Trump.

The GOP reportedly agreed to fund up to $1.6 million of former President Trump’s legal bills to fight probes into his business practices in New York, according to the Washington Post.

The Post reported that the party’s executive committee overwhelmingly approved the payments during a meeting last summer in Nashville, indicating that the GOP’s vow to fund Trump’s personal legal fees is 10 times higher than previously known.

Last month, the GOP claimed in campaign-finance filings that it paid the former president’s personal attorneys $121,670 in October. According to the Post, the party has issued more payments since then with the RNC paying $578,000 last month to attorneys representing both Trump and his businesses.

The payments are reportedly expected to continue in the next several months, and the executive committee could move to fund more than $1.6 million in Trump’s legal bills.

The RNC’s funding of up to $1.6 million of Trump’s legal fees is meant to fund Trump’s defense against two investigations of his business: a civil investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) as well as a criminal probe by James and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (D).

“The RNC’s Executive Committee approved paying for certain legal expenses that relate to politically motivated legal proceedings waged against President Trump,” Emma Vaughn, a GOP spokeswoman, told the Post in a statement Thursday. “As a leader of our party, defending President Trump and his record of achievement is critical to the GOP.”

[pnwguy]

Dec 17, 2021 18:00:59 GMT LFC said:

Can you remember any time either party ponied up a big, fat chunk of change to help anybody associated with them pay their personal legal bills that had nothing to do with politics? They truly are the Party of Trump Evil.

FIFY

[jackd]

If it makes anyone feel better, that one is probably taxable to Trump.

[pnwguy]

Dec 17, 2021 19:25:41 GMT jackd said:

If it makes anyone feel better, that one is probably taxable to Trump.

You're assuming Trump will pay any taxes.  Taxes are for suckers.

[jackd]

Well, he's still being audited, you know.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 17, 2021 22:04:35 GMT jackd said:

Well, he's still being audited, you know.

I wonder if the Republican National Committee is paying for his accountants/legal representation in connection with the "audits.
"

[goldenvalley]

Did you ever wonder about Trump's new social media platform?   Here's a reporter that signed up. She didn't give any money but that doesn't stop repeated texts asking her for money...said to go to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.  

“WOW. Don’t ignore Trump’s PERSONAL message, Stephanie. We NEED you to step up to save our nation from Biden’s presidency.”

“Stephanie, don’t make us tell Trump you’re IGNORING his dinner invitation. There’s still time. Enter to win.”

“Why haven’t you taken the Election Year Poll? Are you becoming a Democrat?”

“Stephanie, you STILL didn’t sign Trump’s Christmas card!”

“Stephanie, have you ABANDONED Trump? Fix your reputation.”

Read more at: www.sacbee.com/opinion/article256745632.html#storylink=cpy



 

[LFC]

Dec 23, 2021 16:44:57 GMT goldenvalley said:

Did you ever wonder about Trump's new social media platform?   Here's a reporter that signed up. 

This is aggressive even for the nation's biggest grifter.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting as many as seven texts per day — all on my personal phone — from team Trump.

[pnwguy]

Just one more superlative for Mango Mussolini. Only he can be The Chosen One.

[goldenvalley]

Looks like the grifters are battling it out over donors.  

After months of failing to disprove the reality of Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss, some of the Internet’s most popular right-wing provocateurs are grappling with the pressures of restless audiences, saturated markets, ongoing investigations and millions of dollars in legal bills.

The result is a chaotic melodrama, playing out via secretly recorded phone calls, personal attacks in podcasts, and a seemingly endless stream of posts on Twitter, Gab and Telegram calling their rivals Satanists, communists, pedophiles or “pay-triots” — money-grubbing grifters exploiting the cause.

The infighting reflects the diminishing financial rewards for the merchants of right-wing disinformation, whose battles center not on policy or doctrine but on the treasures of online fame: viewer donations and subscriptions; paid appearances at rallies and conferences; and crowds of followers to buy their books and merchandise.

If these folks hadn't touched off a crisis for the American government with their grifty-ness I would be highly amused.  They created a crisis in American Democracy that we won't be able to fix quickly or easily.

[LFC]

Look who's writing a book and then presumably going on a rehabilitation tour.

At the tail end of his tenure as attorney general, William Barr couldn’t care less about the GOP’s ravings about the 2020 election. Now he’s prepared to write about them. An Amazon listing revealed the title of his upcoming memoir, One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, which is due on March 8. Publisher William Morrow’s synopsis describes the book as “vivid, forthright, and essential” to the understanding of Donald Trump and George H.W. Bush’s presidencies, along with Barr’s time as attorney general under each man. Since Barr resigned as attorney general toward the end of 2020, he has been outspoken about the struggles he faced in trying to rein in his erratic boss, even as he faced his own criticism over his handling of the Mueller probe. After the Jan. 6 riot, he disparaged Trump for “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress.” “The President’s conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and supporters,” he said in a statement.

Sorry, Heir Barr. Your support of fascism is now a part of history. For us to remotely take your statements seriously you must apologize for your host of anti-democratic actions.

[LFC]

Trump used a non-profit to pay off personal bills? I'm shocked, shocked I say! It's always interesting to see them small amounts he steals. For a supposed billionaire the amounts should be negligible but he's clearly addicted to stealing. I guess he views it as winning.

Former President Donald Trump and his family company have a long history of stiffing contractors, but there’s one bill they almost certainly wish they had paid.

Ahead of the 2017 presidential inauguration, the Trump Organization reserved a block of rooms at the Loews Madison Hotel. When at least 13 people didn’t show up, the Trump Organization refused to pay the bill, something it has done many times in the past. The company then dodged a credit collection agency and eventually squirmed out of it by pushing the $49,358 bill off to the nonprofit presidential inaugural committee, the PIC.

That dodged payment is now the crux of the attorney general for the District of Columbia’s latest effort to put the Trump Organization back in its crosshairs in an ongoing investigation into how the Trump kids used the Presidential Inauguration Committee to throw lavish parties of their own.

“It was their friends. It should never have been sent to the PIC. That’s misuse of funding. The Trump Organization being involved in any way and getting the PIC to pay any sort of balance anywhere on their behalf? It just doesn’t seem legitimate,” said Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who coordinated inaugural events and is now the government’s lead witness in this case.

Winston Wolkoff is no friend of the Trumps—any more. Although she was close to the family for more than a decade and eventually became “Trusted Adviser” to First Lady Melania Trump, there was a fallout after Winston Wolkoff felt that the Trump White House made her the scapegoat for inauguration misspending. The New York Times identified a company associated with her, WIS Media Partners, as the recipient of a whopping $26 million, and Winston Wolkoff later overcame Justice Department resistance to publication of her tell-all book called Melania and Me.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 19, 2022 17:48:27 GMT LFC said:

Trump used a non-profit to pay off personal bills? I'm shocked, shocked I say! It's always interesting to see them small amounts he steals. For a supposed billionaire the amounts should be negligible but he's clearly addicted to stealing. I guess he views it as winning.

Former President Donald Trump and his family company have a long history of stiffing contractors, but there’s one bill they almost certainly wish they had paid.

Ahead of the 2017 presidential inauguration, the Trump Organization reserved a block of rooms at the Loews Madison Hotel. When at least 13 people didn’t show up, the Trump Organization refused to pay the bill, something it has done many times in the past. The company then dodged a credit collection agency and eventually squirmed out of it by pushing the $49,358 bill off to the nonprofit presidential inaugural committee, the PIC.

That dodged payment is now the crux of the attorney general for the District of Columbia’s latest effort to put the Trump Organization back in its crosshairs in an ongoing investigation into how the Trump kids used the Presidential Inauguration Committee to throw lavish parties of their own.

“It was their friends. It should never have been sent to the PIC. That’s misuse of funding. The Trump Organization being involved in any way and getting the PIC to pay any sort of balance anywhere on their behalf? It just doesn’t seem legitimate,” said Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who coordinated inaugural events and is now the government’s lead witness in this case.

Winston Wolkoff is no friend of the Trumps—any more. Although she was close to the family for more than a decade and eventually became “Trusted Adviser” to First Lady Melania Trump, there was a fallout after Winston Wolkoff felt that the Trump White House made her the scapegoat for inauguration misspending. The New York Times identified a company associated with her, WIS Media Partners, as the recipient of a whopping $26 million, and Winston Wolkoff later overcame Justice Department resistance to publication of her tell-all book called Melania and Me.

He's addicted to preserving his wealth by making sure that he doesn't spend on silly things like personal bills.    Like tax avoidance that's smart!

[andydp]

"Mom Dad always liked you best !!"

Michael Cohen says Donald Trump told him if one of his kids had to go to prison to 'make sure' it was Donald Jr., not Ivanka


Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen claimed Trump said that if one of his kids had to go to prison over the family business to "make sure" it was Donald Jr., not Ivanka.

Speaking to MSNBC on Saturday, Cohen said Trump gave him the instruction when his children were on the verge of being indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney's office in 2012.

"You may recall that there was the district attorney's case here for Trump Soho where it was either Don or Ivanka was in very big trouble as a result of lying about the number of units that had been sold," Cohen told MSNBC's Alex Witt .



"And Donald said it to me – I mean I wouldn't say it if it wasn't said directly to me – he goes 'if one or the other has to go to prison, make sure that it's Don because Don would be able to handle it.'"


www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michael-cohen-says-donald-trump-told-him-if-one-of-his-kids-had-to-go-to-prison-to-make-sure-it-was-donald-jr-not-ivanka/ar-AAT3yhZ?ocid=msedgntp

(The more layers you peel off, the less it surprises us.)

[LFC]

Trump had to beg for applause at Mar-a-Lago. Sad. Watch the video for a dose of schadenfreude.

Six years after Jeb Bush secured his place in meme history as the “please clap” guy, the same fate has befallen Donald Trump. In a new clip posted on Twitter by PatriotTakes, which monitors right-wing media and social platforms, the former president can be seen appearing in front of diners at his Mar-a-Lago resort and getting absolutely no reaction until he waggles his little hands at them. Trump then gets a few whoops and claps and, finally satisfied with the reaction he had demanded, gives his fans a double thumbs-up. The former president then slinks off the scene.

[LFC]

Deal with Trump, get screwed! Thoughts and prayers, loser.

Retired entrepreneur Jeff Paul was once an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump. But that was before Paul went toe-to-toe with Trump over the former president’s 2020 campaign slogan and Paul saw the lengths to which Trump and his band of lawyers would go to trample over his supposed intellectual property.

The slogan? Keep America Great!

The outcome? Not so great!

Exactly one week before Trump took office in 2017, Paul logged on to the campaign website and fired off an inquiry. It was, he said, a sort of business pitch. The subject line had three words and one piece of punctuation: “Keep America Great!”

“The original idea was to start a PAC,” Paul told The Daily Beast in a phone interview. “I’d seen how much money he had raised during the election, and, you know, that was hundreds of millions of dollars.” Paul wanted to “get in on some of the moneymaking,” and though he didn’t see himself as a true political player, he figured that just running a Trump PAC “won’t really affect that much, and I could make a little money on the side, you know, put it in my 401k.”

That day, Paul received an automated reply saying a member of the campaign team would be in touch soon to “discuss your inquiry.”

“So of course a couple days later Trump announces that’s his new slogan,” he said.

Paul was referring to a Jan. 18 Washington Post interview, where the then president-elect offered Karen Tumulty a little scoop: He had already landed on the perfect slogan for his 2020 re-election bid.

“Are you ready?” Trump asked. “‘Keep America Great,’ exclamation point.”

And apparently it was a fresh idea. Trump shouted for a lawyer, and when one arrived he asked, “Will you trademark and register, if you would, if you like it—I think I like it, right? Do this: ‘Keep America Great,’ with an exclamation point. With and without an exclamation. ‘Keep America Great.’”

Paul was less jazzed. “I thought, ‘You dirty bastard.’”

And with that thought, Paul kicked off a crusade to claim the rights to what would eventually become Trump’s on-again, off-again, quasi-official 2020 campaign slogan.

[goldenvalley]

This report didn't come out of the Select Committee but from the NYT  I'll bet the Select Committee already knows this though.

Six weeks after Election Day, with his hold on power slipping, President Donald J. Trump directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to make a remarkable call. Mr. Trump wanted him to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states, three people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Giuliani did so, calling the department’s acting deputy secretary, who said he lacked the authority to audit or impound the machines.

Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Giuliani to make that inquiry after rejecting a separate effort by his outside advisers to have the Pentagon take control of the machines. And the outreach to the Department of Homeland Security came not long after Mr. Trump, in an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr, raised the possibility of whether the Justice Department could seize the machines, a previously undisclosed suggestion that Mr. Barr immediately shot down.

And there's more, a lot of the plot coming down to Pence refusing to do what Trump wanted him to do.  Pence put a massive monkey wrench in some of the plotting.  The next tyrant will pick better underlings that will do his bidding.

[LFC]

Feb 1, 2022 16:59:43 GMT goldenvalley said:

And there's more, a lot of the plot coming down to Pence refusing to do what Trump wanted him to do.  Pence put a massive monkey wrench in some of the plotting.  The next tyrant will pick better underlings that will do his bidding.

And before anyone tries to make Pence out as some sort of hero just remember he spoke to a number of people, including Dan Quayle, if it was OK. He had to convince himself that it was wrong to go along with the coup, or at least that it wouldn't work. I'm sure he "prayed on it" quite a bit.

[goldenvalley]

Feb 1, 2022 17:02:13 GMT LFC said:

Feb 1, 2022 16:59:43 GMT goldenvalley said:

And there's more, a lot of the plot coming down to Pence refusing to do what Trump wanted him to do.  Pence put a massive monkey wrench in some of the plotting.  The next tyrant will pick better underlings that will do his bidding.

And before anyone tries to make Pence out as some sort of hero just remember he spoke to a number of people, including Dan Quayle, if it was OK. He had to convince himself that it was wrong to go along with the coup, or at least that it wouldn't work. I'm sure he "prayed on it" quite a bit.

If Pence went public with the information he had back in Dec. or in January, or really at any time since the insurrection then he would be a hero.  

[LFC]

TPM has a good summary of the plot to seize voting machines using the military, DHS, or DOJ. A retired Army colonel, Phil Waldron, was deep in it and pitching it to multiple people including disgraced former general Michael Flynn. It's disturbing how much upper brass is so willing to shit on the Constitution they swore and oath to protect and run into the warm embrace of fascism.

[pnwguy]

Feb 1, 2022 17:02:13 GMT LFC said:

 I'm sure he "prayed on it" quite a bit.

Well, it was an answer to prayer for the nation, that Pence (for once) took the righteous path.

[LFC]

Alex Vindman is suing their asses for defamation.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a key witness in the first impeachment proceedings against then-President Donald Trump in 2019, filed a lawsuit against Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., plus ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House officials Dan Scavino and Julia Hahn on Wednesday.

In the lawsuit, Vindman accused the four defendants of carrying out an “intentional, concerted campaign” to intimidate and retaliate against him — in violation of the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, he argues — as he gave impeachment investigators crucial testimony on Trump’s infamous quid pro quo scheme involving U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Vindman alleged that the defendants plus “others not presently named” in the lawsuit had violated the law by repeatedly attacking him in public and pushing a false narrative that the official, who was serving under the National Security Council as an expert on Ukraine at the time, was a spy for the Ukrainian government who was disloyal to the U.S. Those attacks carried over to Trump’s media allies at Fox News, who proceeded to amplify the defendants’ efforts to undermine Vindman’s credibility.

The smear campaign derailed Vindman’s career as a colonel (though he eventually prevailed despite the White House’s efforts) and led to violent threats against him and his family, causing them to fear for their physical safety, the official alleged.

Remember when the American right was pro-military and pro-police? Yeah, that proved to be highly situational.

[goldenvalley]

Alexandra Petri at WaPo usually writes satire but this description of the situation looks like a fair representation of what Trump and his followers want us to believe.

Don’t worry! We keep learning unpleasant things about the tail end of the Trump administration, but the most important thing is that they are all in the past, where nothing can hurt us. (That is why we are so keen to purge all the history books!)

-snip-

As long as we don’t read about the attempted coup or ask anyone questions about it when we invite them on the television, it’s nothing to worry our little heads over. It’s one of those bygones that we have to let be a bygone. Our system is foolproof, for the specified degree of fool that has tried, once, to overturn it so far!

[goldenvalley]

And now we learn about another potential maneuver to enable the former President to contest the election.  

The memo used the banal language of government bureaucracy, but the proposal it advocated was extreme: President Donald Trump should invoke the extraordinary powers of the National Security Agency and Defense Department to sift through raw electronic communications in an attempt to show that foreign powers had intervened in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden win.

Proof of foreign interference would “support next steps to defend the Constitution in a manner superior to current civilian-only judicial remedies,” argued the Dec. 18, 2020, memo, which was circulated among Trump allies.

The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, laid out a plan for the president to appoint three men to lead this effort. One was a lawyer attached to a military intelligence unit; another was a veteran of the military who had been let go from his National Security Council job after claiming that Trump was under attack by deep-state forces including “globalists” and “Islamists.”

The third was a failed Republican congressional candidate, Michael Del Rosso, who sent a copy of the memo to Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who confirmed to The Post he received the document from Del Rosso. An aide to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also said his office received the document but declined to say who sent it. Del Rosso did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

And then some folks gather at Trump International Hotel for a meeting organized by the MyPillow guy.

Cramer said Del Rosso sent the memo to his office after a Jan. 4 meeting that both men attended at the Trump International Hotel, which was organized by MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a prominent backer of Trump’s bogus election fraud claims.

Cramer and Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.) joined some two dozen others crammed into a ground-floor hotel conference room to discuss election fraud allegations, according to Cramer and an aide to Lummis. Participants recalled that Johnson also attended, via videoconference. The details of the meeting, which took place two days before the attack on the U.S. Capitol, have not been previously reported. The meeting was similar to a briefing held in a congressional office building the next day for members of the House.

Strange s*$t going on there all premised on the idea that the only reason for Trump to lose the election was fraud.

Senator Cramer ultimately voted to confirm the electoral votes for Biden.