Combing through Trump's tax returns

Former President Trump’s seven-year battle to keep the public from seeing his taxes ended in defeat Friday as [the House Ways and Means Committee] released six years of returns documenting his aggressive efforts to minimize what he paid the Internal Revenue Service.

[...]

The new disclosures do not fundamentally change what was already known about Trump’s finances — that he’s relied heavily on inherited wealth to offset a string of businesses that consistently lose money, that he’s used those losses to wipe out most of his tax liability for years, that many of his claims have stretched the law and perhaps broken it.

[...]

Trump and his wife, Melania, paid $750 or less in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017. The couple paid zero taxes in 2020 and claimed a $5.5-million refund.

[...]

In three other years, Trump paid significant amounts. As a share of his income, however, his payments were far below those of the average taxpayer.

[...]

The 2018 payment came on reported adjusted gross income of $24.3 million — an effective tax rate of 4%. By contrast, the average taxpayer in 2018 paid $15,322 in federal income taxes, with an average rate of about 13%, according to the IRS.

[...]

Trump’s golf courses in the U.S. and Scotland have been consistent money losers, the returns show. His hotel properties, by contrast, were very profitable in 2017, the first year of his presidency, but experienced large losses in 2020, thanks at least in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, which devastated the hospitality industry.

One major offset to those losses involved foreign income. In 2017, Trump’s gross income from foreign sources totaled $55.4 million. That included $6.5 million from business in China, where he made a state visit that year. He had reported no income from China in 2016. The 2017 return also shows $5.7 million in income from India. Most of the rest of the foreign income that year came from Canada.

[...]

“His tax returns seem to confirm that he did in fact earn millions from countries about which he had to regularly make important decisions as president.”

The returns do not disclose any obviously nefarious sources of income — contrary to speculation over the years by some of Trump’s opponents.

[...]

In 2017, the year Trump paid a net tax of $750, his return shows he took $7.4 million in tax credits, which completely erased what he otherwise would have owed. Some of those tax credits were apparently for renovating the Trump International Hotel in Washington, which he sold after leaving office. Tax law provides for credit for investments in historic properties and for certain poor communities, but the IRS has not yet determined whether Trump’s claims were valid.

The tax returns show a number of other cases, small and large, that were flagged by congressional staff. In one schedule for the 2015 tax year, Trump reported a $50,000 speaking fee that was almost entirely offset by $46,162 in claimed travel expenses.

Repeatedly, Trump’s returns show businesses where the reported income precisely matches reported expenses.

[...]

[I]n 2020, Trump appears to have broken his pledge to donate his $400,000 annual presidential salary to charity.

  LA Times

What a fucking surprise.

[H]is 2020 return shows zero charitable contributions. His 2018 and 2019 returns reported charitable contributions of just over $500,000. In 2017, he reported giving $1.9 million to charity. In a report on Trump’s taxes, the committee noted that Trump provided little documentation to back up those claimed contributions, a red flag.

[...]

Since 1977, the IRS has had a stated policy of mandatory audits of the tax returns of presidents and vice presidents. But in obtaining Trump’s returns, House Democrats discovered that during the first two years of Trump’s term, the IRS had not audited the president.

And we found out why.

Trump’s returns remain under audit, and the IRS has not resolved some questions that pre-date his presidency. If the agency rules against Trump, he could face millions of dollars in additional tax liability.

[...]

During the years in which Trump battled disclosure, much of the information he sought to keep secret about his pre-presidential finances became public anyway, largely from a 2020 New York Times investigation.

The picture that emerged showed that for all Trump’s claims to be a great businessman, his core enterprises — a sprawling network of hotels, golf courses and other properties — have lost millions of dollars year after year.

“He’s a staggering loser,” said Steven M. Rosenthal, a senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a think tank.

Amen to that. 

The former president was known for fusing his business interests with America’s highest public office, drawing allegations of using his role to promote his private resorts, direct federal money to his hotels and encourage foreign governments to spend money that would directly benefit the Trump family interests.

His far-flung concerns, foreign and domestic, are nested in more than 400 separate business entities. A 2019 report by the watchdog group OpenSecrets said he had more than $130 million in assets in more than 30 countries.

[...]

It’s not a surprise that Trump continued to receive money from foreign interests while he was president. While he handed over day-to-day operation of his business empire to his children, he still kept ownership.

Trump’s sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, made deals around the globe while their father was president.

  Politico

UPDATE:

Mr. Trump’s history of inheriting wealth and then losing it was chronicled by The New York Times in 2020, when it obtained decades of Mr. Trump’s tax information, including much of which was disclosed on Friday.

  MaddowBlog

UPDATE: Let's look back...

What the January 6 Committee got right and got wrong

Making the case that Trump should not return to the White House was the committee’s primary goal.

[...]

This effort from the committee was apparently successful. The hearings likely contributed to voters’ rejection of candidates who embraced Trump’s Big Lie in the 2022 midterms. And the panel may well also have succeeded in hurting Trump’s chances of returning to the White House in 2025.

[...]

But the panel’s mandate was bigger than Trump. The committee’s official charge was to “investigate and report upon the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to” the January 6 attack.

[...]

As various outlets have reported, Cheney believed that focusing on law enforcement mistakes would distract from Trump’s responsibility for the attack. Her view became the panel’s, and the report relegated to an appendix findings from a team of investigators that examined law enforcement failures. At Cheney’s urging, the committee’s report also excluded or limited findings from teams that looked into militia groups and extremism and financing for the attack.

[...]

The January 6 committee’s final report has 845 pages and not a word against Mike Pence. The committee lauds the former VP and other top Trump administration figures for refusing to go along with Donald Trump’s attempted self-coup. But it does not address those same officials’ decision to remain silent about Trump’s lies for weeks after the election—a silence that helped the Stop the Steal movement grow from disorganized online conspiracy theories to a violent force that sacked the Capitol.

The committee is also gentle with the Capitol Police and other federal agencies involved in security, excusing their faulty preparation for January 6. [...] "Whatever weaknesses existed in the policies, procedures, or institutions, they were not to blame for what happened on that day.”

[...]

Law enforcement agencies may not have known precisely what Trump would say that day, but he had been repeating the same lies for weeks. And far-right groups were planning to march toward the Capitol even before Trump’s speech. Everyone knew they were coming.

These omissions represent decisions by the committee to pull their punches against individuals and entities whose conduct they wanted to contrast with Trump’s. The committee did that to maintain focus on Trump’s ultimate responsibility for his efforts to overturn a democratic election and for the violence and chaos that resulted. That may have made committee’s work more effective politically. But it sacrificed a more comprehensive, unsparing assessment of the causes of January 6. [...] To produce what the New York Times called “a clean, uninterrupted narrative,” the committee left out the full, messy truth.

[...]

Much of what Congress does is appropriately political theater. It’s politics for public consumption. The House and Senate have seats for spectators. Congressional oversight hearings occur in large part to communicate information to the public.

[...]

The January 6 committee provided the best political theater in recent memory.

[...]

They hired a veteran TV executive and a supporting team to produce their televised hearings. Those hearings consistently drew more than 10 million viewers, NFL-level numbers unheard of for lawmakers. Committee staff literally scripted the hearings, making members read off teleprompters, thus limiting the somniferous speechifying that saps energy from most congressional events. The panel used video to tell the story. And they hammered one point above all. “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the report says—accurately—in its executive summary. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

[...]

The report’s appendix does state that police and federal agencies failed to act on evidence of violent plans by Trump backers.

[...]

But there, and elsewhere, the committee foregoes a more searching analysis by suggesting that everyone “lacked the imagination to suppose that a President would incite an attack on his own Government.” That same claim is featured as one of the committee’s key findings.

[...]

That claim is belied by [Trump's] tweets in preceding days. On January 5, Trump tweeted that Pence had the power to reject electors and also remarked on the large crowd converging on DC in a clear effort to pressure the vice president and Congress. [...] Organizers of the Ellipse rally had made fully public their plans to march to Congress after the address. Trump’s encouragement surely made things worse, but law enforcement had every reason to expect an angry crowd was headed to Congress that day.

[...]

It is possible to compliment Pence’s refusal to carry out a coup on the House floor while also questioning his conduct leading up to the insurrection. The committee, however, did not do so.

[...]

Even in his much-celebrated statement shortly before the riot, in which he refused to unilaterally overturn the results, Pence falsely suggested that the election had been compromised by “irregularities” and a “disregard for state election statutes,” and he said he welcomed the objections that Republican lawmakers like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley planned to raise during the certification process.

[...]

While Pence eventually declined to speak to the panel, and even attacked it as partisan, many of his top aides cooperated extensively.

[...]

The report offers particularly sympathetic treatment to former Attorney General Bill Barr. [...] Barr appeared to respond to Trump’s pressure by ordering the DOJ to investigate claims of fraud in the 2020 election, “even in the absence of evidence,” as the report notes. [...] Critics charged that Barr had bent to Trump’s will, using DOJ resources to probe baseless claims that Barr himself later described as “idiotic” and “bullshit.” The department’s top prosecutor for election crimes, Richard Pilger, stepped down in response to Barr’s order. But the report, relying heavily on Barr’s own account, does not fault Barr’s order. It largely accepts his version of events.

[...]

[T]he report does not delve into why Barr waited until nearly a month after Election Day to counter Trump’s lies.

[...]

The committee does not address the extent to which the weeks-long delay by most Republicans, who apparently feared angering Trump, lent plausibility to the defeated president’s false claims and emboldened the movement that ultimately attacked the Capitol.

[...]

Republican complicity, before and after Election Day, required unstinting examination, too. So did the inadequate preparations of the Capitol Police and others. The committee punted on those tasks, to better focus on Trump. That left them short of the whole truth. It’s good that Mike Pence and others declined to join the ultimate coup attempt. But that is a low bar for leaders of American government. The January 6 committee should have asked more of them. And Americans should expect more of the committee.

  Mother Jones

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More January 6 testimoiny nuggets

Then-President Donald Trump wanted to trademark the phrase “Rigged Election!” days after Election Day in 2020, according to emails provided by Jared Kushner to the House select committee.

[...]

“Hey Jared! POTUS wants to trademark/own rights to below, I don’t know who to see – or ask…I don’t know who to take to,” the email from Scavino reads, according to a transcript of Kushner’s testimony to the committee, which was released by the panel on Friday.

Two phrases were bolded in the email: “Save America PAC!” and “Rigged Election!”

  CNN

WTF??? Did he think he could collect money from people writing "Rigged Election!"? What a freak.

Kushner forwarded the request and discussed it on an email chain that included Eric Trump, the president’s son; Alex Cannon, a Trump campaign lawyer; Sean Dollman, the chief financial officer of Trump’s 2020 campaign; and Justin Clark, a Trump campaign lawyer.

“Guys - can we do ASAP please?” Kushner wrote.

Obviously Kushner is just as insane as Trump here.

Robert Sinners, who worked on the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations in Georgia in 2020 and helped organize the slate of alternate GOP electors there, told congressional investigators that his “intent was never to be aligned with team crazy.”

[...]

CNN previously reported that Sinners emailed the fake electors asking for “complete secrecy and discretion” on December 13, 2020, a day before the GOP electors convened at the Georgia capitol. Sinners told the panel that efforts to ensure Georgia’s GOP electors met in secrecy had more to do with skirting Covid-19 restrictions and avoiding protesters than keeping the elector plan under wraps.

Yeah, that's believable.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol met in person Thursday with conservative activist Ginni Thomas, and during her interview, she told the panel that she did not discuss any of the legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election with her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

  CBS

But did she discuss her own - or others' - activities attempting to overturn the election?

Ginni Thomas also denied her husband knew of her texts with former President Trump's White House chief of staff.

[...]

She also told the committee that her husband is "uninterested in politics," and said in her statement, "I generally do not discuss with him my day-to-day work in politics, the topics I am working on, who I am calling, emailing, texting or meeting."

"Generally".

In one of the texts, sent during a press conference pushing election fraud claims that featured Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Thomas wrote: “Tears are flowing in what Rudy is doing right now.”

In another text, sent on Nov. 24, 2020, Meadows told Thomas that Trump’s post-election legal battles were part of “a fight of good versus evil.” Thomas replied: “Thank you. Needed that, this plus a conversation with my best friend just now. I will try to keep holding on.”

[...]

Thomas confirmed that when she mentioned her “best friend,” she was referring to her husband. But when asked what she and Justice Thomas had talked about, Ginni Thomas said she did not know.

[...]

[Thomas] was asked about some of the text messages she had sent to Meadows after the 2020 election. Thomas said at the start of her testimony that she regretted “the tone and content” of the messages, and expressed frustration at the fact they were made public.

  HuffPo

Oh yeah, that's believable. And I ask you: Do those texts seem a little intimate to you? I don't mean in any sexual context, but like she and Mark Meadows are sharing an awful lot, that they were in constant and close contact during the coup attempt? Would that be a normal situation between a Supreme Court justice's wife and the President's chief of staff? I don't think so.

"I will try to keep holding on."  They're working together, obviously.  And they're NOT relaying information to their partners (Chief Justice and President)?  That's just not believable.  

“My husband often administers spousal support to the wife that’s upset,” she said.

Do all these nutjobs speak of themselves in the third person?

“So I assume that’s what it was. I don’t have a specific memory of it.”

Bullshit. And Clarence Thomas should have been deposed, too.

Thomas said it was “embarrassing” to be confronted with her old digital communications.

“It was an emotional time,” she told the committee at several points.

"Embarrassing".

Thomas deposition transcript 

The national chairman of the Proud Boys took a Dec. 12 tour of the White House, and alarm bells went off inside the Secret Service and among other security officials.

Trump deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato told the Jan. 6 committee last month that Robert Engel — the head of Trump’s Secret Service detail — flagged the visit for him as security officials wondered how they let him slip through the cracks.

“Why didn’t we pick up on his role/membership in the Proud Boys?” one official asked Engel, in an email Engel shared with Ornato.

  Politico

Who gave him the tour?

Ornato also forwarded an article to Engel about the prospect of violence on Jan. 6

But Ornato said he didn’t recall seeing any of this chatter, despite being a point of contact for the security agencies involved, and he said he didn’t recall whether he read the article he sent.

I'm sorry, what?

Ornato also said he didn’t recall the content of a 12-minute call he had on Jan. 6 with Engel, who had been receiving updates about the security situation at the Ellipse, where Trump had begun delivering his speech.

It’s just kind of hard to believe that you don’t recall anything about a conversation when that was going on around the Ellipse and the White House that morning,” an unidentified committee investigator said.

No shit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Biden attempts to diversify federal courts

Trump’s imprint on the judiciary has been felt most acutely at the supreme court, where a third of the justices were appointed by the former president. In the past year, the court has curtailed the federal government’s ability to set climate policy and struck down a New York law aimed at regulating the carrying of firearms in public. Most notably, the court overturned a half-century of precedent by ending federal protections for abortion access.

[...]

So far, Biden has moved at an impressive clip to get liberal judges confirmed to federal courts. In 2021, the president oversaw more first-year federal court appointments than any president since John F Kennedy.

[...]

In addition to their sizable numbers, Biden’s judicial nominees are notable for their racial, gender and professional diversity – particularly considering how long the highest US courts have been dominated by white men. Nearly three-quarters of Biden’s court nominees have been women, and almost two-thirds have been people of color. Biden has also made a point to nominate many former public defenders and civil rights lawyers, who have been historically underrepresented among federal judges.

[...]

The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has successfully advanced dozens of Biden’s nominations through the chamber despite Republican efforts to block or at least delay confirmation. Because the Senate was evenly divided over the past two years, Democrats and Republicans held the same number of seats on the judiciary committee. Republicans used that evenly divided power to create a deadlock on committee votes and force Democrats to deploy additional, time-consuming procedural measures to approve judicial nominations.

With Raphael Warnock’s victory in the Georgia special election this month, Democrats will gain a seat on the judiciary committee. Even with Kyrsten Sinema’s unexpected announcement this month that she will change her party affiliation to independent, Democrats are still expected to have majorities on Senate committees.

[...]

But Democrats still have their work cut out for them to match Trump’s judicial record. Over his single term in office, Trump remade the federal judiciary, placing very conservative judges on some of the most influential courts in the country. In addition to his three supreme court justices, Trump appointed 54 federal appellate judges and 174 district court judges, marking the largest single-term total of any president since Jimmy Carter.

[...]

By the time Trump stepped down, he had nominated more than a quarter of all actively serving federal judges.

[...]

To help ease the confirmation process for some nominees, Humphrey’s group and other progressive organizations have called on Senate Democrats to reconsider the practice of “blue slips”.

The blue slip policy gives home-state senators the option to block district court nominees from even receiving a hearing, which has made it difficult for Democrats to fill vacancies in states with at least one Republican senator.

  Guardian

That is such a bizarre practice, whose details seem to change with every presidency.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The evil pope is dead

Not Francis.  Bennie.  Francis is not evil.  Bennie covered up all the child abuse for years.  Not to mention, he was a Hitler Youth and an anti-homosexuality and anti-contraception fanatic.  And he resigned.  Pretty sure there was something he wanted to kept hidden by doing so.  

But the former pope remained a powerful conservative influence and a focus for opponents of Francis’s efforts to reform the church and redirect it to serving the poor. He repeatedly made his views known through letters, articles and interviews. In April 2019, two months after Francis convened a groundbreaking Vatican conference on sexual abuse, Benedict published a 6,000-word letter saying abuse was a product of a culture of sexual freedom dating from the 1960s.

  Guardian

Good riddance to old rubbish.

Why does Ginni Thomas get a pass?

I've been reading that there's not a peep about Ginni in the Committee's report.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Looking forward to critiques

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

JFC

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Baby Chicken Trump

The January 6 Committee released Don Jr's testimony transcript among others.

Trump Jr. discussed his efforts to convince then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to get his father to say something that might calm the crowd that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, forcing the evacuation of lawmakers set to certify the results of the 2020 election.

“He’s got to condemn this shit. Asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Trump Jr. wrote in a text to Meadows the afternoon of Jan. 6. The text has been previously reported. Former President Trump had earlier urged people in a tweet to respect the Capitol Police, who were overrun by a mob seeking to get into the Capitol to stop the counting of the Electoral College vote.

[...]

The transcript includes a number of instances of Trump Jr. saying he does not remember or recall certain questions or statements, such as why he thought the Capitol Police tweet sent by his father was not enough.

  The Hill

He doesn't remember why he thought that? Does he not think that now?  (Actually, with this coked up idiot, he might not remember even that he thought something, much less why.)

He said he sought to reach Meadows and not his father via the telephone because his father doesn’t text and because he didn’t want to have a conversation with his father that others could hear.

Ha! He was afraid of confronting the old asshole.

“I wasn’t in the White House to help with that, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what happened. But I did think we just needed to be more forward and move out there at that point.”

[...]

Trump Jr. also texted Meadows that he had to “go to the mattresses” to get his father to condemn the violence. Asked about the remark, Trump Jr. said it was a “Godfather” reference and that it meant Meadows needed to go “all in” in convincing Trump to issue a different statement.

Ever the mob references with this family.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Sorry, Bub

The Jan. 6 select committee’s finding that Donald Trump lured followers to storm the Capitol does not absolve them of legal responsibility for their actions, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, the first opinion to cite the congressional panel’s criminal referrals of the former president.

U.S. District Court Judge John Bates cited the select committee’s report and criminal referrals to swat down a Jan. 6 defendant’s claim that he believed Trump had authorized him and other rioters to enter the Capitol when he urged the crowd to march down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled that defendant Alexander Sheppard should be prohibited from making the “public authority” defense because there’s simply no evidence Trump told his followers that entering the restricted grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was legal. In fact, his incendiary rhetoric — especially telling his supporters to “fight like hell” — may suggest Trump was asking them to break the law, Bates said.

  Politico

Jack Smith's gang will put that in their files.

Until somebody makes him stop

And that won't be the U.S.

Benjamin Netanyahu's incoming hard-line Israeli government put West Bank settlement expansion at the top of its priority list on Wednesday, vowing to legalize dozens of illegally built outposts and annex the occupied territory as part of its coalition deal with ultranationalist allies.

The coalition agreements, released a day before the government is to be sworn into office, also included language endorsing discrimination against LGBTQ people on religious grounds, contentious judicial reforms, as well as generous stipends for ultra-Orthodox men who prefer to study instead of work.

The package laid the groundwork for what is expected to be a stormy beginning for the country's most religious and right-wing government in history, potentially putting it at odds with large parts of the Israeli public, rankling Israel's closest allies and escalating tensions with the Palestinians.

[...]

There was no immediate U.S. comment.

  NPR

The US could have quit supporting this asshole decades ago.

[US President Joe] Biden called Netanyahu his “friend for decades” in a statement on Thursday, saying that he will cooperate with the Israeli government to jointly address challenges in the Middle East, including “threats from Iran”.

[...]

On Thursday, Biden reasserted Washington’s verbal support for the two-state solution, although Netanyahu’s government had openly said that settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank is its top priority.

Palestinian rights advocates say the settlements, which are illegal under international law, have made it all but impossible to establish a viable Palestinian state.

  alJazeera

Democrats rightly claim Republican Congress people are cowards when it comes to Donald Trump, but they never address their own cowardice when it comes to Netanyahu.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Insurance companies are ghouls

Ship insurers are cancelling war-risk coverage across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus from January, leaving cargo and freight companies liable for major losses linked to the ongoing conflict.

At least 12 of the 13 Protection and Indemnity (P&I) clubs - which cover 90% of the world’s ocean-going ships, including those from the UK and the US - said they would no longer be able to provide coverage to clients because reinsurers were exiting the region as a result of financial losses.

[...]

The UK club notice explained there would no longer be coverage for loss or damage arising from the war in Ukraine, or in any territory where Russian forces are engaged in conflict across Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.

[...]

It is the first time reinsurers have had an opportunity to cancel coverage for clients since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, given that most contracts run on a 12-month basis and renew on 1 January.

  Guardian

Typical insurance company move. Stop coverage when they start having to pay out in large sums, when it's needed most.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Western help for Ukrainians

Come on. It's Ukraine. The people already have warm clothing. Send whatever the army needs to decisively win the war and send Russia packing. And send money to rebuild what Russia has destroyed because you didn't send what the army needed months ago.

The latest package of military aid sent by Nato to Ukraine, in addition to weapons, fuel and medical supplies, includes winter equipment and winter clothing, while the European Commission is providing temporary cold-weather shelters, generators and electricity grid-repair kits to help tide them over the coming winter.

  Guardian

Okay, that's more like it. Stupid headline, Guardian.

More than 6 million Ukrainians, left without heating and electricity, are being plunged into extreme hardship and a long period of blackouts is looming. The World Health Organization has said the destruction of houses and lack of access to fuel or electricity “could become a matter of life or death”.

On 13 December, 70 countries and institutions pledged more than €1bn (£860m or $1.05bn) in immediate aid to help Ukraine get through the coldest season, with £415m devoted to Ukraine’s energy sector, hammered by Russian airstrikes.

[...]

‘‘For each of [Ukraine's] victories on the ground, Russia’s cowardly response is to bomb power, gas or water infrastructure necessary for the people’s survival this winter,” [French President Emanuel Macron] said.

Dang

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland announced on Wednesday that he has a “serious but curable form of cancer” and will begin outpatient treatment.

In a statement, Raskin said, “After several days of tests, I have been diagnosed with diffuse large B cell lymphoma, which is a serious but curable form of cancer. I am about to embark on a course of chemo-immunotherapy on an outpatient basis at Med Star Georgetown University Hospital and Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prognosis for most people in my situation is excellent after four months of treatment.”

  CNN

I sure hope he comes through this okay. He's really being tested by life.

According to the American Cancer Society, diffuse large B cell lymphoma “tends to grow quickly” and is frequently treated with chemotherapy through a four-drug regimen administered in cycles three weeks apart. It can be cured in about half of all patients, but it largely depends on factors including the stage when the disease is caught, the society notes.

[...]

[Raskin] noted that he expects “to be able to work through this period but have been cautioned by my doctors to reduce unnecessary exposure to avoid COVID-19, the flu and other viruses.”

I think of all exposures as unnecessary, but I'm not a Congressman in a building with a bunch of shitheads who purposely don't take precautions and have no consideration for other people.

Clueless

Former President Donald Trump spent nearly four years in the White House before learning his daily schedule was made public — at which point he ordered a stripped down version of the document, a former aide testified.

The surprising revelation was shared by former White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere in his testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee that was made public on Tuesday.

“Every evening we prepared and released the daily guidance for the following day of the president’s public schedule. Beginning sometime around mid to late December, the president discovered that, for the first time, my understanding, that we released a public schedule of his to the public,” Deere told the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“He wanted to change the way we did that,” the former president’s communications aide added.

  MSN

Ignorant and incurious about the actual office he held. I guess that isn't exactly a "surprising revelation." But I did wonder all that time why he wasn't "padding" the daily schedule since there was rarely anything on it.

The White House releases a schedule each day of a president's official activities, such as briefings, meetings and public appearances, and Trump's team did the same until Jan. 5, 2021, when former deputy press secretary Judd Deere said they switched to a boilerplate statement saying he would have "many calls and have many meetings."

  Raw Story

Brilliant!

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Well, that explains it

Reports have been written lately wondering why, unlike all other presidents, Trump's taxes were not subjected to a mandatory audit while he was in office.  I think we've found the answer.

From CREW, September 1, 2020:

Charles Rettig, the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner who has refused to release President Trump’s tax returns, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars renting out Trump properties while in office, according to documents obtained by CREW. Last year Rettig said it was his decision whether to turn over Trump’s tax returns to Congress, under the supervision of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

An analysis of Rettig’s personal financial disclosures for the last two years shows Rettig making $100,000 – $200,000 a year from two units at Trump International Waikiki. Trump made a detour to visit the property during a trip to Asia in his first year in office—a priceless promotional appearance for the business he still profits from as president. Rettig bought a 50% stake in the units in 2006, three years before the property opened. [Trump's company got 10% of total pre-sales.]

[...]

[T]here’s no mention of Trump at all in the disclosures. The two properties are referred to only as “Residential Real Estate – Honolulu, Hawaii” and “Residential Real Estate (2) – Honolulu, Hawaii.” This isn’t new. When he was first nominated, he failed to disclose the properties were in a Trump-branded building. At his confirmation hearing, he did not directly answer concerns about the properties, only saying he would serve in an “impartial, unbiased” manner.

  CREW

Confirmation hearings are really a waste of everybody's time. People lie, misrepresent and deceive all the time. Even Supreme Court nominees. I'm looking at you, Barrett, and you, Kavanaugh.

There are all kinds of reasons [Trump] doesn’t want [his tax returns] made public—including the fact that they could point to potential criminal conduct. With Trump’s name removed from some buildings as it began to hurt property values, we can only imagine how toxic it would become if a bombshell in his tax returns were released. Which means the IRS Commissioner has a vested interest in the success of the Trump brand—and of preventing anything that could damage it.

Those tax records are finally being released this week on Friday. Somehow I don't think the usual Friday document dump ploy is going to shield him.

And I'm willing to bet there isn't one single thing Trump did while president (indeed, while living) that was on the up and up.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Reproductive rights in Michigan now law

Mark Meadows will likely be wearing orange one day

Among other things...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And there goes another Russian out a window

I'd like to see stats on prominent defenestrated Russians.

Russian magnate Pavel Antov was found dead this week at his hotel in the Indian state of Odisha, according to Russia’s Tass News Agency.

According to Indian media reports, Antov died after he fell from a third-floor window at his hotel on Sunday.

His death comes just days after another Russian he was traveling with was also found dead. His travel companion, Vladimir Budanov, reportedly died at the same hotel on Friday.

  The Hill

Oh! Two!

Police Superintendent Vivekanand Sharma said that Budanov suffered a stroke and that Antov “was depressed after [his friend’s] death” and died by suicide.

I guess he had a stroke while leaning out of the window?

The BBC reported that Antov had criticized the Russian missile strikes in Ukraine last June on WhatsApp, saying that “it’s extremely difficult to call all this anything but terror.”

He later said the message was a result of a “technical error.”

Antov, who was featured on Forbes’s list of the richest Russian lawmakers in 2019, is the latest in a slew of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s critics to die under mysterious circumstances.

[...]

Ivan Pechorin, the managing director of the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation and a point man for Putin on the development of the Arctic, died after falling off his boat in September.

Pechorin’s death came months after his former boss, Igor Nosov, died from a sudden stroke at the age of 43 in February.

[...]

Another Putin critic, the chairman of Russia’s largest private oil company, Ravil Maganov, died after allegedly falling out of a hospital window in September.

It's a very Russian cause of death.

Here's a list of 8 Russsian oil execs who died suddenly this year.

UPDATE:

There it is

Trump has frequently insisted he called for 10,000 troops (sometimes it’s inflated as 20,000) to keep the peace on Jan. 6, 2021, as part of his defense against accusations that he incited the attack on the Capitol as Congress met to certify the 2020 Electoral College count on the presidential election.

Christopher Miller, then the acting secretary of defense, testified under oath to the Jan. 6 committee that there was no such order for troops from Trump, according to the report.

[...]

But two days before the violence erupted, Trump insisted that he should accompany protesters on a march to the Capitol aimed at blocking certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win, according to testimony from Max Miller, who was a White House senior adviser at the time.

That’s when Trump “floated the idea of having 10,000 National Guardsmen deployed to protect him and his supporters from any supposed threat from left-wing counterprotesters,” recounted Miller, who said he told Trump it was a bad idea.

[...]

Trump’s desire to deploy 10,000 active-duty troops to quell Black Lives Matter protests near the White House in June 2020 triggered fears among Pentagon officials that he might issue an “illegal order” for troops to help him remain in power after losing the 2020 election, according to the committee report.

  HuffPo

And this was Trump's claim at the time:

“I requested … I definitely gave the number of 10,000 National Guardsmen, and [said] I think you should have 10,000 of the National Guard ready. They took that number. From what I understand, they gave it to the people at the Capitol, which is controlled by Pelosi. And I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it would look good. So, you know, that was a big mistake.”

  The Dispatch

It wasn't troops to guard the Capitol that he wanted, and it wasn't Nancy Pelosi who told him it wouldn't look good. Not to mention, the Speaker of the House would have no power to reject troops sent by the president.  The Capitol is not "controlled by Pelosi."

AFP Fact Check

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Maybe power stations should be better fortified/guarded

Washington state authorities said that several electrical power stations were victims of a “coordinated attack” on Christmas.

[...]

Authorities added that [...] three energy substations were broken into and some of the substations’ equipment was either vandalized or damaged during the incident.

PCSD said that at least 14,000 customers saw their power cut off due to the coordinated attack.

[...]

The sheriff’s department also said that its deputies received a call about a fire happening at another PSE substation. The fire erupted after intruders gained access through the fenced area and vandalized the station’s equipment.

[...]

“This is the 4th incident at a Power Substation in South Pierce County on Christmas Day. All law enforcement agencies in the county have been notified of the incidents and will be monitoring power substations in their area,” PCSD said in a statement. “At this time power has been restored to most of the affected homes.”

Similar coordinated attacks happened at two energy substations in Moore County, N.C., last month, resulting in nearly 40,000 local residents losing power for days, with authorities reporting that the damages to the two Duke Energy substations were caused by gunfire. The FBI has already launched a probe into that case.

  The Hill

Texas Governor Scrooge

Three busloads of migrants arrived outside the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, on Saturday, according to ABC 7, when temperatures were in the teens. Video captured by a reporter from the outlet showed groups of migrants wrapped in blankets. One person was wearing shorts.

[...]

“Governor Abbott abandoned children on the side of the road in below freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve without coordinating with any Federal or local authorities,” White House assistant press secretary Abdullah Hasan said in a statement. “This was a cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt.”

[...]

The Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, a local aid group, took the migrants to a church to receive assistance, according to ABC 7. The organization said Abbott was behind Saturday’s drop off, and the local outlet said the group learned about the buses a few days earlier.

Abbott has not confirmed his involvement.

[...]

“It really does show the cruelty behind Gov. Abbott in his insistence on continuing to bus people here without care,” Fischer told ABC 7, going on to say that the migrants “don’t have clothes for this kind of weather and they’re freezing.”

[...]

“Worthless @GovAbbott dropping off people with no money and no means on Christmas Eve in 15 degree weather near the VP’s residence,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) wrote on Twitter early Sunday morning. “How Christian of you, Greg Abbott. Being a heartless POS isn’t going to make you the next Republican President.”

“Governor Abbott claims to be a ‘pro-life Christian’ yet shows no regard for the lives of children left shivering in the freezing cold on Christmas Eve,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter. “Dropping off migrants in 18 degree weather is so cruel that it ought to be criminal.”

Abbott and other Republican governors for months have been directing migrants to Democratic-led cities — including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia — drawing widespread criticism from Democrats for what they see as using the immigrants as political pawns.

  The Hill

They see it that way because that's the way it is.

In one of the most widely-publicized cases, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) flew two planes of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts in September. That same month, two buses of migrants from Texas arrived at the Naval Observatory.

I guess Florida has more money for political stunts than Texas. Or else Texas didn't want the immigrants to get a plane ride.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A change in the war

According to the [Russian] defence ministry, a Ukrainian drone was shot down on the approach to Engels base early on Monday morning but falling debris killed three soldiers.

The strike was the second recent attack on the Engels airbase, located about 300 miles away from the Ukrainian border and more than 450 miles south-east of Moscow.

Earlier this month, three servicemen were killed and two aircraft were damaged during an apparent Ukrainian drone attack on the Engels airbase.

[...]

The Soviet-era Engels airbase, named after the communist philosopher Friedrich Engels, is a crucial site for Russian air force operations against Ukraine and for the country’s strategic nuclear forces.

It is home to Russia’s 121st heavy bomber aviation regiment, which includes the Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bomber squadrons whose missiles have devastated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

[...]

The attack on the Engels airbase once again exposed Russian air defence gaps and demonstrated Kyiv’s ability to penetrate hundreds of miles into Russian airspace.

  Guardian

A notable difference between Ukrainian and Russian drone attacks is that the Ukrainian attacks are on a military target, not civilian ones.

Meanwhile, despotic sabers are rattling in China and North Korea.

Seventy-one Chinese air force aircraft including fighter jets and drones entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone in the past 24 hours, the island’s government said on Monday, the largest reported incursion to date.

[...]

China said it had conducted “strike drills” in the sea and airspace around Taiwan on Sunday in response to what it said was provocation from the democratically governed island and the US.

[...]

[A Chinese spokesperson said they are] referring to the US defence spending bill, which calls China a strategic challenge. With regard to the Indo-Pacific region, the legislation authorises increased security cooperation with Taiwan and requires expanded cooperation with India on emerging defence technologies, readiness and logistics.

[...]

Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, speaking at a military ceremony on Monday, reiterated the need for Taiwan to boost its defence capacity due to “the continuous expansion of authoritarianism.”

  Guardian

South Korea scrambled warplanes and attack helicopters and fired warning shots on Monday after North Korean drones violated its airspace, the South Korean military said.

South Korea tracked the drones crossing from North Korea over what is known as the military demarcation line between the two countries after detecting them in the skies of the western city of Gimpo at about 10.25am (0125 GMT), the military said.

  Guardian

It's Sunday

Hypocritical "Christians" are all too common.  It appears he might also be guilty of one of the 7 deadly sins.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jesus, these hypocrites

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been vacationing in Costa Rica, and voting by proxy in Congress.

Proxy voting is a pandemic-area procedure that was originally designed to allow members of Congress to avoid traveling to Washington, DC in order to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID. Since then, members of Congress have used it for all sorts of non-COVID reasons.

[...]

Republicans, including Greene, have harshly criticized the practice, despite often using it themselves. Greene even introduced a bill in March of this year to eliminate the practice. "Now that COVID is over and we're back to normal life, Congresswoman Greene is ready to end proxy voting," Greene spokesman Nick Dyer told Insider in May.

  Business Insider

Obviously, she is not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

WWJD

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

h/t Jean

White House holidays

2022:

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Merry Christmas compare and contrast

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Missouri's "Make Murder Legal Act" revived

A southwest Missouri lawmaker is again pushing for passage of a law that prosecutors across the state have condemned as a “get out of jail free” card for murderers.

In a Republican-controlled state that already has permissive gun laws, the legislation introduced by Rep. Ben Baker, R-Neosho, would establish a presumption that a defendant acted reasonably in self-defense when they use deadly force against another person.

  

I can't help but wonder who Rep. Baker wants to kill.

“I just think it’s important when it comes to our Second Amendment rights,” Baker said. “I think the issue is valid.”

[...]

Baker’s proposal is identical to a bill that faced withering criticism in the Senate last year.

“The language is the same. There are no further changes to the bill. I suspect that there will be,” Baker said.

[...]

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, in a statement issued in May, slammed the legislation, saying it would prohibit police from detaining any murderer who shouted “self-defense” and would grant violent killers absolute immunity for their crimes.

[...]

Missouri already has one of the nation’s most expansive ‘stand your ground’ laws,” the statement noted.

[...]

One county prosecutor called the Senate bill, which was sponsored by former Sen. Eric Burlison, R-Battlefield, the “Make Murder Legal Act.”

[...]

At the same time, Democrats in the minority are working to combat gun violence following a deadly shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High in St. Louis, which claimed the lives of Alexzandria Bell, a 15-year-old student, and Jean Kuczka, a lifelong educator. Seven others were injured in the October rampage that also affected Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience.

[...]

Democrats representing the state’s urban areas have introduced a slew of legislation designed to prevent dangerous people that pose a threat to themselves and others from easily accessing firearms.

Williams, for example, is sponsoring a bill that would attempt to strengthen the state’s concealed weapons permitting law, which has been weakened through the passage of Republican-backed firearms laws.

Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, wants to impose a so-called “red flag” law that may have stopped the fatal school shooting.

[...]

Merideth also wants to raise the age necessary to legally purchase a firearm to 21 years old. It is now set at 19.

[...]

Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, has signaled that he doesn’t favor tougher gun laws.

“You can pass all the laws you want for that, but if they aren’t abiding by the law, it’s not going to make any difference,” Parson told KOLR-TV after the school shooting.

Parson may be one of the country's dumbest governors. If you have the laws, and you prosecute those who violate them, that will make a difference.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Right eating themselves continues

In one of his harshest attacks to date on Donald Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the former president’s clout has “diminished” and called him harmful to the Republican Party.

Trump has created a view of Republicans as “nasty and tended toward chaos,” McConnell said in an interview earlier this week with NBC News in his Capitol Hill office.

[...]

“We lost support that we needed among independents and moderate Republicans, primarily related to the view they had of us as a party — largely made by the former president — that we were sort of nasty and tended toward chaos,” McConnell said.

  HuffPo

The Republicans didn't need Trump's help to be viewed as nasty. And Mitch has always been one of the nastiest. Maybe second only to Trump.

McConnell said he will no longer be cowed by Trump’s endorsements and vowed instead to “actively” seek “quality candidates” for 2024.

He'll be kowtowing to Trump just like all the other cowards if Trump is the nominee in 2024.

McConnell has been locked in a bitter feud with a vengeful Trump after having criticized his actions on Jan. 6, 2021 — and the relationship presents land mines for the GOP in 2024, particularly if Trump is its nominee. McConnell recognizes those land mines — he won't endorse in the presidential primary. He has suggested Trump cannot win the nomination again, but he kept the door open to backing him in the general election if he does.

  NBC

Yeah. Like I was saying.

McConnell had his own role in the GOP's underperformance this year. Using aggressive parliamentary tactics, he arguably played a larger role than anybody else in building the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which sparked a revolt among supporters of abortion rights when it overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June.

[...]

He conceded that the ruling “generated enthusiasm among Democrats, not surprisingly,” in the midterm election. But he said GOP turnout was “fine” and argued that abortion wasn’t the reason key independents and swing voters backed Democrats.

“They may have been ginned up some with their base,” McConnell said. But he insisted: “Our biggest problem was candidate quality.”

If he really believes that, he's going to continue losing.

..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Oh, now he's just TRYING to start a fight.

Don't look for Dems to change the pattern

The difference, however, is that Republicans would like to put it ALL in military and law enforcement.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.