Wednesday Open Thread

Posted on October 3, 2018 by rikyrah

ICYMI

N.Y. tax agency weighs probe after report that Trump family built wealth through tax-avoidance schemes and fraud

By David Fahrenthold

The New York Times investigation contradicts the image President Trump has projected of himself for decades as a self-made billionaire. An attorney for Trump called the report “100 percent false, and highly defamatory.”

This entry was posted in Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

57 Responses to Wednesday Open Thread

  1. eliihass says:
    October 4, 2018 at 12:11 am

    Wow, fam! Just watched this again and it’s even more powerful and more relevant than ever… And takes on what’s happening with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford … Kavanaugh and the treasonous buffoon..

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3d-u9sRy6NA

    “…as citizens who think that our nation’s leaders should meet basic standards of human decency…

    This is not something that we can ignore. It’s not something we can just sweep under the rug as just another disturbing footnote in a sad season.This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior, and actually bragging about kissing and groping women..

    And to make matters worse, it now seems very clear that this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s one of countless examples of how he has treated women his whole life… The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman.

    We thought all of that was ancient history, didn’t we?

    ..this is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. And it doesn’t matter what party you belong to – Democrat, Republican, independent – no woman deserves to be treated this way..

    …this isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong.

    What message are our little girls hearing about who they should look like, how they should act? What lessons are they learning about their value as professionals, as human beings, about their dreams and aspirations?

    And how is this affecting men and boys in this country? Because I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women like this. And I know that my family is not unusual. And to dismiss this as everyday locker-room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.

    The men that you and I know don’t treat women this way. They are loving fathers who are sickened by the thought of their daughters being exposed to this.. They are husbands and brothers and sons who don’t tolerate women being demeaned and disrespected. And like us, these men are worried about the impact this is having on our boys who are looking for role models of what it means to be a man.

    Because let’s be very clear: strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful.

    …if we let Hillary’s opponent win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly OK… We’re telling our sons that it’s OK to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We’re telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country. Is that what we want for our children?

    And remember, we won’t just be setting a bad example for our kids, but for our entire world. Because for so long, America has been a model for countries across the globe, pushing them to educate their girls, insisting that they give more rights to their women. But if we have a president who routinely degrades women, who brags about sexually assaulting women, then how can we maintain our moral authority in the world? How can we continue to be a beacon of freedom and justice and human dignity?

    …the choice you make November 8 could determine whether we have a president who treats people with respect – or not.

    On November 8, we can show our children that here in America, we reject hatred and fear – and in difficult times, we don’t discard our highest ideals. No, we rise up to meet them. We rise up to perfect our union.

    Hope is important for our young people. And we deserve a president who can see those truths in us – a president who can bring us together and bring out the very best in us…”

    Reply
  2. eliihass says:
    October 3, 2018 at 10:26 pm

    Ben Sasse is just so full of it..

    Somebody tell that phony that unless he’s voting against Kavanaugh, and until we see him stand shoulder to shoulder with his Democratic colleagues to do what must be done – permanently eject from the People’s House, the treasonous buffoon and his grifting family and cohort, doing great, long-term damage to our democracy and union …nobody wants to hear or see Ben Sasse and his phony a*se, phony scolds and faux-high-mindedness..

    He doesn’t get to gleefully support, benefit from and fully participate in the neocon greed-debauchery – now ‘generously’ fueled and sustained by their partnership with a treasonous buffoon handed power by a hostile foreign entity… and at the same time do a 2-step trying to feign ‘disgust’ at their benefactor… Sick of his hollow gestures, fakery and self-promotion – and attempts to laughably have it both ways…trying to play to ‘progressives’ who think he’s one of the ‘better ones’….and because Scarborough and Mika told him he could be president..

    Reply
  3. eliihass says:
    October 3, 2018 at 6:41 pm

    Ugh..

    I can’t stand this awful alt-right stooge Kate Bolduan …always defers to right-wingers like that Louisiana country bumpkin ‘senator’ Kennedy, but always wants to ‘challenge’ Democratic Senators.. with her endlessly shallow and silly faux-‘gotchas’..

    Reply
  4. Ametia says:
    October 3, 2018 at 6:38 pm

    Pierce: This Vicious Buffoon Is a Vessel for All the Worst Elements of the American Condition
    his Vicious Buffoon Is a Vessel for All the Worst Elements of the American Condition
    Donald Trump, American president*, disgraces his office once more.

    BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
    OCT 3, 2018

    …This video captures perfectly where we are as a nation at this moment in history. It shows with startling clarity the end result of civic disengagement and democratic apathy. It shows without question that we have allowed our republic to fall into the hands of a sociopath whose feeling for his fellow human beings can be measured against a poker chip. It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the better angels of our nation have been sold out to anger, and greed, and stone hatred. It shows precisely the depths to which our fellow citizens will follow this bag of old and rancid sins. Some of those citizens know better. Some of them don’t. All of them are dangerous blockheads.

    Look at the man behind the seal of the President of the United States, mocking the recollections of a survivor of sexual assault. In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, “And we shall overcome.” I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh’s madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle of make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing “Amazing Grace” in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina. …

    And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House….

    Watch him make fun of the woman again. Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut the fuck up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don’t have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.

    Watch him again, behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn’t he a funny man? Isn’t what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now.

    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a23579738/donald-trump-mock-christine-blasey-ford-sexual-assault/

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      October 3, 2018 at 6:43 pm

      THIS: except the “WE”
      And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House….

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      October 3, 2018 at 8:02 pm

      As long as you have folks in the media endlessly propping a treasonous buffoonish fraud up with their mind-boggling exaggerated deference to him …and their now strangely excessive and groveling use of the respect-giving, gravitas-imbuing ‘p’ honorific to address a crooked, treasonous buffoon and poser, illegitimately occupying the People’s House …by the very same media folk who just a short while ago, had a hard time remembering to use that sacred honorific for the legitimate, twice-elected historic President..

      Same media folk who tsk-tsked, sneered and endlessly wagged their finger at the historic First Couple, are the very same ones endlessly passing out mulligans, glossing over, wiping slates clean, rebooting and aiding do-overs for the grifting Russian-installed impostors now wreaking damage on our union, democracy and country.. And world..

      They find his abusive cruelty ‘funny’… think his criminality ‘genius’… and his alarming decimation of norms and diplomatic partnerships, ‘amusing’.. and ‘bold’..

      The media endlessly prioritizes and caters to his supporters – who are in the minority – insisting that their racist, callous, wrong-headed opinions trumps all else… The media touts as ‘wins’, his lies and fake boasts …and frames his negatives in positive language …

      Like how Stephanie Ruhle (who’s pals with Gary Cohn etc, and has common friends and a back channel to the buffoon and his 3rd wife) at every turn, effusively declares and flatters the treasonous buffoon as a ‘branding and marketing genius’ …and a ‘fantastic salesman’… ‘the best’, she insists.. (how do you then go on to indict him for his crimes, after setting him up as ‘great’ in the minds of fickle America..?

      And Chris Matthews who is quite ‘tickled’ and awfully ‘impressed’ by the treasonous buffoon and his ‘bravado’ and ‘machismo’… and his ‘All-American-ness’ …read, white..

      Same Chris Matthews who went on a red-faced rant that time about how the Obamas weren’t sufficiently ‘grateful’ for the ‘privilege’ of being in the White House … Because they refused to endlessly tap-dance for their amusement..

      Or the many times Scarborough and co. …Mika, Barnicle, Sam Stein, Willie Geist et al are reduced to chuckles and attaboys whenever the buffoon tweets …And Scarborough goes on to tout the buffoon’s ‘astuteness’, ‘savvy’, ability to ‘slay his opponents’… Even as they fake-pretend to be ‘horrified’ ..

      I’ll never forget Willie mealy-mouth Geist, who’s now all so careful about what is said about the treasonous buffoon and his 3rd wife …I remember how he had absolutely no qualms going after my historic FLOTUS… calling her out and mocking her for something as ridiculous and random as a healthy pie recipe that was released – not by her or the White House – but by the USDA MyPlate website… One had to seriously go digging to find that recipe – a suggested healthy alternative to regular pies, to even know about it, little less faux-complain about it..

      But many of these folks in the media are no patriots …and are going to be our undoing.. It’s all a joke and a hustle for most.. just a whole bunch of self-interested, self-serving, hollow opportunists.. with varying levels of Alt-Right sensibilities.. And so most consciously and subconsciously root for and defend the treasonous buffoon and his Birther courtesan turned 3rd wife .. they’ll excuse and absolve them of their worst …And the buffoon knows it too …which is why he often boasts about how they ‘love and need’ him..

      Reply
  6. Ametia says:
    October 3, 2018 at 3:15 pm

    Kavanaugh is the Face of American Male Rage
    Men are being held accountable — and it has them mad as hell
    JESSICA VALENTI

    “They were laughing with each other,” she said through tears, “two friends having a really good time with one another.”

    A cruel irony of sexual assault and harassment is that the traumas which frequently determine the trajectory of women’s lives are just as often unremarkable to the men who have inflicted them.

    This is why, I suspect, these men become so shocked and enraged when they’re asked to answer for their actions: When they say “nothing happened,” it’s not just a denial — it’s that they truly believe the incident was not a big deal.

    Incredulous male rage has snowballed recently, rolling alongside the #MeToo movement at a steady pace and picking up steam over the last month. Men accused of being abusers are demanding back their coveted spots as comedians, writers, radio hosts and more. How dare women take them away to begin with!

    https://medium.com/s/jessica-valenti/kavanaugh-is-the-face-of-american-male-rage-eded62c5eda9?_branch_match_id=555130270431162997

    Reply
  7. eliihass says:
    October 3, 2018 at 2:11 pm

    Dems, beware..

    Whenever the media joins in to start pushing the faux-narrative about ‘polls tightening’ in races in Florida, Missouri, North Dakota etc… …usually by quoting dubiously right-leaning polling outfits, they’re only providing cover and setting the stage for the repugs and their Russian hacker friends, to once again steal elections by any means necessary..

    The repugs think they’re slick..

    They’re stealing elections not by dubiously obvious high numbers, but again and again, with dubiously ‘squeaked out finishes’ in so-called ‘close races’..

    It’s all meant to look ‘unsuspicious’ so as not to raise questions in the end.. but it’s all a ruse to steal elections without push-back or disputes about it… and a-holes like Scarborough help set the stage again and again with their ‘oh, look, it’s all tied now…it’s anybody’s to win now’ fakery..

    Beware..

    Reply
  8. Ametia says:
    October 3, 2018 at 1:16 pm

    Last I checked, Grassley, you don’t work for the FBI

    Grassley Demands That Blasey Ford’s Lawyers Provide More Evidence

    Source: Talking Points Memo

    By Kate Riga
    October 3, 2018 10:15 am

    In a strongly worded letter, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) demanded that professor Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers provide the committee with more evidence — including notes from therapy and polygraph documents — in light of her ex-boyfriend’s claims.

    The ex-boyfriend in question, who is keeping anonymous, tried to cast doubt on Blasey Ford’s testimony in a number of ways, including saying that she had in her past “explained in detail what to expect, how polygraphs worked, and helped [a friend] become familiar and less nervous about the exam.”

    Blasey Ford said during her testimony that she has never given any “tips” or “advice” to anyone taking a polygraph test.

    In his letter, Grassley said that the different accounts raise “specific concerns about the reliability of her polygraph results.”

    Grassley is also requesting the notes from couples therapy Blasey Ford was in with her husband in 2012, during which he says she talked about the alleged assault. Blasey Ford’s lawyers have reportedly held the notes back due to the “highly sensitive” nature of the information.

    Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/grassley-demands-blasey-ford-lawyers-provide-more-evidence

    https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_153859055056512&key=b716156ab5ecd7182fdbf9e72d749dcb&libId=jmth25v70100deno000DAcva5n8x7&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F10142171391&v=1&out=https%3A%2F%2Ftalkingpointsmemo.com%2Fnews%2Fgrassley-demands-blasey-ford-lawyers-provide-more-evidence&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F&title=Grassley%20Demands%20That%20Blasey%20Ford%27s%20Lawyers%20Provide%20More%20Evidence%20-%20Democratic%20Underground&txt=https%3A%2F%2Ftalkingpointsmemo.com%2Fnews%2Fgrassley-demands-blasey-ford-lawyers-provide-more-evidence

    Reply
  14. SouthernGirl2 says:
    October 3, 2018 at 9:36 am

    How did they get away with this for so long? How is it their crimes are just coming to light? Authorities dropped the ball here. Jamycheal Mitchell, a Black man was jailed for a $5 theft & died in jail but this fraud went untouched for years & is now in the Oval Office. #Amerikkka

    https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/1047318176671956992

    Reply
  17. rikyrah says:
    October 3, 2018 at 9:15 am

    New hacking case referred to Robert Mueller investigation

    Rachel Maddow looks at a report of a surprise referral of an FBI investigation into the hacking of a Republican operative to Robert Mueller’s Trump Russia investigation.

    Reply
  18. rikyrah says:
    October 3, 2018 at 9:06 am

    The other Fredo rears his Odo-like head

    Remember Trump-Russia? Remember treason?

    We may have forgotten in the maelstrom of Bart Kavanaugh news. But you know who hasn’t forgotten? That’s right, Bobby Three Sticks.

    And remember Eric Trump? For the most part he’s kept his head down, not being as much of a target as his brother Don Jr. But today, a story in the Wall Street Journal brought the other Fredo back onto center stage.

    President Trump personally directed an effort in February to stop Stormy Daniels from publicly describing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, people familiar with the events say.

    In a phone call, Mr. Trump instructed his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to seek a restraining order against the former adult-film actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, through a confidential arbitration proceeding, one of the people said. Messrs. Trump and Cohen had learned shortly before that Ms. Clifford was considering giving a media interview about her alleged relationship with Mr. Trump, despite having signed an October 2016 nondisclosure agreement.

    Mr. Trump told Mr. Cohen to coordinate the legal response with Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, and another outside lawyer who had represented Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization in other matters, the people said. Eric Trump, who is running the company with his brother in Mr. Trump’s absence, then tasked a Trump Organization staff attorney in California with signing off on the arbitration paperwork, these people said.

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    October 3, 2018 at 8:10 am

    Get the ENTIRE PHUCK OUTTA HERE 😠 😠

    44 and Forever FLOTUS 😍 😍 can earn as much money as they want.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-10-02/michelle-obama-book-she-and-barack-shouldn-t-get-too-rich

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      October 3, 2018 at 9:55 am

      There’s an unscrupulous, endlessly grifting, crooked Russian-installed-and-beholden treasonous buffoon currently squatting in the People’s House and together with his family and enablers and cohort, running a massive scam at the expense of the American taxpayer right before the eyes of the world…And instead of working to stop him, folks are too busy actively cheering, covering for, and aiding and enabling him – while insultingly and obsessively rifling through the Obamas’ wallet and bank account as they go about as private citizens, honestly making a living to fund the good work of their foundation for the long-term..

      Reply
  33. Ametia says:
    October 3, 2018 at 8:03 am

    Word of the Day : October 3, 2018

    Weltschmerz: noun VELT-shmairts

    Definition
    1 often capitalized Weltschmerz : mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state

    2 often capitalized Weltschmerz : a mood of sentimental sadness

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/weltschmerz-2018-10-03?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=w&file=weltsc01&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=wotd&utm_content=pron

    Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    October 3, 2018 at 8:01 am

    Good Morning Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply
  36. Ametia says:
    October 3, 2018 at 8:01 am

    Happy HUMP Day, Everyone.

    Reply

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