Charges

[Shirley]

More gaslighting, great. If you don’t want me to feel the need to respond, then kindly refrain.

I maintain: I’m skeptical of pretty much everything, particularly when it comes to global politics and imperial aggression.

I don’t know what to say or how to respond when so many otherwise brilliant posters not only take, but with almost dogmatic conviction insist upon, the “WMDs in Iraq”-style narratives, no matter the evidence to suggest otherwise, with that face value you mention.

Not acknowledging that there are differences between the US involvement in Iraq and Ukraine is but one example of your casual relationship with reality, and the false premises and broad conflations your posts are so often composed of.

But I HAVE acknowledged that there are differences!

It’s just as much a concern, I think, to not acknowledge the similarities between the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Ukraine.

But, let’s face it, again: this discussion is futile…particularly in the Charges thread, of all places.

On the “casual relationship with reality” comment, do you mean to make me question my own reality here? False premises and broad conflations and all?

Now, I realize I’m like so totally super duper annoying. That’s much of why I’ve posted less and less here, particularly on the pols bored…not that anyone has noticed.

So if I may reiterate, AGAIN, how annoying it is for you guys to chase me around with the Putin parrot bullshit in every single fucking thread.

Kindly spare me, please!

But thanks, at least, for backpedaling from “you so often echo Vladimir” to “I didn’t mean to imply that Everything you post echoes Putin.” Let’s go glass half full and call that much…progress?

How about if, from now on, I start every post I make that's pro-Ukraine or anti-Putin/Russia with a disclaimer that acknowledges that the US has made foreign policy mistakes in the past, too?

We can pretend as if every one of us here who's been paying attention for any length of time doesn't already know that, but also knows that international relations is an inherently dirty business, and while we might not be perfect, there are numerous forces that would love to do the US harm if we don't stop them.

[Shirley]

"...None of this would have even blown up today if it weren’t for Shirley doubling down, once again, on the Putin parrot antagonisms, even though everyone knows how much it pisses me off. If you don’t want me reacting to shit like that, then don’t say shit that you know will get a reaction!

Unless, of course, your end game is to just talk shit and expect me to just take it on the chin, in which case, least admit that much, I guess?"

My bad, I only recently started reading and responding to your posts regularly again.

Lesson learned.


“I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
Winston Churchill

[DeletedUser]

If you don’t want me responding to you talking shit, then don’t talk shit in the first place!

Take it from me, that's not how this works.


But also take it from me, if you do some self reflection and stop thinking everyone else is the problem, it's not hard to get along with most people here.


Hell, even I have been getting along just fine with Plano and Trad. And they had even less of a reason to give me a second (twelfth?) chance than they do you.

You can turn this thing around for yourself.

[Sparko]

Experienced some American Carnage in Costco today. It was crazy busy and it took people 15 minutes to buy their freedom churros. The economy appears to be faking everyone out and allowing them to take their families shopping and enjoying the crap out of a saturday. Poor bastards. I bitched about the crowds while drinking mocha all the way home. Who will relieve us of all this damned prosperity if not Trump?

[jfish26]

Conman found liable for fraudulently inflating real estate values cannot find a bank or insurance company willing to extend credit secured by real estate

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/politics ... index.html

[Sparko]

Just wait until he sells his Truth Social holdings. Which should have zero value. But somehow found a buy-out partner willing to pump and dump the stock. SEC?

[jfish26]

I guess what cracks me up is that the whole thing sort of speaks for itself.

He needs a bond, because he self-evidently does not in fact have the cash.

He cannot get a bond, because either/both (1) the collateral he would need is already encumbered, and/or (2) the collateral he would need is self-evidently not worth enough for a bank or insurance company to take the risk of nonpayment.

[Sparko]

I guess what cracks me up is that the whole thing sort of speaks for itself.

He needs a bond, because he self-evidently does not in fact have the cash.

He cannot get a bond, because either/both (1) the collateral he would need is already encumbered, and/or (2) the collateral he would need is self-evidently not worth enough for a bank or insurance company to take the risk of nonpayment.

It would crack me up if his next grift wasn't already in place. His "stock" in Truth Social should be forfeited.

[Shirley]

Having a former and possible future commander in chief with a known history of involvement with our nation's enemies in desperate financial straights?

Problem? What problem? Nothing to see here.

"Why are there no...?" How much time do you have, Mark?

"Lend" ? "Lend" ?



Quality nominee, Republicans, can't thank you enough.

[jfish26]

All of this is much simpler, and much more complicated, than is being reported.

Simpler in that the facts here speak for themselves: Trump does not have $500mm in unencumbered assets. Vastly more likely than not, it means he is not a billionaire.

Complicated in that he likely cannot break off $500mm in assets from his existing suite of pledges…meaning he would have to sell EVERYTHING to pay his creditors in full.

There’s a non-zero chance he declares bankruptcy pretty soon (and if he does come up with a bond, I sure hope the NY-appointed monitors are in a position to understand and communicate to the court (and public) where it came from.)

[japhy]

I had to read that again, at first I figured it was something Stephen Colbert had written.

Comedy gold.

[jfish26]

Today in what a coincidence!:

March 18, 2024

This morning, Trump’s lawyers told a court that Trump cannot come up with either the money or a bond for the $454 million plus interest he owes in penalties and disgorgement after he and the Trump Organization were found guilty of fraud in a Manhattan court earlier this year. The lawyers say they have approached 30 different companies to back the bond, and they have all declined. They will not issue a bond without cash or stock behind it. Trump's real estate holdings, which are likely highly leveraged, aren’t enough.

Last year, Trump said under oath that he had “substantially in excess of 400 million in cash,” and that amount was “going up very substantially every month.” Apparently, that statement was a lie, or the money has evaporated, or Trump doesn’t want to use it to pay this court-ordered judgment on top of the $91.6 million bond he posted earlier this month in the second E. Jean Carroll case.

Timothy O’Brien of Bloomberg notes that Trump’s desperate need for cash makes him even more of a national security threat than his retention of classified documents made it clear he already was. “[T]he going is likely to get rough for Trump as this plays out,” O’Brien writes, “and he’s likely to become more financially desperate with each passing day,” making him “easy prey for interested lenders—and an easy mark for overseas interests eager to influence US policy.”

This morning, Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post reported that Trump is turning to his 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort to advise him in 2024. Dawsey notes that the campaign’s focus appears to be on the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, which suggests Trump’s people are concerned that his nomination will be contested. Manafort has been known as a “convention fixer” since 1976.

Manafort is also the key link between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. Manafort worked for many years for Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovich, who was closely tied to Russian president Vladimir Putin. When Ukrainians threw Yanukovich out of office in 2014, Manafort was left with large debts to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. In 2016, Manafort began to work for Trump’s campaign. An investigation by a Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee into the links between Trump’s campaign and Russia determined that Manafort had shared polling data from the Trump camp with his partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, who the senators assessed was a Russian operative.

In 2018, as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Manafort was found guilty of hiding millions of dollars he had received for lobbying on behalf of Yanukovych and his pro-Russian political party, then getting loans through false financial records when Yanukovych lost power. A judge sentenced him to more than seven years in prison.

Trump pardoned Manafort in December 2020, shortly after losing the presidential election.

[Sparko]

Manafort can get a number to make things "right." Seriously, Trump should be arrested for even suggesting the Russian operative return to the fold.

[jfish26]

Manafort can get a number to make things "right." Seriously, Trump should be arrested for even suggesting the Russian operative return to the fold.

The last several years are such a time-warp. When this came up, I thought to myself, when did he get out of prison, such that he can help Trump cheat again???

Of course, he got out of prison when Trump pardoned him.

[KUTradition]

#crookedhillary

[Shirley]

Manafort can get a number to make things "right." Seriously, Trump should be arrested for even suggesting the Russian operative return to the fold.

The last several years are such a time-warp. When this came up, I thought to myself, when did he get out of prison, such that he can help Trump cheat again???

Of course, he got out of prison when Trump pardoned him.

But in your defense, the fascist takeover is happening with such regularity, it can be hard to keep up.

[Shirley]

#crookedhillary

#lockherup

[jfish26]

#crookedhillary

Mueller's gift (expertly wrapped by Barr) just keeps on giving.

Entirely lost to history that Mueller established that Trump benefited from Russian interference, and that Mueller expressly said that if the facts supported exonerating Trump, his report would have so stated.

Instead, Barr's knowing mischaracterization of the report fuels the MAGA Russia, RUSSIA, RUSSIA!!! fire that still very much burns for 1/3 of the country. And it is all, obviously, highly-relevant now, where a vote for Trump is a vote for Putin.

[Shirley]

#crookedhillary

Mueller's gift (expertly wrapped by Barr) just keeps on giving.

Entirely lost to history that Mueller established that Trump benefited from Russian interference, and that Mueller expressly said that if the facts supported exonerating Trump, his report would have so stated.

Instead, Barr's knowing mischaracterization of the report fuels the MAGA Russia, RUSSIA, RUSSIA!!! fire that still very much burns for 1/3 of the country. And it is all, obviously, highly-relevant now, where a vote for Trump is a vote for ousdahl and Putin.

^^^

[japhy]

Peter Navarro is pissed. He thought he had absolute immunity, and then he fucked around and found out. He got fitted for his orange jumpsuit today.

Peter Navarro has apparently lost Fox News.

Reporting to federal prison on Tuesday after his last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court was denied, the former Trump White House adviser spoke to reporters before starting his four-month jail sentence for contempt of Congress. Fox News, meanwhile, took Navarro’s presser live just as he began speaking.

In typical Navarro fashion, the MAGA acolyte delivered a grievance-filled speech where he urged the media to report on the “bigger stories” related to his conviction, which he described as an “unprecedented assault on the constitutional separation of powers” and executive privilege.

“I’m asking you to fact-check everything I say today and write the bigger stories here, which I think are the important ones,” he bellowed. “Let’s talk about some facts here. I am the first senior White House adviser in the history of our republic that has ever been charged with this alleged crime.”

Moments later, just as the Donald Trump ally asserted that Congress couldn’t compel a presidential adviser to testify, Fox News anchor Sandra Smith cut away from his speech in order to take Navarro up on his fact-checking challenge.

“He began by saying ‘not about me.’ he said this was about a crippling blow to the justice system,” she stated. “To fact check there, it is no longer an alleged crime that he’ll be serving this four-month sentence for. He has obviously been convicted, and there was no evidence that would have excluded him, per executive privilege, from testifying.”

Smith continued: “So [Supreme Court Chief Justice] John Roberts, on Monday, refused to delay his prison time. He continues to appeal his conviction, Peter Navarro, for refusing to testify before Congress for his involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Seventy-four years old. Peter Navarro, on his way to prison.”