Politics

You Lying Son-of-a-Law

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Lost in the daily insanity of news out of Washington is the fact that Jared Kushner has made a habit of lying to the government. Over the past three years his company filed false documents with the city of New York over 80 times.

Jared  was trained by his father Charles Kushner, who, by the way, was convicted of crimes so serious that he actually spent over a year in jail. Here’s an example of the kind of people the Kushners are. Charles was pissed off at his sister’s husband for testifying against him, so he hired a hooker to seduce the brother in law and video taped the tryst to show it to his sister. What a guy.

This is the kind of family that Donald Trump’s daughter married into. High society swamp dwellers. Trump obviously approves, because he gave Jared top secret security clearance and made him a “Senior Advisor”.  Kushner is supposed to come up with a peace plan for the Middle East, but don’t be surprised if some of the parties don’t trust him and it fails. Like father, like son, like father-in-law.

Swampwater (gate)

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Before he became president, when he was still governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton and his wife were accused of being involved in a shady real estate deal. The story was that Bill pressured bankers to make unsound loans and lawyer Hillary was behind the slippery legal work that provided the whole thing with a veneer of probriety.

Dubbed ‘Whitewater’, the investigation took years and while neither Bill nor Hillary were ever charged with anything, most of the other people involved in the saga were convicted of crimes.

My how times have changed. Donald Trump’s recent intervention to protect his Washington DC hotel from competition is already old news. In case you missed it, the story goes like this: The FBI’s building is near a Trump hotel. The building is very run down and the FBI needs more space, so it was planning to move. Once it moved, the land could have been redeveloped as a hotel, which would compete with Trump’s.

Trump intervened in the process and now the FBI is pursuing a much more expensive solution. It involves partially staying put so the land cannot be redeveloped into a hotel that competes with Trump’s.

The Whitewater investigation went on for more than 3 years. Trump’s FBI influence was a story for about 3 days. There aren’t any Russians or porn stars involved (so far) to keep it in the news.

Which is good for Trump, because his supporters, who stick with him through almost anything, might actually be bothered by this kind of petty corruption. Even better for Trump is that his opponents are pretty inept at keeping his petty-theft swampiness in the news.

Trump’s opponents need someone who has a demonstrated ability to keep a story in the news and press Trump’s buttons, someone like Stormy Daniels’ lawyer. Maybe they should hire Michael Avenatti to sue Trump. At a minimum, the visibility might kill the FBI deal, costing the Trump Organization a bunch of money.

Thank You, Donald Trump

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

It probably isn’t how Donald Trump intended to ‘drain the swamp’ but it appears to be working anyway. Six of Trump’s swampy supporters have been convicted of crimes and several others have been charged.

As one of the jurors in Paul Manafort’s recent trial told Fox News, “(Manafort) wouldn’t have gotten caught if they weren’t after President Trump.” She is probably right.

Which is the sad part about the whole thing. Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were cheating, crooked businessmen operating in full view of Washington for years and never charged with a crime. Why did it take an association with Trump to finally get the authorities to pay attention to their misdeeds?

We owe Donald Trump a big ‘Thank You’ and huzzah for flushing out his swamp dwelling supporters. I think the huzzah goes something like this: “Lock them up. Lock them up. Lock them up”

Being Close To Trump Just Got More Dangerous

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Businessmen Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. Very close to Donald Trump. And how did that work out? The law came after them for corruption and the law won.

Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins. Very close to Donald Trump – some of his earliest supporters. And how did that work out? The law came after them for corruption and is likely to win.

Cabinet members Tom Price and Scott Pruitt. Very close to Donald Trump. And how did that work out? The press came after them for corruption and the press won.

Anyone see a pattern here? You can be sure that people close to Trump do. If you are corrupt, being close to Trump puts an unwelcome spotlight on you. Even if you aren’t, you may not like being associated with all of the shady behavior around you. It’s getting increasingly dangerous to be part of the Trump universe.

 

Mueller’s Real Strategy?

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago Donald Trump took to Twitter to defend his son, Don Jr. regarding a meeting with a Russian operative before the 2016 election. In doing so he contradicted his earlier tweets about the same meeting.

Maybe this is special counsel Robert Mueller’s real strategy. Get real close to Trump without actually touching him and wait for him to flinch. Mueller’s got Trump’s campaign manager, his personal lawyer, maybe his son (and son-in-law) and Trump gets nervous and tweets out something that basically says, “What I said earlier was a lie. Here’s the real story.”

It must be really agonizing for Trump to watch Mueller’s activities slowly play out, kind of a Chinese water torture. Tweeting may make Trump feel good, but I’m guessing Mueller feels even better.

The Inverse Red State / Blue State Climate Equation

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Some people wonder – how can anyone deny climate change? It is so obvious that the weather is getting warmer. Don’t the deniers ever go outside?

Here’s a map that might explain it, at least in the United States. It shows the deviation from the temperatures of 20-40 years ago. Red means that temperatures are hotter now than they were and blue means cooler (ignore the big circle on California).

HotRedColdBlue

People living in the middle of the country – the bluish ‘flyover states’ – aren’t really feeling the heat.

Now look at this map of the 2016 US presidential election results. Red states in the middle of the country went for Donald Trump.

2016RedBlue

The second map is a pretty close inverse of the first one. So when people say they don’t believe it is getting warmer, if they live in the middle of the country they are right. They aren’t getting warmer. And by the time they do get warmer, it will be too late to do anything about climate change.

American Woman, Stay Away From Me . . .

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump has it all: he’s rich, he’s famous, he’s tall and somewhat handsome and he has told us that he’s well-endowed.

So how come he couldn’t find an American woman to marry? It’s not quite an Eastern European mail order bride thing with him, but if there were a billionaire version, it might be.

Oh wait, one American woman married him. And we know how that turned out. She cheated on him.

Can Anything Dent Trump’s Support?

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Ever since he started campaigning for the presidency 4 years ago, Donald Trump has been able to count on the support of around 30-35% of the electorate. No matter what he did or was accused of, that support never wavered.

  • Extramarital sex with a porn star – no problem.
  • Senior members of his campaign team and his personal lawyer charged with illegal behavior – no problem
  • His former Secretary of State calls him a moron – no problem
  • He admits forcing himself on women and groping them – no problem.
  • Pissing off allies and sucking up to arch enemy Russia – no problem.

As Trump himself put it, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

The truth is that Trump is right. His base is so fed up with national politics that they are willing to overlook almost everything in order to keep Trump in power, kicking the establishment in the ass.

The one thing that might affect this support is visible corruption. The operative word is ‘visible’. China giving his daughter valuable trademarks is corrupt, but it does not affect the average American so it is invisible. But if there were potential conflicts of interest between Trump’s business and the welfare of American workers and Trump was exposed as coming down on the side of his business, it could, just could, affect his support.

If the Democrats take control of the House or Senate, they might decide to hold hearings to shine light on Trump’s possible conflicts and subpoena his tax returns, which cannot be good for him. Or Robert Mueller might expose corruption that deeply offends the average voter. Or Michael Cohen will flip and tell tales of the shady things he has done for Trump.

Trump’s support will never go to zero, but corruption is probably the only thing that can shave 5-10 points off of it.

 

 

Mar-a-Lago (Far) East

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know why everyone was surprised that Donald Trump showed North Korea’s Kim Jong Un a ‘propaganda’ video after their meeting earlier this month. Trump was just dusting off the sales technique that has worked so well for him in the past as a real estate developer.

Ask anyone that has been to a sales presentation for a vacation timeshare or condo. They are slicker than snot on a doorknob, using photos and videos to show you how sweet life would be if you would just sign up. If they weren’t that slick, people wouldn’t bite. Of course, once they sign up, many people find that the deal isn’t as sweet as they thought it would be.

Trump has been successful with slick sales presentations for years. He built his real estate career on it. And the sales technique worked over and over again. Wall Street bankers finally became immune to it, but that was only after being burned by Trump several times.

Trump is simply reverting to the persuasive tool he knows best. He is figuring that Kim is a greenhorn and will be wowed enough by the sales presentation to buy into Trump’s vision.

Maybe it will work and Kim will hire the Trump company to manage his new resorts and hotels. Or maybe Kim will see right through the slickness and play Trump right back. My bet is on the latter.