Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

On the one hand, there's Hunter Biden. On the other hand, we have a whole White House chock full of grifters. Grifting is just another evil endorsed by Republicans, for Republicans anyway.

The whole Hunter Biden thing is a Karl Rove-style move; accuse your opponent of that which you yourself are guilty. It doesn't matter if your opponent is guilty of anything or not. The object is to divert the media and public attention from what you are guilty of. Hey, look over there! It's a lot like the swift-boating of John Kerry. Kerry served in Viet Nam while Rove's man Bush was AWOL, snorting coke off of the butts of whores on Bourbon Street. It works because we have a complicit media with right wing sympathies, and, a very gullible public with low intelligence, no critical thinking ability, and a short attention span.

Newt Gingrich was another one; pointing at Bill Clinton's affair while he was having his own, cheating on his wife as she lay in a hospital suffering from cancer. It's what Republicans call character.

Be careful what you wish for, Republicans.

America's Royal Family From Hell

I think of Rick Wilson as one of the MSNBC resident #NeverTrumpers who wants to push the Democratic Party far right enough-- it's almost there-- to be the pre-Trump Republican Party. He and Jim Messina could start a transpartisan status quo firm. Messia, who worked for anti-healthcare fanatic Max Baucus and other conservative Democrats, was the "brains" behind Brexit, was Theresa May's and David Cameron's political consultant. Wilson, a protege of Lee Atwater, has worked for Dick Cheney, George HW Bush, Connie Mack, Rudy Giuliani, Saxby Chambliss, John McCain and half the Republicans who ever wished didn't exist.

Unlike Messina, Wilson also has a career in standup comedy. He has a get-- or idiotic-- bit he does on a Trump dynasty featuring Don, Jr. that's in his new book, Running Against the Devil. Short version: you'll be yearning for Don, Sr. if Jr ever gets into the White House. Impossible? Was Trump possible?

Eight years of Trump sucks, right? It’s terrible, isn’t it? I mean, it can’t get worse, right?

Right?

Oh, you cockeyed optimists.

As in all things Trump, it can get much, much worse. If he wins in 2020, we’re never getting rid of these dolts. Even if shit goes really, really off the rails, Immortan Don and the rest of his Mad Max crew will still be racing around the desert far into the future.

A second term guarantees the rise of the Imperial Trumps, a family cult built on the remains of the moldering corpse of the GOP, featuring all the warmth of North Korea’s Kim dynasty and a kind of Hapsburg-jawed je ne sais dumbfuck rien.

The fantasy self-image of Donald Trump has always been that of royalty, and as I wrote in Everything Trump Touches Dies, it’s just that pesky Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution that forbids titles of nobility. Since he’s not, you know, famously dedicated to the Constitution in most areas, why this one?

Get ready for Donald Trump Jr., a man who speaks the fluent asshole dialogue of the own-the-libs Trump Party, to rise to the top of the 2024 GOP primary ranks. The dynastic talk that was once treated as a joke (even by me) is already growing around both Don Jr. and Ivanka. Poor Eric is left out, but then again, he always has been.

The Trump family-- including the creepy automaton Jared Kushner-- will continue to view the American government not as a sacred trust but as an ATM for their crapulous enterprises and nation-state-level grifting. While Kushner’s ambitions don’t appear to be especially political, his exploitation of his high office as Grand Vizier to Emir Donald has been spectacularly profitable for his companies. As for Trump personally, his hotels, golf courses, and clubs were miraculously both popular and profitable for unknown reasons. (Pardon me while I recover from that epic eye-roll.)

By the fall of 2019, it was clear that Trump had even managed to suborn the military into spending money that benefited his resorts and golf clubs when stories broke of Air Force cargo flights to the Middle East making unusual stops at his golf resort in Scotland for hotel accommodations and fuel.

The ambition that drives the Trump spawn these days is powerful, and the corruption and collapse of the GOP as a party will enable their dynastic fantasies to play out with real consequences for the country. The Orange Kardashians will have the brand power of Trump, as well as the shameless hucksterism of Fox and the degraded conservative media, behind them. Mark my words, even the “respectable” elements of the conservative media will soon be producing think pieces on why Don Jr. is the bridge from raw Trumpism to a smoother, smarter populist nationalism.

As for Mike Pence, who briefly held out a secret hope that he would be the heir to the Trump movement by combining his adoring gaze, talent for bootlicking, and slavish Donald über Alles suck-uppery, well, Trump treated Pence like any other wife or business partner and has already signaled he’s going to fuck him, and not in his usual two-pump-chump way. When asked if Pence would follow him as president, it would have cost Trump nothing politically to shout out his VP, but he punted. Loyalty is an alien concept to Trump, except to his own progeny.

Ivanka, though never accepted in Washington, still hopes to shape an image of the smart, Aspen- and TED-Talk-friendly modern technocrat who just happens to be the daughter of the warlord. I once had a “serious journalist” with robust access to the Trumps tell me, “She stops so many bad things. She’s a net positive.” Bro. Just because Ivanka calls you and says, “I’m stopping bad things” doesn’t make it so, but like her father, she knows how easily duped the media can be.

Installing Ivanka and her android husband, Jared, in the White House was already the greatest display of nepotism in presidential history, but by the summer of 2019, Jared and Ivanka had become the awkward party guests at events like the Tokyo G20 meeting. Trump’s work to frame Ivanka as the First Princess led him to include her in event after event with world leaders, to incredibly awkward effect. It wasn’t the first time he’d thrust his groomed but talentless daughter into the spotlight, but it was one of the most embarrassing.

Her presence was deeply unwelcome at a number of events where she tried to run with the big dogs of world affairs, sparking an #UnwantedIvanka hashtag that ran wild on social media. She drew grumbles and cold shoulders from other world leaders offended that the adult child of a reality-star president was treating them as props in the drama of her personal ambitions.

Trump made sure that his then national security advisor, John Bolton, was exiled to Mongolia during Kim Jong Don’s surprise visit to see his bestie Kim Jong-un. Apparently, though, it was Take Your Daughter to See a Nuke-Curious Genocidal Madman Who Starves His People and Tricks the President of the United States Over and Over Again Day. Trump brought Ivanka to Korea with him because of course he did.

Don Jr. might as well have a Pepe back tattoo, given how beloved he is by the alt-right and how frequently he boosts the social-media posts of the assorted race-war flotsam that follows his father. He’s already teased about running for governor of New York or mayor of New York City, but a better bet will be a quickie relocation to Montana or some other state, at least nominally, before he launches his political career. Junior has spent a lot of time on the campaign trail and has learned the ropes. Expect to see him at the center of the Trump efforts in 2020 and as a constant presence on social media.

Lucky us.

Even Eric the Wide-Gummed and Tiffany have been dragged along for some of the high-profile state visits and glam events. Trump wants to maximize the reach of the brand, even for the children he loves the least. This is how real dynastic politics come to America, not with a bang but a reality show. For the Trumps, it’ll be easy-- with the rigid control of the GOP this president exercises, there will be none of those pesky primary elections the Bushes and even the Kennedys had to endure.

Yes, the Imperial Trumps are here to stay. Get ready for four years of the right-wing press writing strained profiles of the Strange New Respect that Ivanka is generating among conservatives, and how the first woman Republican president might not be Nikki Haley but rather the deceptively smart and successful fashion icon supermom Ivanka Trump, who is surprisingly down-to-earth. They’ll “discover” she has an easy, self-deprecating sense of humor.

She’ll even appear on Colbert or (again) SNL, poking fun at her image, and even-- just a bit-- at her famous father. Even skeptical conservative media will find themselves drawn to how the Princess Royal now represents the Trump nationalism without the rough edges and ugly tweets.

One other factor about the soon-to-be endless presence of Trumps in our lives: They’re breeding like rabbits, so if we don’t play our cards right now, they’ll have enough offspring to get a majority in the U.S. Senate before long.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Having worked in the corporate world in my career, I've seen more than my fair share of bubble-headed idiots who got their job only because a successful daddy pulled some favors or asserted some power and got the job for them. Once in whatever the business is, they just trade on daddy's name and launch some sort of income stream. Failing that, these types usually glom on to someone else's earlier success and claim it as their own, often doing interview after interview to claim credit. The bigger the lie, the more it sticks in the minds of those who don't know better. The worst of these headcases go so far as to even hire a press flak who is willing to push any mound of bullshit if the money's good enough. In almost every case, the bubblehead wears out his or her welcome pretty quickly due to a combination of having cloaked their insecurities in extreme arrogance and not being up to the job. The ones that I have personally witnessed have always achieved one thing though (aside form having almost as many failed marriages as work failures); they have continuously inspired their co-workers to new heights when it comes to making jokes about them behind their backs.

In the case of the subject of tonight's meme, Ivanka Trump is as public on a wide scale as it gets. With that comes more more jokes; some behind her back but more right out in the open. On the flipside, there also comes more time and more arrogance. It's the same with her Beavis & Butthead brothers. I, for one, look forward to a time when daddy isn't around anymore, having left the scene via whatever manner the fates have chosen. History shows that life might not be so easy for the princess and the princes when the reason for people to be nice to her isn't around anymore. Don't worry Ivanka, you and Jared (if he's still around) can always move to Saudi Arabia. Hope you like the climate.

Of Course Trump's Family Is More Disgusting-- But, Sorry, That Doesn't Excuse Biden's Family Corruption

I was happy to see a George Washington University Politics Poll Tuesday morning showing Biden cratering. The two progressives in the race are tremendously outpacing the 3 corporate Dems still in contention:

• Elizabeth Warren- 28%
• Bernie- 21%
• Status Quo Joe- 18%
• Mayo Pete- 5%
• Kamala- 5%

I'd like to think it's all about the platforms the various candidates are running on. Bernie and Elizabeth are, for example, vigorously backing Medicare-for-All. Biden, Buttigieg and Kamala all oppose it with foolish pretend-plans that would cripple it in birth. But I think it's not just policy. It's also the hit Biden has taken, particularly among independent voters, because of the swampy nature of his disgusting Trump-like family. The repulsive Biden family-- and not just Hunter-- have traded on Joe Biden's elected positions to bring millions of dollars into the family coffers.

Neither Biden nor Trump have anything to offer the American people and would just as soon fight an election over which one lies more, which one is less incapacitated by the onset of senility and which one has a less disgusting and corrupt family. Hunter Biden attempted-- and failed, of course-- to paint a pretty picture of his own legalistic corruption in a disastrous interview with ABC News’ Amy Robach.

“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part. Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don't believe now, when I look back on it-- I know that there was-- did nothing wrong at all," said Biden. However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is...a swamp in-- in-- in many ways? Yeah.”

"I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That's where I made the mistake," Hunter Biden told ABC News in an exclusive interview. "So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever."

"Did I make a mistake? Well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah," he said, again referring to fallout from his overseas business. "But did I make a mistake based upon some ethical lapse? Absolutely not."

Biden said, "I take-- full responsibility for that. Do I-- did I do anything improper? No, and not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever. I joined a board, I served honorably. I did-- I focused on corporate governance. I didn't have any discussions with my father before or after I joined the board as it related to it, other than that brief exchange that we had."

Even so, the 49-year-old has maintained a low profile in recent months as the president and his allies have targeted Hunter Biden for his professional endeavors in Ukraine and China.

...Hunter Biden reiterated that he never discussed his foreign business dealings with his father, and made it clear he has no interest in becoming a political football as congressional Democrats haul witnesses in for depositions as part of their impeachment proceedings.

"I'll let Congress handle that," he said. "And I'll let you guys in the media handle that. And I'll let my dad's campaign handle that. And the only thing that I'm looking to handle is to make certain that I get up every day and do the next right thing. And that really is the way that I've been trying to live my life."

Despite his desire to stay out of the spotlight, ethics experts told ABC News that Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian oil and gas company called Burisma, while his father fronted U.S. foreign policy toward Kyiv, could present an ethical conundrum-- an allegation Hunter fervently disputed.

Biden spoke with conviction when asked about how much information he shared with his father and even whether he was qualified.

“[My father] read the press reports that I'd joined the board of Burisma which was a Ukrainian natural gas company. And there's been a lot of misinformation about me, not about my dad. Nobody buys Dad. But-- by this idea that I was unqualified to be on the board,” said Biden.

“I was vice chairman of the board of Amtrak for five years,” he continued. “I was the chairman of the board of the U.N. World Food Program. I was a lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the most prestigious law firms in-- in the world.”

“I think that I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on the board-- if not more.”

Even so, on Sunday the Biden campaign released details of a proposed government ethics plan, which included a stipulation designed to "rein in executive branch financial conflicts of interest"-- an apparent response to allegations lodged against the Biden family. And while he cited being a lawyer at a prominent firm and his record serving on several boards as qualifications for the job, in his interview with ABC News, Hunter Biden acknowledged that his last name likely played a role in his Burisma board appointment.

"If your last name wasn't Biden," Robach asked, "do you think you would've been asked to be on the board of Burisma?"

"I don't know. I don't know. Probably not, in retrospect," he said. "But that's-- you know-- I don't think that there's a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn't Biden."

“Because my dad was Vice President of the United States. There's literally nothing, as a young man or as a full grown adult that-- my father in some way hasn't had influence over. It does not serve either one of us,” Biden continued.

On the same day the Biden campaign rolled out their government ethics plan, a lawyer for Hunter Biden announced that his client would step down from the board of directors of a Chinese-backed private equity company by the end of this month-- and commit to halting all work with foreign entities if his father wins the White House in 2020.

"I'm taking it off the table, Amy," Hunter Biden said of his decision to step away from any foreign businesses. "I'm making that commitment. Let’s see if anybody else makes that commitment. But that's the commitment that I'm making." “Look, I'm a private citizen,” he said. "One thing that I don't have to do is sit here and open my kimono as it relates to how much money I make or make or did or didn't. But it's all been reported.”

In a press conference over the weekend, Joe Biden said the decision "represents the kind of man of integrity [Hunter] is."

Well, I'm afraid that Biden is right there... the whole thing shows exactly what kind of integrity Hunter and the Biden family have been brought up in. They're defending all this because they have no choice if Biden Sr. is going to claw his way into the nomination, which they see slipping from his grasp, a blow to a family that aspires to be billionaires, not just mere millionaires. Meanwhile, predictably, Señor Trumpanzee "took the opportunity to recast the decision as Hunter 'being forced to leave a Chinese Company.' ... 'The Biden family was PAID OFF, pure and simple!' Trump tweeted earlier this month, echoing an accusation raised by his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The president and his allies have accused Hunter Biden of banking $1.5 billion from the joint investment firm, a figure Hunter Biden called 'crazy' and 'has no basis in fact in any way.' Reports at the time indicated Hunter Biden's firm sought to raise $1.5 billion from the deal-- not that either he or his firm pocketed $1.5 billion from the deal." This is exactly how Trump can win reelection-- fighting over the swamp, not policies that could help ordinary American family. It's why Biden is the candidate he talks about most-- and in so doing encourages Trump-hating Democrats to support him. Trump wouldn't stand a chance against Bernie or against Elizabeth Warren. He'd wipe the floor with Biden. This is his kind of battle:

"They feel like they have the license to go out and say whatever they want," Hunter Biden said. "It's insane to even -- it feels to me like living in some kind of, you know, "Alice in Wonderland," where you're up on the real world and then you fall down the rabbit hole, and, you know, the president's the Cheshire Cat asking you questions about crazy things that don't bear any resemblance to the reality of anything that has to do with me."

Despite Hunter Biden’s dismissal of the $1.5 billion figure attached to his investment in the firm, ethics experts have said his connection with the Chinese-based corporation again raises the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest, particularly in light of the fact that Hunter Biden flew with his father to Beijing aboard Air Force Two in 2013-- around the time the deal was negotiated.

"I've traveled everywhere with my dad," Hunter said. "And I went [to China in 2013] because my daughter was on the trip too."

Hunter Biden’s lawyer said he has yet to receive a financial return on investment, adding that he only became a minority stakeholder in the company in October 2017-- after Joe Biden was no longer vice president. Prior to then, he served as an unpaid director.

Again, Hunter Biden insists he never spoke of his professional dealings with his father on the 13-hour flight. And while he insists he did not engage in any business during the visit, he told the New Yorker in July that he did meet with a business partner, Jonathan Li, and even organized Li to shake hands with his father.

Asked about that interaction, Hunter Biden said he could not remember it specifically, but said he "probably" introduced them, and in fact "hoped" he had-- adding that he had been friends with Li for 13 years.

"Whether I'm in New York, or whether I'm in Washington, D.C., or whether I'm on the campaign trail in Nevada, or whether I am in Iowa with him-- [and] a friend and a business associate is in the hotel, and my dad's staying there-- is it inappropriate for me to have coffee with him?" Biden asked rhetorically.

Robach pressed the matter, though, asking Hunter what he would say to those "who believe this is exactly why people hate Washington."

"I don't know what to tell you. I made a mistake in retrospect as it related to creating any perception that that was wrong," Hunter Biden said. "My dad has never made a decision about anything, I'm absolutely certain, taking into account anything other than what is best for the American people and what the people that elected him to do. I am 100% certain of that."

...The president is not the only Trump family member to target the Bidens. At a campaign rally, Eric Trump, the president’s son, led a chant of "lock him up," referring to Hunter Biden. In response, Hunter called the Trumps "irrelevant," adding that he does not spend time thinking about them.

“Unlike them, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about them. I really don't. It's all noise. And what they do is they create just an enormous amount of noise. I have to then answer questions-- about accusations made by probably the most unethical group of people that we've ever seen in this republic," Biden said.

"They'll never understand the level for how much I love my dad and how much he loves me," he said, adding later, "They're out of a B movie. I mean, they really are." “I've been through some sh-- stuff in my life. I've been through some real, real stuff. This isn't real stuff. It isn't. It truly isn't. That part of it, that Barnum and Bailey-- you know, say anything, do anything you want, you know, I mean, like, you know, Donald Prince Humperdinck-- Trump Jr. is not somebody that I really care about,” said Biden.

Hunter Biden likened the president to a bully, and said, "I don't feed bullies." In another jab at Trump, Hunter Biden told Robach he takes "no pleasure in this as watching this death spiral of this administration-- this president and the people that surround him."

Coincidentally, the other side of this hideous equation was painted at GQ this week by Jay Willis in an essay-- How Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump Have Profited Off Their Dad's Presidency. Short version refers to the Godzilla vs Mother battle with the Bidens: "No one knows a “clear conflict of interest” when they see it better than the president's children."

Setting aside the alternative facts underlying the Trump kids’ criticisms, however, their decision to wade into this controversy is notable for a different reason: During their father’s tenure as president, Don Jr. and Eric have repeatedly managed to cash in on their newfound positions of political privilege in their business dealings. So, too, have their sister Ivanka and brother-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom hold senior positions in the administration and whose companies and investment portfolios netted them anywhere between $29 million and $135 million last year, per their financial disclosure forms. Here are some of the highlights of when the family's business intertwining with government affairs constituted the “appearance of impropriety” and “conflict of interest.”

The real estate sales

Days before his inauguration in 2016, Donald Trump announced that he had given “complete and total” control of the Trump Organization to Don Jr. and Eric. In doing so, he dismissed critics who called on him to place his assets in a blind trust, arguing that transferring control to immediate family was sufficient to address any conflict-of-interest concerns. “No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office,” he promised.

Since then, Forbes says, the brothers have sold off more than $100 million worth of Trump Organization real estate. That figure includes a $33 million sale of the company’s stake in a federally subsidized housing complex-- a transaction Secretary of House & Urban Development Ben Carson had to approve-- and a $3.2 million sale of land in the Dominican Republic last year, which Forbes called “the clearest violation of their father’s pledge to do no new foreign deals while in office.” Taxpayers cover the security costs of each business trip the pair makes-- in the first two months of 2017 alone that included $97,830 for a trip to Uruguay, $53,155.25 for a trip to Vancouver, and $16,738.36 for a trip to Dubai, according to NBC News.

In February 2017, the Trump Organization unloaded a $15.8 million Trump Park Avenue penthouse-- a home formerly occupied by Jared and Ivanka-- to Angela Chen, who runs a consulting firm with ties to Chinese government officials and (allegedly) Chinese military intelligence, says Mother Jones. A Forbes analysis found that this price was 13 percent more than that paid for a comparable unit a year earlier, and that it sold at a time when the building’s other units, on average, were selling for 25 percent less.

The disappearing anti-nepotism laws

When news of Jared and Ivanka’s White House employment broke, observers noted the hirings appeared to be clear violations of federal anti-nepotism laws. Kushner, the heir to a mid-Atlantic real estate empire, had no experience that would qualify him for the many tasks to which his father-in-law would assign him: solving the opioid crisis, handling Middle East peace negotiations, modernizing the federal government, and reforming America’s criminal justice system.

On Inauguration Day, however, the Department of Justice released an opinion concluding that the statute does not apply to White House staff, allowing Kushner’s employment to go forward. When intelligence officials held up his application for a top-secret security clearance-- a delay due in part, the New York Times reported, to concerns about Kushner’s foreign business interests-- his place in the administration, theoretically, was in jeopardy. His father-in-law stepped in, though, overruling the officials and ordering then-chief of staff John Kelly to issue Kushner a clearance anyway. Ivanka's résumé was similarly thin for someone taking on a senior West Wing position—a fashion designer, Trump Organization executive, and sometimes-judge on The Apprentice. She also experienced delays in her attempts to obtain a security clearance, and she was also the beneficiary of some timely presidential intervention: According to CNN, Trump pressured both Kelly and then White House counsel Don McGahn to make decisions on Ivanka's clearance "so it did not appear as if he was tainting the process to favor his family." When Kelly and McGahn refused, Trump went ahead and approved his daughter's clearance himself.

Weeks before the CNN story broke, Ivanka told ABC News that she and her husband had "absolutely not" received special treatment from her father during the approval process. "The president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband's clearance. Zero," she said.

The intellectual property in China

Both Jared and Ivanka, who took a “formal leave of absence” from her eponymous fashion label to serve in her father’s White House, have taken full advantage of the benefits of their new jobs. In April, on the same day she and Kushner sat next to Chinese president Xi Jinping at a White House state dinner, the Chinese government gave its conditional approval for three trademarks granting Ivanka what the AP called “monopoly rights” to sell Ivanka-branded jewelry, bags, and spa services. China approved two more rounds of trademarks in May and June, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan government watchdog.

In mid-2018, Ivanka shuttered her clothing brand altogether, citing a desire to focus on her work in Washington. However, she has since continued to seek potentially lucrative trademarks in China, leaving open the possibility that she could return to the brand after her time in public service concludes. (“As the daughter of the U.S. President, Ivanka Trump has an initial advantage of publicity,” Chinese designer Yang Mei explained to TIME in 2017.) Last fall, in the midst of her father’s trade war with China and his efforts to strike a new trade agreement between the two global superpowers, she won initial approval for 16 trademarks, and added five more to her portfolio earlier this year.

The free advertising

While the company was still active, Ivanka wasn’t shy about using the spotlight that comes with being the president’s daughter to goose sales of Ivanka-branded apparel and accessories. Journalists received a press release promoting a gold bracelet—starting at $8,800 and up to $10,800-- that she wore during a 60 Minutes interview in November 2016. A few months later, Ivanka Trump’s entire line received an enthusiastic on-air endorsement from Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, who called the clothing “wonderful” and urged Fox & Friends viewers to “go buy it today.” The White House said it “counseled” Conway in response.

After Ivanka wrapped a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention where her father officially became the party’s presidential nominee, she tweeted a link inviting followers to “shop Ivanka’s look”: a pink Ivanka-branded dress that retailed for $138. It sold out within hours.

The miraculous Kushner bailout

For years, 666 Fifth Avenue was the most vexing line-item on the Kushner real estate ledger-- a Midtown skyscraper purchased for $1.8 billion, most of which the family borrowed, right before the 2008 recession. A mammoth mortgage of about $1.4 billion was due in February of this year, leading to speculation throughout Jared’s time in the West Wing about how, exactly, the Kushner family would come up with the cash. Multiple foreign governments seized on this uncertainty, privately discussing ways to take advantage of his business entanglements and financial difficulties when dealing with the United States, the Washington Post reported.

In April 2017, a real estate firm tied to the Kushner family made a direct appeal to the government of Qatar to invest in the troubled building, The Intercept reported. A month later, when a coalition of Persian Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates organized a blockade of Qatar, Kushner was among its most vocal U.S. supporters. According to NBC News, some Qatari officials believed the White House’s position was retaliation for their government’s decision not to make a deal with Kushner’s family. In the months that followed, Kushner developed a close working relationship with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman-- close enough that bin Salman allegedly told confidants that the president’s son-in-law was “in his pocket.”

Fortunately, help for the Kushner family’s financial woes subsequently arrived in the form of Brookfield Asset Management, which acquired a 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Avenue for about $1 billion in April 2018. This miraculous timing allowed the Kushners to pay off its existing mortgage and buy out its partner in the venture, Vornado Realty Trust. The buyer was a semi-familiar face in this drama: One of Brookfield Asset Management’s largest investors is the government of Qatar. Both Brookfield and Qatar claimed that Qatar had no advance warning that its money would be bailing out the president’s son-in-law.

The real estate investments

In June, The Guardian reported that Cadre, a real estate investment company owned in part by Kushner, has taken in some $90 million in offshore funding via an ominously-described “opaque offshore vehicle” in the Cayman Islands since he joined the White House. Some of the money, The Guardian says, came from other tax shelters; some of it came from unidentified sources in-- you guessed it-- Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, as my colleague Luke Darby noted at the time, although Kushner has purportedly recused himself from decisions affecting real estate policy, Ivanka has done no such thing. The president’s daughter was instrumental in the effort to include in the 2017 tax reform bill an “Opportunity Zones” program, which extends lucrative tax breaks to rich people who invest capital in designated less-developed areas. According to the AP, Cadre is raising funds from investors to build Opportunity Zone projects, and the Kushner family already owns at least 13 properties in opportunity zones that could qualify for special tax treatment.

The golf course deals

Last month, in the midst of Trump’s Ukraine scandal and mere hours after Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted that the president’s sons “stopped doing international business deals” when he became president, one of the president's sons hopped on Twitter to celebrate a new international business deal at a Trump golf course in Scotland.

The agreement will allow the Trumps to build 550 new homes in the area, along with a second 18-hole course in the same development. It is a fortunate break for the Trump-owned resort, which finished its seventh straight year in the red in 2018, according to The Independent.

The stakes in Trump hotels

Just down the road from the White House is the Trump International Hotel, located in D.C.’s Old Post Office building leased in 2013 to one of Donald Trump’s holding companies for development as a luxury hotel. It is a federally-owned building on the National Register of Historic Places, which means the president is, in a manner of speaking, now acting as his own landlord on the lease. The property has become notorious for attracting members of Congress, lobbyists, Cabinet officials, interest groups, foreign heads of state, and anyone else looking to curry the president’s favor. In July, the Washington Post reported that an Iraqi sheikh, a few months after writing to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security advisor John Bolton to suggest a tougher position on Iran, spent 26 nights on an eighth-floor suite.

Each of the three eldest Trump kids, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, owns a 7.425-percent interest in the holding company that leases the building. Because Ivanka Trump fills out an annual financial disclosure as a White House employee, we know a bit more about how the that stake is paying off these days: Her most recent filing listed almost $4 million in annual revenue from the hotel.

The hotels that almost were

In summer 2017, the Trump boys were working on developing two new hotel chains: Scion, a line of four-star properties, and American Idea, a line of patriotically-decorated, moderately-priced properties in heartland markets. The New York Times reported that they came up with the idea on the campaign trail with their father, where they relished the opportunity to attend each rally but “were less enamored of the budget-friendly hotels along the way.”

Along with a pair of former campaign donors-turned-business-partners, the Trump Organization struck a deal after the election to open the first Scion hotel in Cleveland, Mississippi. Earlier this year, though, it pulled out of the agreement and shelved its expansion plan indefinitely. “We live in a climate where everything will be used against us, whether by the fake news or by Democrats who are only interested in presidential harassment,” Eric explained at the time. “We already have the greatest properties in the world and if we have to slow down our growth for the time being, we are happy to do it.”

The billion-dollar sales pitch

In February 2018, Don Jr. traveled to India in an effort to sell more than $1 billion worth of luxury residential units built there by the Trump Organization and its partners. According to the New York Times, advertisements heralding Don Jr.’s visit read: “Trump has arrived. Have you?” Rajiv Bansa, a salesman at one of the properties, predicted that the younger Trump would have little trouble moving the inventory on his whirlwind tour of the region. “Everyone in India knows who the U.S. president is,” he told The Times. “It’s a status symbol. This is a big brand, the president of the United States’ name will be on it.”

When The Times asked the White House if Don Jr.’s sales visit presented “even an appearance of a conflict of interest,” the White House declined to comment.

We deserve an election campaign about policies, not about this garbage. Vote for anyone you want to be the Democratic Party nominee-- except Joe Biden. Forget-- if you must-- that Status Quo Joe has an abysmal decades long record of serving corporate power and the military-industrial complex-- and for playing footsie with unreconstructed racists. Like Trump, Biden has nothing to offer the American people but his own neuroses and a vile family. It doesn't matter which family is worse, neither should be anywhere near the White House.

Will The Clintons Try To Get Their Daughter A Congressional Seat?

Nita and Hillary

Don't we all really hate nepotism and political dynasties? If we didn't before, the advent of the Trump family should have put that in everyone's minds. And that Liz Cheney thing in Congress! Yeccchh. The Clintons have been wanting Nita Lowey to retire so their daughter Chelsea could take her House seat (NY-17) in northern and western Westchester County and all of Rockland County. The Clinton home-- which isn't where Chelsea lives-- is in Chappaqa in the center of the district. The district which has a PVI of D+7 and was won by Hillary 58.6% to 38.4% (slightly better than Obama had done against McCain and Romney) starts in Port Chester on the Connecticut border and heads west through White Plains and Dobbs Ferry and then north through Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, Mount Kisco, as far north as Yorktown and Peekskill and west across the Hudson into Rockland County, which borders on New Jersey.

She's been in Congress for 3 decades. Last year the Republicans didn't bother running a candidate against Lowey, who beat Reform Party candidate Joseph Ciardullo, after outspending him $1,349,828 too $16,942.

Lowey, a Pelosi crony who heads the Appropriations Committee, is 82 years old and a garden variety moderate Democrat. ProgressivePunch has rated her voting record a disappointing "C," so it is likely a more progressive candidate will be elected with her out of the picture. She already had three primary challengers including Mondaire Jones, a 32 year-old former Obama Justice Department staffer who currently works as an attorney for Westchester County. He decided to run against her because she refused to back the Green New Deal and other policies he backs. He's running on an across-the-board progressive platform. The other two candidates already in the race are Johnny Jabbour, a progressive Arab-American singer-songwriter and progressive school teacher Lola Osoria.

Chelsea, another McKinsey consulting alum like Mayo Pete, works at the Clinton Foundation today and is married to sketchy investment bankster Marc Mezvinsky. They live in a $10.5 million Manhattan condo. She hasn't announced yet whether she's running or not. If Chelsea doesn't run, expect a whole slew of establishment types to jump in, like Assemblyman David Buchwald, right wing asshole and terrible state Senator David Carlucci, and White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach.

​The Liberal Meritocracy at Work

Liberal meritocracy in action. Slick new buses like these ferry high tech workers to and from Bay Area jobs, using city bus stops as pickup points. The city gets "a pittance" for each "stop event" while the city's less-connected citizens get no right at all to ride them (source).

by Gaius Publius

Thomas Frank has made the point many times that the modern Democratic Party has abandoned the working class, and indeed most of the middle class, and that today its true constituency is really just the "professional" class, the upper 10%, more or less.

That makes a kind of sense if, cynical electoral financing decisions aside, people who actually run the Democratic Party inhabit a culture that considers only the "smart" and "accomplished" truly deserving. Consider the constant praise from mainstream Democrats, for example, of the "entrepreneurial" or "creative" class and how these wannabe billionaires — riders of Google Buses in San Francisco, a kind of alt-transportation system to which only high tech workers have access — can be counted on to lift the rest of the country out of the depths and into a new age of job creation (in China).

There could not be a more striking example of this kind of meritocracy than the following email from the Podesta Wikileaks archives (h/t commenter John Wright in this Naked Capitalism thread). It was sent from Clinton supporter and UC Berkeley Professor Brad DeLong during the primary season to Clinton supporter and Center for American Progress chief Neera Tanden:

From:brad.delong@gmail.com
To: ntanden@americanprogress.org
CC: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2015-07-31 15:42

Subject: So my 25-year-old Michael DeLong has applied for a Firearms Safety Policy job at CAP…

Dear Neera (and John)—

So my 25-year-old Michael DeLong has applied for a Firearms Safety Policy job at CAP…

I think he is a very, very strong candidate on the merits, given what he has been doing in Portland at Ceasefire Oregon in the three years since he graduated from Reed College, and how effective he has been there. But I find myself somewhat anxious [that] somebody already in Washington and with better connections might crowd him out…

May I beg you to reassure me?

Yours,

Brad DeLong

When the working class does this, of course, it's called nepotism. I'm sure at Neera Tanden's level it's called "networking."

There were several notes about DeLong's son's job availability sprinkled among the Podesta emails that involved Professor DeLong, and it's certainly true that fathers and mothers everywhere have attempted to ease their children's entry into the job market by asking for a boost from friends. I don't fault the act.

What makes this stand out, though, is not DeLong's interest in seeing his son hired, but his stated fear that his son would be lose his slot at CAP, not to someone better qualified, but to someone better connected.

Thus the "meritorious" competition seems recognized as not between the talented and connected; just between the connected. "I find myself somewhat anxious [that] somebody already in Washington and with better connections might crowd him out… May I beg you to reassure me?"

A small thing perhaps, and certainly not a strike against DeLong for asking. Every father should love his children, and DeLong's son does sound accomplished.

Nevertheless, this is a striking reminder of what concepts like "democracy" and "rights" mean to mainstream (Clinton wing and Obama wing) Democrats as a group, as they struggle with the problem of offering to the rest of us — or working to deny it — the same "rights" that the Party elite and its servicing ecosystem already enjoy as privileges of class, like access to affordable, quality medical care.

Schedule note: I'll be reading but not writing for about two weeks, restarting after Labor Day.

GP
 

At The Nexus Of America's Worst Culture Of Corruption: Trumpy-the-Clown And His Family

Earlier today we saw how vulnerable the U.S. is to China because of the culture of corruption that is at the center of the Trump Regime's DNA-- and that especially includes his family. Not just includes, features! This morning Eric Lipton at the NY Times reported on the double-edged sword of Trumpy-the-Clown family members Ivanka and Kushner-in-law working at the White House. "[T]he financial disclosure report released late Friday for Mr. Kushner," wrote Lipton, "which shows that he and his wife still benefit financially from a real estate and investment empire worth as much as $740 million, makes clear that this most powerful Washington couple is walking on perilous legal and ethical ground, according to several prominent experts on the subject."

Unlike Mr. Trump, who is exempt from conflict of interest laws, both Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump-- who took a formal White House position this past week-- are forbidden under federal criminal and civil law to take any action that might benefit their particular financial holdings.

“Donald Trump can evade legal responsibility even if the conflicts of interest remain,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal nonprofit group. “His daughter and son-in-law don’t have that escape hatch.”

Mr. Kushner did resign from more than 200 positions in the partnerships and limited liability companies that make up the family-run multibillion-dollar real estate business. But the financial disclosure report shows that Mr. Kushner will remain a beneficiary of most of those same entities.

...[R]eal estate projects like the Kushner Companies’ deals have become a magnet for opaque foreign money — often from parts of the world that present thorny policy questions, such as China, where Mr. Kushner’s company has actively sought investors, as well as the Middle East and Russia. As part of his exceptionally broad portfolio in the White House, Mr. Kushner has been a crucial figure in arranging the visit of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, on Thursday in Florida.

The mystery behind many real estate investments involving foreigners prompted the Treasury Department last year to push for additional disclosures as a way to combat money laundering.

While Mr. Kushner may face a potential ethical minefield, the disclosure form makes it difficult to determine exactly where those mines might be situated. The form, which runs 54 pages and lists hundreds of entities, reveals few details about the underlying investments that make up the Kushner empire, such as the addresses of buildings, sources of financing and names of partners.

John Pudner, a conservative who has helped elect Tea Party candidates to Congress and now runs a nonprofit group called Take Back Our Republic, said that Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump, if they wanted to serve in the White House, would have been better off if they had taken the difficult step of liquidating their holdings.

“A win-win for the president’s family and everyone else is if there were no question anytime a decision is made that it’s being done for the good of the country,” he said.

...The federal ethics regulations formally prohibit federal employees from being involved in any “particular matter that will have a direct effect on a financial interest, if there is a close causal link between any decision or action to be taken in the matter and any expected effect of the matter on the financial interest.”

But Mr. Painter said that most administrations had interpreted the law more broadly, so that officials who own stakes in individual industries do not participate in even broad policy decisions affecting that sector, unless they seek a formal ethics waiver, as certain officials did during the first George Bush administration, given that they owned energy industry stocks and were participating in the decision to enter the war against Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait.

Federal employees, under ethics rules that Mr. Trump imposed, are also prohibited, for at least two years after they arrive in the government, from working on particular matters that involve former employers or clients, even if these actions do not directly financially benefit the federal employee.

The disclosures by Mr. Kushner and other White House officials released on Friday demonstrate just how complicated it is going to be to police these rules, given the vast and extremely complex financial assets not only within the Trump family but also among dozens of aides they have selected.

One Dingell Out-- Another One In?

Not Debbie Dingell-- this is the good potential replacement

It's wonderful when people feel it's time to retire and then just do it. Congratulations to John Dingell, who made the announcement this morning. At age 87 he's the second-oldest Member of the House, after 90 year old Ralph Hall (who smelled food and inadvertently wandered into an LGBT event recently and was swaying to "I Will Survive" before realizing everyone in the room was a… Democrat, and fleeing in horror). Henry Waxman (74) and George Miller (68) set very classy examples of bowing out at the right time.

A centrist Democrat with a mediocre 74.26 ProgressivePunch crucial vote score this session, Dingell has been good on labor issues and so-so on most everything else (except on issues of women's Choice, where he's… as Jerry Garcia, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan and David Grisman might have phrased it, "old and in the way." He inherited his father's House seat in 1955-- which his father had held since 1932-- and now he's trying to pass it along to authoritarian and incredibly lame Michigan Democratic Party boss Debbie Dingell, his wife, a GM lobbyist. Presumably, there will be plenty of support for her on K Street.

As the longest-serving member of Congress in history, and with three decades as the top Democrat on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), has seen dozens of his former aides move on to successful K Street careers.

Those who have passed through the revolving door and are currently registered lobbyists include Peter Filon, who worked on cable, telephone, Internet and broadcasting issues at the committee until 2006, when he was hired by Comcast to be a senior lobbyist-- a busy job these days.

Michael Robbins, Dingell's former chief of staff, made a move in 2011 to the Air Line Pilots Association, where he is director of government affairs. And Jeff Donofrio is on the lobbying team of the Ford Motor Co.

Back home, she's politely described as a "power broker." Over the years, I haven't heard many Democratic candidates describe her with that much neutrality. Grassroots progressives usually have something nasty to say about her heavy-handed brand of Establishment politics. Marisa Schultz, the DC-based political writer for the Detroit News makes it clear she's running.

Debbie Dingell, a Democratic power broker and chairwoman of the Wayne State University Board of Governors, is expected to run for Michigan’s 12th Congressional District, now that her husband, U.S. Rep. John Dingell, announced his retirement Monday, political experts said.

Debbie Dingell, 60, one of Michigan’s longtime representatives on the Democratic National Committee and a former president of the General Motors Foundation, decided in April not to run for the U.S. Senate to replace the retiring Carl Levin, D-Detroit, saying she wanted to avoid a costly primary with U.S. Rep. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township. The move effectively cleared the field for Peters, who is running against Republican Terri Lynn Land.

The retirement of John Dingell, 87, unlocks another rare open seat in Washington for Michigan’s politically ambitious Democrats, who often are sidelined by senior members serving in Congress for decades. If Debbie Dingell enters the race for the seat that includes parts of Wayne and Washtenaw counties, she would be the one candidate who could discourage others from competing.

“She would be the prohibitive favorite in the race,” said Lansing-based political consultant T.J. Bucholz.

The Dingells are considered a powerful political team. Debbie stresses bipartisanship on Michigan issues, like her husband, and has long organized Michigan's inaugural ball regardless of which party won the presidency. She also has been active for decades in community events and fundraising and has built a vast political network.

…The 12th Congressional District leans Democratic and became more blue after the 2012 redistricting, which shed the more moderate county of Monroe. The district starts in the Dingells’ hometown of Dearborn, then heads south through Downriver Detroit and west to Washtenaw County’s Ann Arbor. President Barack Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney by 34 points in the new district in 2012.

Wayne County makes up about 62 percent of the voters in the district, compared to about 38 percent for Washtenaw County, home to state Sen. Rebekah Warren, a strong, progressive female voice in the Legislature who insiders believe could also make a strong congressional candidate.

Candidates for Congress have until April 22 to submit at least 1,000 petition signatures to make the ballot for the Aug. 5 primary election.

Debbie Dingell can be “a polarizing figure” within the Democratic Party, Bucholz said. “There are some people who really like her and there are some people who have challenges with her."

But John Dingell, in office since 1955, yields tremendous political influence and an endorsement for his wife would carry weight within the party and potentially could ward off a contentious Democratic primary.

“Debbie Dingell has political gravitas. John Dingell has three times more,” Bucholz said. “... No one in Michigan will second guess Congressman Dingell on who should be his replacement. If they do, it wouldn’t be in public.”

The district, which boasts a D+15 PVI, gave Obama a 67-31% win over McCain in 2008 and then a 66-33% win over favorite-son Mitt Romney in 2012. Dingell did even better, beating his GOP opponent 68-29% in 2012 and with 71% in 2008. It may be time for new blood in Michigan's Democratic Party… but don't bring that up to any Michigan Democrats. Progressives are begging Rebekah Warren to run.