So many things going on, so many Weekend Open Threads forgot to post within the past three days! To the miscellaneous-happenings file we go!
1. “$99 Problems But a Joke Ain’t One”
Donald Trump’s former private attorney, unjustly convicted attorney and now joyously sarcastic author Michael Cohen, argues that the scornful laughter aimed at Trump for his Superhero Trading Cards (which he erroneously calls “NFTs”) misses the point. Trump will likely be laughing all the way to the bank — raking in money not only from domestic suckers, but also from foreign governments hostile to our democracy — most obviously Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Income from these “sales” is not only “emoluments” — essentially gifts — to Trump, but are essentially campaign contributions if he wishes to self-fund. They are gifts because he does essentially nothing for the money. He produces a produce with no intrinsic value and almost no production costs — Trump’s face is simply photoshopped into an existing image, which probably (but perhaps not certainly) comports with copyright laws permitting “derivative works.” That product can then be bought as many times as buyers wish, making a mockery of donation limits. We don’t know who is buying them; no traceable sale records have to exist. It’s literally just “give Trump your money!”
There is relatively recent precedent for this sort of scheme: the downfall of Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright in 1989. Explaineth Wikipedia:
In 1988 Wright became the target of an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee. Their report in early 1989 implied that he had used bulk purchases of his book, Reflections of a Public Man, to earn speaking fees in excess of the allowed maximum, and that his wife, Betty, was given a job and perks to avoid the limit on gifts. Faced with an increasing loss of effectiveness, Wright tendered his resignation as Speaker on May 31, 1989.
Three main differences between Wright and Trump are evident:
(1) Legitimate Product: Yes, Wright allowed people to seek influence with him by bulk-buying his book, but at least he wrote (or had a ghostwriter write) a book! Trying a transfer of money to a physical object with a cost of production puts some sorts of limits on it, in addition to leaving a paper trail of commerce.
(2) Domestic vs. Foreign Targets: Wright was probably getting his ill-gotten money from domestic interests. Trump is largely seeking money from untraceable foreign interests.
(3) Bribe vs. Corruption: Maybe Wright was simply fundraising for future campaigns (or, more likely given that he was in a safe seat in Ft. Worth, for other Democrats.) But it seems fair to suspect that there was a quo exchanged for the quid, in these days before the Supreme Court savaged campaign finance law, and that renders them corrupt. But Wright was working on a retail level: in face, person-to-person. What Trump seems to be doing is not only taking bribes (if he knows who’s doing the purchasing and it’s not all going to campaigning) but also doing so on a wholesale level, one tailor-made for bringing in money from foreign interests. This would be in violation of the Constitution’s “Emoluments Clause” — essentially “receiving gifts from foreign governments who want to undermine U.S. policy — which the House of Representatives chose not to impeach for in his term — most likely because they presumed that the Senate would not convict him and they didn’t want to essentially decide that the practice was acceptable. Call me sentimental, but while I hate bribes on a one-to-one retail basis — bribes, they are relatively small potatoes compared to foreign takeovers of U.S. policy using bribes rather than arguments.
So I think that Cohen is dead right on this one. Trump is engaged in Jim Wright’s scam, but updated and perfected. Congress should definitely investigate it, lest the Emoluments Clause be written out of the Constitution.
2. Keeping Track of the Criminal Referrals Against Trump
Referrals were made for his crimes of:
- LIE: conspiracy to make false statements
- CHEAT: conspiracy to defraud the United States
- STEAL: obstructing an official proceeding, and
- DESTROY: insurrection against the government
*It would have been so easy to end of this drama, had some hero stepped up to the plate on the day that The Trumpster took the ride down the escalator. The Trumpster has said that he could shoot someone on 42nd St, NYC and get away without punishment. We say:”Those that live by the Sword….will perish by the Sword!” We have no trust that the DOJ will indict or punish The Trumpster for his crimes against humanity, or his Espionage against the United States, by giving Putin our Government Secrets. We can only hope there is a special place in hell for folks like The Trumpster. As Jonathan Winters said about what he wanted in a Presidential Canidate, in his Album “Whistle Stopping”: “I don’t want a candidate that believes in God, just one that knows that if he screws up that God will get him!” Thank you January 6th Committee….job
well done!
One other very important point: Britney Griner! Thank you Joe Biden for making her release possible. The rumor mills of her being Transgender have already been debunked by the WNBA…five years ago. But does that matter? What matters is that a high profile
USA Athlete was targeted for propaganda purposes. This should be a wake up call to all US Athletes to NEVER visit the Soviet Union or Republic…..EVER! Can you imagine what would have happened had The Trumpster been in office?
Shit meets fan. More to come? HB on deck. Ada has got Farrahkhan poo on her in more ways than one.
https://voiceofoc.org/2022/12/orange-county-supervisors-pull-plug-on-green-energy-agency-over-transparency-concerns/
More ways then one? Name them. Do you contend that one was literal?
I would think that a lot of the instances Eric is referring to are listed here:
https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2022/10/ocpa-armenians-porter-leak-agran-attacks-farrah-poisons-everything-she-touches/
These instances are metaphorically, not literally, poo.
This Briceno woman dipped herself into shit in Fullerton by deliberately splitting the Latino vote to protect the lying little sack of shit Achmad Zahra.
For the open thread – Thursday morning, in the wake of the BoS voting to leave the OCPA, Irvine will be holding its own hastily called meeting on the same topic. It’ll be of interest to see if the swing vote Tammy Kim continues her loyalty to the Probolsky-boosting Farrah and Carroll despite all of Farrah’s recent treatment of her, or if she will join OCPA critics Agran and Treseder.
I will be viewing the meeting via Zoom and reporting on it. Here is the Irvine Watchdog’s Richard Green:
“The Irvine City Council has scheduled a special meeting for this Thursday at 8:00 am for one closed session item and one business agenda item (possibly related) to discuss the City’s future involvement in the controversial Orange County Power Authority.
“Agenda Item 2.1 – Consideration and direction regarding withdrawal and conditions for continued participation in the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA).
“This hastily planned discussion by the City of Irvine follows the recent vote by the Orange County Board of Supervisors to leave the OCPA and a vote by the City of Huntington Beach to consider leaving the agency.
“At its meeting on December 20, 2022, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to leave the OCPA because of concerns over OCPA business practices, management issues, transparency, and its failure to deliver on commitments to provide cheaper and cleaner energy.
“Supervisor Katrina Foley, who cast the deciding vote for the unincorporated areas of Orange County to leave the OCPA, said, ‘It boils down to trust and transparency for me, and I don’t trust the information. I don’t think we’ll be able to fix what I think are systematic operational issues.'”
More here https://irvinewatchdog.org/featured/irvine-city-council-calls-special-meeting-to-consider-withdrawing-from-the-orange-county-power-authority/