"the inevitable disaster that will be the Trump Administration"

[broman]

He paid less in taxes than a Covid-furloughed coal miner.

Speaking of coal miners...

Art Sullivan is considered something of a political heretic by other coalminers in south-western Pennsylvania, where a wave of support for Donald Trump based upon his flamboyant promises of a resurgence in coal helped propel the Republican to the US presidency.
“Many of my coalminer friends voted for him,” said Sullivan, who has spent 54 years as a coalminer and, more latterly, consultant to a struggling industry. “They were deceived. Trump had no plan, no concept of how to resurrect the coal industry. My friends were lied to.”
There are now about 5,000 fewer miners than when Trump strode into the White House. The coronavirus pandemic has turbo-charged the decline—so far this year US coal production has collapsed by more than 25 percent compared with the same period in 2019.
Cheap, abundant gas, retrieved via fracking, and the advance of renewables have been greater causes of coal’s demise than any green regulation..
https://www.motherjones.com/environment ... disappear/

Government subsidies and ending all of the Obama era regulations still didn't bring coal back. Fool me once.....

[John Q. Public]

The Proud Boys have left the chat.

Donald's panel on law enforcement being declared illegal never established a connection.

[John Q. Public]

More of that 5-D chess, I guess. (Down another 90 as I was doing the screencap)

[Omar Bongo]

So trump's very generous offer to bailout all those poorly run, high-crime Democratic States is $1.6 trillion...got it

But hey, he nominates anti-abortion judges, so...

[ShiftyMutt]

Counting today's ruling, Trump now has 5 court losses to block the release of his taxes - District court, 2nd District Court, Supreme Court, District Court -again, 2nd Circuit again.
How many is enough?

[Wabash]

In computer programming this called an endless loop.

Demand taxes
Courts rule against Trump
Trump appeals.
Courts rules against Trump.
Trump appeals.

Ad infinitum

[John Q. Public]

Donald's upset that Gov. Whitmer didn't thank him for the FBI breaking up the plot to kidnap her. Because... I don't know why, but maybe that means we should thank him for them busting all of his associates.

I'm curious how long the list of crimes those guys are charged with will be and what the crime is against trying to overthrow a state government. And how old it is. Or how old they are, since it would probably have to be a state law. And if there are any states that don't have such a law or which ones are the most lenient. Or harsh. I don't know that it's ever been tried before.

[Omar Bongo]

The Swamp That Trump Built

As president-elect, he had pledged to step back from the Trump Organization and recuse himself from his private company’s operation. As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics.

...once Mr. Trump was in the White House, his family business discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president. An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.

...tax records — along with membership rosters for Mar-a-Lago and the president’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., as well as other sources — reveal how much money this new line of business was worth.

Just 60 customers with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought his family business nearly $12 million during the first two years of his presidency, The Times found. Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by Mr. Trump or his government.

Trump attended 34 fund-raisers held at his hotels and resorts, events that brought his properties another $3 million in revenue. Sometimes, he lined up his donors to ask what they needed from the government.

Others could catch him at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where he liked to dine at the steakhouse — often served by a restaurant manager — or on weekends at Mar-a-Lago, where he liked to make an appearance at the day’s big event.

Chances were good he’d be around. The president has visited his resorts and hotels on nearly 400 days since his inauguration...

(paywall)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... e=Homepage

[Wabash]

The WaPo is reporting;

The federal prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr to review whether Obama-era officials improperly requested the identities of individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents has completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter.

The revelation that U.S. Attorney John Bash, who left the department last week, had concluded his review without criminal charges or any public report will rankle President Trump at a moment when he is particularly upset at the Justice Department. The department has so far declined to release the results of Bash’s work, though people familiar with his findings say they would likely disappoint conservatives who have tried to paint the “unmasking” of names — a common practice in government to help understand classified documents — as a political conspiracy.

The president in recent days has pressed federal law enforcement to move against his political adversaries and complained that a different prosecutor tapped by Barr to investigate the FBI’s 2016 investigation of his campaign will not be issuing any public findings before the election.

Who else is not surprised?

[ShiftyMutt]

This should be good.
This is a lady that is suing Trump on rape charges - which, he has still declined to supply a DNA sample that would prove his 'innocents'. But something else is on the burner...

[Wabash]

#OctoberSurprise

[John Q. Public]

Madame Tussauds Berlin has updated their display. Unfortunately I guess lighting the dumpster on fire would melt the wax.

[John Q. Public]

Oops! Make that 18 black guys and one 4 Seasons Total Black Guy.

[John Q. Public]

[Omar Bongo]

On August 19, 2009, while speaking to the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Calley issued an apology for his role in the Mỹ Lai massacre. Calley said:

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in Mỹ Lai," Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley

[Omar Bongo]

How utterly petty can you get...but what else can you expect from a man with such small hands?

State Department is Preventing Biden From Accessing Messages From Foreign Leaders

A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages.

Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend.

But with Biden prohibited from accessing State Department resources by the Trump administration because President Donald Trump refuses to accept Biden's victory, dozens of incoming messages have not been received.

Biden is also being blocked from getting the same intelligence briefings as the President, known as the President's Daily Brief...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... =Peregrine

[Omar Bongo]

Thank goodness there's an adult in the room!

Republican Senator Says He Will Step in if Biden Doesn't Have Access to Intelligence Briefings by Friday

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said Wednesday that he will intervene if the Trump administration has not allowed President-elect Joe Biden access to presidential daily intelligence briefings by the end of the week, one of the first rights of a presidential candidate after winning the election.



https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... =Peregrine

[Omar Bongo]

The real reason trump is crying foul...to keep the $$$ rolling in...

Trump’s Fraud Claims a Boon For His and His Allies’ Fundraising

Trump’s insistence that there was voter fraud and demands for recounts are helping create post-election unity among his base, and raise money the president can use to keep his political career afloat after January, political fundraisers and campaign finance experts told POLITICO.

Much of the money raised by [Trump campaign manager Bill] Stepien and the Trump campaign won’t go towards challenging election results, however, but to help set the stage for the president’s next act.

“He has always understood that money equals power, and now he wants to have a bunch of money and it’s going to give him a seat at the table. That’s what he’s doing,” said Richard Painter, White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush.

In the coming months, Trump could use money from his new PAC, called Save America — the existence of which was reported for the first time by The New York Times on Monday — to travel the country and stage rallies, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He could promote candidates who were loyal to him and make donations to their campaigns. And, if he wanted to, he could place his family members and former administration officials on payroll, and continue to host lavish events at his properties without tripping up campaign finance law.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-BB1aWm0m

[Omar Bongo]

File this under "Circling the Drain"...it starts with wide, lazy circles:

It’s getting harder to find the heavy hitter who will tell Trump to concede. Three sources say it’s crystal clear to many around Trump that his legal challenges, launched without any evidence of massive voter fraud, will not change the result of the election, even with Attorney General Bill Barr’s nationwide hunt for voter-fraud material. Yet the dynamics of personal loyalty that bind Trumpworld together deter many of his closest advisers from telling him that his presidency is over.

“It's like dealing with a lunatic on the subway. Everyone just kind of sits and stares ahead, pretends they can't hear him, and waits for him to eventually get off,” a GOP source close to the administration told The Daily Beast.



https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-na ... idens-name

[John Q. Public]

Priorities.

No, McConnell didn't bring the vitally needed Covid relief bill to the Senate floor but he did bring Donald's nomination of noted quack Judy Shelton for the Federal Reserve Board and today the Senate confirmed the appointment of Kathryn Mizelle, 33(!), to a federal judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Mizelle, 8 years out of law school, brings a total of zero years experience as a judge or as a trial lawyer at the federal level and received an ABA rating of "Not Qualified." A perfect choice!