Everything $45 touches dies.  And so goes the Republican Party in Georgia.

Speaking of Fox, they got some explaining to do. 

“The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Laura Ingraham texted to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. “Please, get him on TV — [the riot is] destroying everything you accomplished,” Brian Kilmeade wrote to Meadows. “Can he make a statement, ask people to leave the Capitol?” wrote Sean Hannity in yet another Meadows text.

Even when they're currently a House afire, pun intended, even they have to put an end to this dumpster fire or there is no Democracy left.

Baywolfe wrote:

...trying to overthrow this Republic behind your back.

They're not even doing it behind our backs. They're doing it right in front of our faces.

The mind fucked Little Duped Darlings have been busy.

Last edited by Fled (2022-02-03 18:37:43)

Religion is just a gateway drug to Conspiracies.  They're even ingested the same way, some authority figure points and says to "Look here.  Let me explain to you what that means."

Donald Trump quietly making millions from coffee table book.

If I could verify that the asshole actually signed it, I'd buy one.  Leave it to my Grandkids to wait 50 years and it'll be like having John Dillinger's signature.

So, is this the point where we get to start chanting, "Lock him up"?

Oh that can't be good. When your own accountants disavow everything they have given to the IRS on your behalf for the past 15 years.

Fled wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Oh that can't be good. When your own accountants disavow everything they have given to the IRS on your behalf for the past 15 years.

Can't wait to find out the back story on this.

They're a global company and probably not wanting to face any investigations that could uncover whatever illegal bullshit they did/do/will do.

Fled wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Oh that can't be good. When your own accountants disavow everything they have given to the IRS on your behalf for the past 15 years.

Can't wait to find out the back story on this.

The most likely explanation is that they know the books are cooked and the cops are coming, and they're trying to get out of the line of fire.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-s … reddit.com

Baywolfe wrote:

He withheld the money, that was legally due to be paid, because the Ukraine President wouldn't lie for him about Biden.  Yes, all politicians are shit but if we don't stop the ones that are multiple types of shits how can we ever hope to actually drain the swamp?

Guillotines?

Retrograde Progressive contemplation of the day:
Vodka Skeletor is number two in the queue?

JetRx wrote:

https://cruelery.com/uploads/thumbs/307 … 5331d.jpeg

I get it ! You have no self awareness.

Not in a fun way like Austin Powers after he is unfrozen, you are more like David Kaczynski.

How the defense of Trump foretells a possible new GOP era of extremism

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

Updated: Tue, 07 Jun 2022 19:04:51 GMT

Source: CNN

There's a strong political case for Republicans to ignore Donald Trump halfway through a midterm primary season that's seen his influence over voters wane. But as the January 6 hearings hit prime time, the ex-President's thunderous demands for loyalty and the hunger for power of his acolytes in the House mean that's not an option.

Trump's demand for, and the GOP's willingness to offer, a robust defense into what are expected to be damaging details of his complicity in a coup attempt are deeply revealing about his future political intentions and the former President's control over his party. The evolving plan to hit back against the committee on behalf of Trump also exposes the hypocrisy and the ambition of key House Republican leaders who whitewash Trump's role in the history of the January 6, 2021, insurrection to advance their own careers.

It offers a foreboding reality check 17 months after the Capitol insurrection about how the House Republican conference has chosen the promise of future political advancement over the protection of American democracy.

The plan for pro-Trump lawmakers to blitz the media in order to push back at the House select committee's findings comes ahead of the panel's first live televised prime-time hearing on Thursday and was revealed in a new CNN report on Sunday.

The committee is expected to mount a devastating case about Trump's behavior as he tried to steal the 2020 election in the run-up to and during the January 6 assault on the Capitol, which he incited and didn't act to stop as lawmakers ran for their lives.

There are potential pitfalls for Republicans who stand with Trump as the lurid tale of violence, lies and autocratic power grabs is told again for the American people and for the benefit of history. The evidence could be so damning that those who seek to discredit the hearings will find themselves defending the indefensible -- a dark moment of the American story that is so heinous it will live in infamy.

There are also sound electoral reasons to pass. It's not a given that the hearings will achieve their apparent purpose and engage Americans so far after the event. After all, after four years of tumult that ended in a political cataclysm, it's hard to imagine there are many voters who haven't made up their minds on Trump.

Engaging and turning the hearings into a partisan spectacle could only elevate them. And Republicans have a much clearer route to power five months before the midterm elections than yet again appeasing Trump's autocracy. They can simply blame President Joe Biden for the ills afflicting the country, given the disastrous political environment for Democrats as gasoline prices hit record highs and the cost of living soars.

Anything that deflects from that goal seems unwise.

There's also a risk that standing with Trump will brand the GOP all over again with the stain of defending a strongman who tried to overthrow a democratic election. That vision repeatedly punished the party when Trump was in power. And defending him could remind critical suburban voters all over again of just how extreme their party has become.

Trump demands a strong defense

But the determination of Trump to paint an alternative version of events for Americans through conservative media suggests that the ex-President really doesn't want the true story of his behavior coming out.

The committee, through hundreds of interviews -- some with people deep inside the Trump West Wing, despite obstruction from some of the ex-President's former top aides -- appears to have built a behind-the-scenes story of Trump's conduct. Former aides to ex-Vice President Mike Pence are expected to be especially prominent in the televised hearings.

If the committee succeeds in convincing Americans of his culpability, it could seriously damage the ex-President's hopes in a broader general election audience if he does seek to run again for the White House in 2024. There's also the possibility that the panel has uncovered information that could put the twice-impeached President in legal jeopardy, though any criminal referral from the committee would require the Justice Department to initiate a prosecution -- a potential long shot.

However worried Trump may be about the hearings, the willingness of top House Republicans to defend his assault on democracy does show his hold over the party.

CNN's Melanie Zanona, Zachary Cohen and Ryan Nobles reported that Trump's team had communicated with his allies on Capitol Hill that the former President wants a vigorous defense while public hearings play out on television. This impulse clearly fits with Trump's lifelong desire to be in the spotlight and to shape the television narrative of his own life.

It's also remarkable that a former President, bumped out of office in disgrace after a single term, still has the political juice to wield that kind of influence. This speaks to his appeal in the GOP grassroots and underscores his front-runner status for any 2024 Republican presidential primary race, even if some of his chosen candidates struggle in 2022 midterm primaries.

And it offers a preview of how a new GOP House majority next year could largely be a tool for an increasingly extreme Trump's efforts to hobble Biden and regain power.

Trump's power over McCarthy

The CNN report revealed that the defense will be led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican who spoke out strongly against Trump publicly in the days after the insurrection and in an outspoken fashion behind the scenes, according to transcripts of calls featured in a new book by New York Times writers Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin.

When it became clear, however, that the insurrection would not destroy Trump's popularity in the minds of GOP voters, McCarthy soon changed course. His willingness to stand as Trump's chief defender now shows how much leverage the ex-President has over him following the furor over the taped calls -- and how his ambition to be speaker, and his tenure if he eventually wins the position, depends to a large extent in keeping the ex-President's favor.

Another Trump acolyte who is vowing to destroy the credibility of the January 6 committee is Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a former moderate whose embrace of the big election lie put her on a fast track to power in the House GOP.

"We will be setting the record straight. We will be telling the truth to the American people, sharing the facts and also really pointing out how unprecedented and unconstitutional and illegitimate this committee is," Stefanik told the right-wing website Breitbart in an interview.

Her performance will reveal the incentives for power in the GOP and the compromises needed to retain Trump's good graces. Her role will also put her on the opposite side of the argument of the Wyoming lawmaker she replaced as the number three leader in the House, Liz Cheney.

The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney broke with Trump over the insurrection and serves as one of two Republicans on the House select committee. She lost her party leadership post and is now facing a primary challenge from a Trump-backed candidate over her determination to tell the truth about the threat to American democracy posed then and now by the ex-President.

Another key figure in Trump's defense is likely to be Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who like McCarthy has defied a subpoena to testify before the House select committee.

The hard-charging Trump supporter will be closely watched by the White House since he will be a top candidate to head the House Judiciary Committee if Republicans win control of the House -- and is likely to subject the Biden administration to a withering program of investigations in the run-up to the 2024 election.

This will all be designed to damage Biden and to boost Trump -- who will be the true power behind the gavel in any House GOP majority and is already using that leverage to his advantage.

© 2022 Cable News Network. A Warner Media Company. All Rights Reserved.

What we know about infamous Oval Office meeting held by Trump's inner circle in December 2020

By Zachary Cohen, CNN

Updated: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 19:14:33 GMT

Source: CNN

A heated Oval Office meeting convened by then-President Donald Trump on December 18, 2020 -- in which lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, floated outrageous suggestions about overturning the election -- was a central focus of Tuesday's hearing held by the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

Sources previously described the session as one that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and member of the January 6 select committee, said on Tuesday that the December 18 meeting was "critically important because President Trump got to watch up close for several hours as his White House counsel and other White House lawyers destroyed the baseless factual claims and ridiculous legal arguments offered by Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn and others."

White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations, CNN reported at the time.

"I was vehemently opposed -- I didn't think she should be appointed to anything," Cipollone told the committee during his closed door interview, according to a video clip from that meeting played Tuesday.

Flynn had suggested prior to the meeting that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one source previously told CNN.

At the time, it wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.

Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them, CNN has reported.

CNN first reported that Trump allies drafted more than one executive order to seize voting machines.

In its immediate aftermath, one person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he worked to overturn the results of the election.

"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources previously said.

'I thought it was nuts'

The select committee on Tuesday revealed previously unseen testimony from six participants of the Oval Office meeting, playing video from its interviews.

Among those interviewed were former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who told the panel that he was "not happy" to see people like Powell, Flynn and Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in the Oval Office with the former President.

"I don't think any of these people were providing the President with good advice, so I did not understand how they had gotten in," Cipollone said in his deposition, according to video played by the committee Tuesday.

Others who were in the room described how the hours-long meeting broke into screaming matches as outside Trump allies like Flynn and Powell accused White House advisers of quitting on the President after they challenged their baseless claims about election fraud and outlandish plans for overturning the results.

Powell accused the White House lawyers of showing "nothing but contempt and disdain of the President," according to video from her deposition.

"It was not a casual meeting. At times there were people shouting at each other, hurling insults at each other. It wasn't just sort of people sitting around on the couch like, chit-chatting," former White House adviser Derek Lyons told the panel, according to video of his deposition.

"The four outsiders in the room claiming to have ample evidence to support the findings and others including myself disputing that and then there was a discussion of, well, we don't have it now, but we will have it or whatever," he added.

White House lawyer Eric Herschmann also told the committee that the meeting got to the point where "screaming was completely -- completely out there."

"It was really unprecedented ... I thought it was nuts," he said in the deposition video, acknowledging he told the group of outside Trump allies to "shut the 'F' up."

This story has been updated with additional details.

Yeah, that's why I don't even listen to the right anymore.  We're like two different species.  I wonder if it was like this when the Neanderthals were replaced by the Cro-Magnon.  Of course, the CM's had the decency to eat them when they could; not sure what to do with them now?

After the election was called for Biden, the Trump-Nut (C) on the corner of my street took all of his banners and flags down, except for the weird "Punisher" flag.  I don't know if he was embarrassed or feared that his neighbors would do it for him.  Once again, this guy in Minneapolis just underscores why they hate us, they think we're all capable of doing this or even worse, not knowing that most of us just want to be left the fuck alone.

I wish this was from a right wing source instead of CNN. The folks I know in the fold so to speak believe the CNN is the mouth of the devil.

DmtDusty wrote:

I wish this was from a right wing source instead of CNN. The folks I know in the fold so to speak believe the CNN is the mouth of the devil.

Sadly, too many so-called 'conservatives' think truth is a liberal conspiracy.

Appeals court says House can obtain Trump's taxes from the IRS

By Tierney Sneed and Katelyn Polantz, CNN

Updated: Tue, 09 Aug 2022 17:02:16 GMT

Source: CNN

A federal appeals court on Tuesday signed off on a House Ways and Means Committee request to obtain former President Donald Trump's tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service.

The 3-0 ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is a blow to Trump, who has argued for years in court against releasing his tax returns to any investigators. A trial-level judge he appointed while president previously rejected his arguments in the case.

But Trump still could appeal, making the litigation unlikely to end at this time. The court said the judgment would not issued for seven days, giving Trump time to appeal. This litigation is separate from the House select committee's investigation into the January 6 riot.

The majority opinion, written by Circuit Judge David Sentelle, said that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal's request for the records was within the scope of his committee's inquiry, and the court also rejected Trump's argument claiming that the request had a retaliatory motive, making it invalid.

Neal has requested the returns under a law that allows disclosure of an individual's tax returns to the committee -- a request that the Trump administration had rebuffed.

The appeals court on Tuesday said that Trump did not prevail in his argument that as a former President his records should not be turned over.

"In this case, the need for the Trump Parties' information to inform potential legislation overrides the burden to the Executive Branch largely because that burden is so tenuous," Sentelle, a Reagan appointee, wrote in the opinion.

Judge Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee and Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, also agreed with the decision, though Henderson wrote that she believed there should be more scrutiny on a request like this that would have implications for the presidency.

Neal praised the court's ruling in a statement Tuesday.

"With great patience, we followed the judicial process, and yet again, our position has been affirmed by the Courts," Neal said. "I'm pleased that this long-anticipated opinion makes clear the law is on our side. When we receive the returns, we will begin our oversight of the IRS's mandatory presidential audit program."

The case stems lawsuit Neal filed in in 2019 seeking a court order compelling the IRS, then under the Trump administration, to turn over Trump's tax returns

The litigation moved at a slow pace that outlasted Trump's presidency, and in July of last year, the Justice Department signaled it was switching positions in the case in favor of the committee obtaining the returns. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, last December granted requests from the department and the House to dismiss the case, prompting Trump's appeal to the DC Circuit.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Striving for new lows.