Patterico's Pontifications

4/12/2019

Avenatti Indicted for Tax Evasion — But I Thought the IRS Caught Everybody Right Away?!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:20 am



Michael Avenatti has been indicted for numerous crimes, including several years’ worth of tax evasion. That’s so weird, because I thought the IRS catches all tax fraud and evasion immediately.

To celebrate the unveiling of this document, let’s consider that Avenatti was considering running for President in 2020, and consider what would have happened if he had run in 2016 instead. Had he refused to release his tax returns, what kind of arguments might his superfans have made? Below, I imagine the debate.

ME: Michael Avenatti seems very shady. I think he is hiding something because he won’t release his tax returns — that is, if they even exist.

AVENATTI SUPERFAN: Candidates didn’t start revealing their returns until Nixon. It’s hardly a precedent. And he says he’s under audit. You can’t expect people to release tax returns under audit.

ME: The press is reporting that their sources are saying he hasn’t even filed a tax return for the last six years.

AVENATTI SUPERFAN: Fake news! You really think the IRS is going to sit still for someone not filing a return? Look, Avenatti is a high profile lawyer. He doesn’t use TurboTax. He obviously employs professional accountants. You think his accountants are going to lie? You think they’re going to tell him not even to file a return?

ME: I don’t know. The guy lies all the time. His law firm has been placed into receivership, for crying out loud. I mean, he was evicted for not paying his rent. And now he won’t reveal his returns and claims it’s because he’s being audited? Something doesn’t smell right. He hasn’t even provided a single letter from the IRS showing they had begun an audit. We are taking his word for it, together with some vaguely worded statements from his tax lawyers about some audits somewhere, that don’t attach the IRS letters. I don’t find that convincing. And, for the umpteenth time, he’s a liar.

AVENATTI SUPERFAN: If his returns are good enough for the IRS, they should be good enough for the American people. We don’t need to see them. You’re just playing politics.

I know the reflexive response that Trump superfans will give to this: “Obama’s IRS” gave Avenatti a pass due to politics and gave Trump a pass because he’s squeaky clean. Congratulations; that argument just gave the Avenatti superfan an argument that the Avenatti indictment is pure politics from the Trump administration.

Never mind the overwhelming nature of the allegations in the indictment. It’s all about who’s president when it’s handed down, right? If there’s anything we have learned from the Trump era, it’s that the rule of law doesn’t matter any more. Only politics does.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

145 Responses to “Avenatti Indicted for Tax Evasion — But I Thought the IRS Caught Everybody Right Away?!”

  1. …the rule of law doesn’t matter any more[sic]. Only politics does.

    It didn’t start with Trump, but here we are.

    Gryph (08c844)

  2. To the contrary: the affidavit in support of the charges first filed against the seemingly Tax Shy Counselor, says that the IRS started looking at Avenatti back in at LEAST 2014. They launched interviews, and document demands.

    The recent indictment of Avenatti is based on the IRS CD’s careful pursuit of the facts in the face of what they say was obstruction, and evasion.

    The IRS has had DECADES to look at Trump. DECADES. And multiple events to trigger reviews, interviews etc. He’s been buying and selling hotels, properties, jets, yachts, a shuttle, sports events, TV shows, ……since about 1980. Yet not one thing.

    The defiant and unsupported insistence that “something” must be “there” because Trump ignores the “Mitt Romney School of Politics” is silly. I suppose, like the old witch trials, if he floats too, he’s guilty?

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82)

  3. “Look, Avenatti is a high profile lawyer.”

    He’s so high profile, hardly anyone knew who he was before about a year ago.

    Munroe (1c5949)

  4. Well he was an operative for the emanuels, as is garagos who has been leaving a trail of slime for 25years, McDougal Petersen jackson et al,

    Narciso (5d05fe)

  5. Avenatti is a half-smart con man, thief, and blackmailer, whose career lasted for eighteen years and who flamed out at age 48.

    Now, if you want to compare Trump to Bernie Madoff whose career spanned 49 years and who didn’t get caught until age 70 ….

    nk (dbc370)

  6. He was CNN’s partying fave, even had ties to some Saudi princes and princelings

    Narciso (5d05fe)

  7. 254 TV appearances.

    nk (dbc370)

  8. Even chavevsky couldn’t imagine such horror,

    Narciso (5d05fe)

  9. Who thought avenatti was legit again, please,

    Narciso (5d05fe)

  10. Looks like Tucker Carlson was on to something when he insisted on the Creepy P0rn Lawyer descriptor. But even that didn’t quite capture the kind of sleazy mothafatha this media fave really was.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  11. Mark Geragos will always be famous as the only post-pubescent who get Michael Jackson off.

    nk (dbc370)

  12. *got*

    nk (dbc370)

  13. Patterico, is Michael Avenatti a good Lawyer?

    Time123 (441f53)

  14. Patterico: Have you ever heard of the expression beating up on a straw man?

    Bored Lawyer (998177)

  15. There are several scenarios. Three possible ones that fit the currently presented data:

    1) Trump is clean and Avenatti is also clean but it’s politics,
    2) Trump is clean and Avenatti is not but got a pass under previous Admin,and
    3) Trump is clean and Avenatti is not but the process took time.

    The scenarios where Trump is NOT clean have to deal with the fact that he has been under IRS review for multiple Administrations.

    jim2 (a5dc71)

  16. Trump should absolutely release his tax returns right after Nancy Pelosi releases hers.

    David Longfellow (8cba7a)

  17. If only the agents who whipped up the Carter Page FISA warrants and dismissed Midyear Exam could moonlight with the IRS.

    Munroe (ca43a8)

  18. What’s actually going on?

    https://www.influencewatch.org/person/emma-lozano/

    Narciso (5d05fe)

  19. “Patterico: Have you ever heard of the expression beating up on a straw man?”

    Forget about assaulting a straw man, has he ever heard of “fuggin’ that chicken”!?!?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  20. The point there are more productive avenues to follow up, unlike discos affirmation there are Marxist forces that prevent awareness of a problem much less solutions.

    Narciso (5d05fe)

  21. because I thought the IRS catches all tax fraud and evasion immediately.

    The idea isn’t that IRS catches all tax fraud and evasion immediately, or even after an audit, but that licensed accountants and lawyers who have more than one client, are afraid enough of the IRS and don’t have enough to gain from their clients, that they would NOT prepare tax returns that had blatant tax fraud in them, especially if they feel their client is likely to get audited, because they would risk losing their careers or more. (unless maybe the tax fraud was their career, but that;s probably not the case with Donald Trump’s lawyers and accountants…)

    Avenatti is not a counter-example, since he didn’t file a return at all! (well maybe he first started out with bad returns in 2008 and 2009)

    Now there’s another thing that everybody thought is not possible. Everybody thought Ponzi schemes collapse after at most, a few years, so if any investment vehicle has been around for afew years, it can’t be aPonsi scheme. But Bernard Madoff ran one for a generation or longer. Of course it got into the double digit billions.

    Now Nixon’s tax lawyers apparently didn’t file either a Californis or Washington, D.C. income tax return for 1969 (he was no longer a resident of New York for 1969) because state income tax was not a deduction on the 1970 return) but maybe they had some legal reasoning to back it up. Or maybe it was just carelessness. Or maybe their thinking was that they are responsible for preparing areturn, but they are not liable for NOT doing one.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  22. Professional tax preparers usually prepare returns for many many people, so the chances of tax fraud being caught are higher than for any individual client.

    Now sometimes someone comes up with something that they use repeately for many clients. But hey;ll get a tax opinion or something from some third party, as a defense that at least it is not fraud.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  23. Picking up my argument with Dave from comments on a prior post:

    Here’s how thoroughly Trump has “completed” his hostile takeover of the GOP: GOP grows tired of being blindsided by Trump:

    Senate Republicans are getting tired of being caught off-guard by President Trump on key issues like health care and controversial nominees like Herman Cain, and say there needs to be more consultation from the White House.

    Trump’s allies say they often find out about the president’s plans on Twitter or through media reports, making it almost impossible to offer the White House any advice before major decisions are announced.

    “When names are floated, you guys come around and ask, ‘What about this person? What about that person?’” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the GOP leadership team, told reporters Wednesday, saying he would like to see “more communication and collaboration.”
    “This is a nontraditional presidency, and the president now figures he doesn’t need a lot of advisers because he wants to do it himself. But there’s a lot of informal mechanisms and avenues for sharing information that are not really working very well now,” he added.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Thursday that they agreed with Cornyn that there needs to be more communication between the White House and congressional Republicans.

    If there’s this much and this prominent sort of daylight between Trump and the senior senator from the most populous GOP state — a senator hardly known for rashness, who is also second in the GOP senate leadership, and who, indeed, is the very definition of a “workhorse, not a showhorse” in the U.S. Senate — one might question the premise that the GOP is “Trump’s party, through and through.”

    Beldar (fa637a)

  24. Stephen moore’s opinions are well known, and cain’s was om the federal reserve’s board in Kansas city,

    narciso (d1f714)

  25. Re #19: I for one have not heard the phrase “fuggin’ that chicken.”

    Perhaps you can explain it for us, Haiku. I wouldn’t want to miss any of your important contributions to the substantive discussions in this blog’s comments. Surely there must be some deep, if hidden, meaning behind what appears on its surface to be an extremely rude insult from a serial heckler.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  26. Since you’ve asked, it’s an unusually deep and abiding interest in a particular subject.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  27. It appears that we have a test case to establish the answer to the proposition: “Does calling our host a chicken-f_cker run afoul [pun acknowledged] of the blog’s commenting guidelines?”

    If so, I offer, a la James Taranto’s tradition, a bye-ku — of course directed to hecklers in general, mind you (but including, too, lower ranks than general, such as self-styled captains, majors, etc.):

    Heckler spews insults
    Like block’d-up toilet spews filth:
    Porcelain for brains.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  28. Beldar, Colonel, Why?

    felipe (5b25e2)

  29. OT -Shots fired, not quite in the literal sense, yet (but maybe in Willie’s World)
    http://www.yahoo.com/news/2020-hopeful-kamala-harris-says-she-owns-gun-224722455–election.html

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  30. Hey, felipe !

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  31. Top of the day to you, Colonel!

    felipe (5b25e2)

  32. for the love of pete, the link up above was in tune with what glenn beck, had found about the leadership behind the caravans,

    narciso (d1f714)

  33. what was that joke about the rich and the poor, doing the same thing, yes she proscribes everyone else from self defense,

    narciso (d1f714)

  34. “The law in its majesty forbids both rich and poor from sleeping under bridges”

    Anatole France, I think. Maybe Balzac. I remember the quote but not in the mood to look up the author.

    Of course, that’s not necessarily the one you are thinking of.

    Kishnevi (a1b7cb)

  35. #22, My 2 cents: It’s foolish to argue the GOP is under Trump’s thumb, it’s obviously not and never has been. At best, the relationship can be described as a ‘shotgun marriage’ without an armistice in place.

    Former GOP Speaker, Paul Ryan, quietly but consistently resisted Trump’s legislative initiatives, while at the same time paying lip-service to his populist agenda.

    Additionally, a small group of openly disgruntled ‘NeverTrump’ Senators took to the Senate floor and to the Leftist media to denounce Trump, his wife, his children, his sister, his integrity, his legitimacy, even his hair style and his business success.

    There was such open personal hostility to Trump that a two year opportunity to enact vital legislation like funding for The Wall, or a replacement for ObamaCare, or an end to Sanctuary Cities, and so many other Conservative ideas was squandered, pissed away in a spiteful tantrum of blind ego driven rage.

    The clear result of course is a Democrat dominated House with all the legislative stagnation characteristic of a house divided against the vital interests of the electorate that chose Dpnald J Trump to lead our nation to peace and prosperity.

    ropelight (fa4001)

  36. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” — Anatole France

    nk (dbc370)

  37. yes that’s the one exactly, it struck me as appropriate, considering the rules she demands,

    narciso (d1f714)

  38. Brilliant.

    Just brilliant, Patterico.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  39. there was no partial predicate In the avenatti claim,

    https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/12/when-trump-probe-start/

    narciso (d1f714)

  40. @35 It’s foolish to argue the GOP is under anyone’s [even the voters] thumb, it’s obviously not and never has been.

    FTFY

    frosty48 (6226c1)

  41. 35… that’s a very thoughtful comment, ropelight. Right to the point.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  42. If what Avenatti is charged with is true, he deserves to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. As would anyone in the same circumstances. Heinous.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  43. this is scapegoating by almost 50 years,

    narciso (d1f714)

  44. squandered, pissed away in a spiteful tantrum of blind ego driven rage

    That’s an accurate way of describing Trump’s inability to make deals on those things.

    Kishnevi (a1b7cb)

  45. they had no intention, except to hold on to their jobs, or in ryans case to the next door on k street,

    narciso (d1f714)

  46. @35. ‘… the vital interests of our electorate that chose Donald J. Trump to lead our nation to peace and prosperity.’

    Heil!

    Ryan & ‘his’ GOP = Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Soviet Union, The Netherlands, The Channel Islands.

    Trump = Germany.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  47. Strange that my response never appeared. D.GOOCH

    GOOCH (270456)

  48. The IRS has had DECADES to look at Trump. DECADES. And multiple events to trigger reviews, interviews etc. He’s been buying and selling hotels, properties, jets, yachts, a shuttle, sports events, TV shows, ……since about 1980. Yet not one thing. [Emphasis supplied.]

    How do you know this? Have you seen Trump’s tax returns and the audits he claims to have endured for years? Has he shared with you whether he had to pay any additional tax, penalties and interest because of an audit? Has he told you about the tax appeals he lost?

    DRJ (15874d)

  49. #22, My 2 cents: It’s foolish to argue the GOP is under Trump’s thumb, it’s obviously not and never has been. At best, the relationship can be described as a ‘shotgun marriage’ without an armistice in place.

    Former GOP Speaker, Paul Ryan, quietly but consistently resisted Trump’s legislative initiatives, while at the same time paying lip-service to his populist agenda.

    Additionally, a small group of openly disgruntled ‘NeverTrump’ Senators took to the Senate floor and to the Leftist media to denounce Trump, his wife, his children, his sister, his integrity, his legitimacy, even his hair style and his business success.

    There was such open personal hostility to Trump that a two year opportunity to enact vital legislation like funding for The Wall, or a replacement for ObamaCare, or an end to Sanctuary Cities, and so many other Conservative ideas was squandered, pissed away in a spiteful tantrum of blind ego driven rage.

    The clear result of course is a Democrat dominated House with all the legislative stagnation characteristic of a house divided against the vital interests of the electorate that chose Dpnald J Trump to lead our nation to peace and prosperity.

    ropelight (fa4001) — 4/12/2019 @ 11:36 am</blockquot

    Ropelight, glad we agree that Trump wasn't able to accomplish much in his first two years.

    Time123 (441f53)

  50. From the link:

    Among the issues raised by [Trump’s tax attorney] Mitnick’s 1992 testimony is whether Trump or someone acting on his behalf substituted a return that he or someone else prepared and then transferred Mitnick’s signature using a photocopier.

    DRJ (15874d)

  51. Bored Lawyer (998177) — 4/12/2019 @ 9:03 am

    Have you ever heard of the expression beating up on a straw man?

    The cliche expert says:

    It’s beating a dead horse,

    AND

    attacking a straw man.

    “Beating a dead horse” (to get it going) means that it’d s lost cause, or could also be a conceded argument.

    And

    “Attacking a straw man” means you are arguing against a position that nobody holds.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  52. DRJ @ 51. What link, where?

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  53. In comment 49 Sammy.

    DRJ (15874d)

  54. “That’s an accurate way of describing Trump’s inability to make deals on those things.”
    Kishnevi (a1b7cb) — 4/12/2019 @ 12:33 pm

    Trump was utterly inept at making deals with those trying to impeach him from day one.

    Munroe (e2715c)

  55. #50, Time wasted, please, your presumptuous conclusion isn’t accurate or clever, it’s unserious, silly and sophomoric.

    For a clue to my opinion of Trump’s accomplishments, see comment #35 on yesterday’s ‘Assange Arrested’ post.

    ropelight (fa4001)

  56. Time, although my comment #56 was addressed directly to you, I should have included others of similar ilk: #s 45 & 47 for example.

    ropelight (fa4001)

  57. Welcome back, ropelight, it’s good to read your comments again.

    felipe (023cc9)

  58. “Trump was utterly inept at making deals with those trying to impeach him from day one.”

    Anyone can make deals with people who support them.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  59. “Anyone can make deals with people who support them.”

    Davethulhu (fab944)

    And yet somehow, Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress could not get immigration reform done his first two years.

    Colonel Haiku (6a972a)

  60. 60. Colonel Haiku (6a972a) — 4/12/2019 @ 2:36 pm

    Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress could not get immigration reform done his first two years.

    Barack Obama wasn’t truly interested. He wasn’t even interested that much in slowing the rise of the oceans and beginning to heal the planet. He gave up after the Waxman Markey bill failed.

    He was interested in health insurance.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  61. Among the issues raised by [Trump’s tax attorney] Mitnick’s 1992 testimony is whether Trump or someone acting on his behalf substituted a return that he or someone else prepared and then transferred Mitnick’s signature using a photocopier.

    Tghere are acouple of ways of understanding what somebody did here. It could be that Mitnick wouldn’t approve what Trump wanted to do on his 1984 tax return.

    Which actually reinforces the argument about accountants.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  62. OT, but wowzers… we dodged a bullet in November 2016… thank God.

    EXCLUSIVE: Ken Starr says Hillary Clinton DID trigger Vince Foster’s suicide when she humiliated him in front of White House staff and admits he omitted the finding in FBI report because he didn’t want to ‘inflict further pain’ on her.

    * FBI agents investigating the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster learned that a dressing down by Hillary Clinton in front of staff triggered his suicide

    *Independent counsel Ken Starr had omitted the finding in his FBI report but has finally admitted it to investigative journalist Ronald Kessler

    *Starr explained he ‘did not want to inflict further pain’ on Hillary by revealing how her humiliation of Foster had pushed him over the edge

    * He had issued a 38,000-word report, along with a psychologist’s report on the factors contributing to Foster’s suicide, but didn’t mention the key meeting

    * Hillary attacked and humiliated Foster in front of other White House aides a week before he took his own life on July 20, 1993
    ‘Hillary put him down really, really bad in a pretty good-size meeting. She told him he would always be a little hick town lawyer who was obviously not ready for the big time,’ former FBI agent Coy Copeland told Kessler
    ‘Foster was profoundly depressed, but Hillary lambasting him was the final straw because she embarrassed him,’ former FBI supervisory agent Jim Clemente said

    *Starr admitted to leaving out the meeting to Kessler at the 2019 Annapolis Book Festival last weekend

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6903755/Kenneth-Starr-admits-omitted-report-Hillary-Clinton-triggered-Vince-Fosters-suicide.html

    Colonel Haiku (6a972a)

  63. The actual answer from this quarter is: not everyone is audited. In fact, hardly anyone is audited. Trump — because of his reputation, is audited every year. That isn’t a mark of trust, BTW, it’s a mark that the IRS views Trump much as our host does, and knows he will cheat if he isn’t watched. So they watch him.

    And that careful attention to Trump is why many think that there isn’t much to find in his recent returns. For the same reason that people never get mugged in front of the security camera.

    Avenatti got caught because he drew attention to himself, and was seen to be a crook when people took a look. Then they went on to look at his taxes with probable cause and whaddayouknow. They caught it on the first audit.

    Unless you can show me where Avenatti is audited every year by federal, state and city auditors, it’s not the same thing. Apples and Elephants.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  64. Thanks felipe & you too, Colonel Haiku.

    However, I’m here tentatively at Patterico’s sufferage, rather like a black sheep uncle suddenly turned up at the backyard BBQ uninvited and unexpected.

    You see, I’ve yet to meet his requirements for participation (I transgressed and was firmly instructed to do penance prior to application for reinstatement). So, while I’m sticking my toe in the water, technically I’m tresspassing.

    ropelight (fa4001)

  65. To an extent, we are on the honor system as we pay our i. Personal integrity comes into play, as well. I would think a person’s salary history, marital status, number of children and the track record and stability of their lifestyle are all a part of the equation. It’s a painful, but necessary part of being a citizen fortunate enough to be living in the US of A.

    Colonel Haiku (6a972a)

  66. Wow… pay our taxes…

    Colonel Haiku (6a972a)

  67. And when I say equation, I mean all are taken into consideration when assessing the truthfulness of the tax filing.

    Colonel Haiku (6a972a)

  68. Among the issues raised by [Trump’s tax attorney] Mitnick’s 1992 testimony is whether Trump or someone acting on his behalf substituted a return that he or someone else prepared and then transferred Mitnick’s signature using a photocopier

    I read this about Mitnick;s testimony before, and this link, if different, doesn’t tell you anything more than what I read at first. It doesn;t tell you about the state of the evidence.

    Was it probable, or even undeniable, that Mitnick did not sign that return, or was he evading responsibility for something he did do.

    Three distinct possibilities immediately spring to mind:

    1) Mitnick did prepare the return and signed it as the paid tax preparer, but lied under oath.

    2) Mitnick did not sign it, but he did that on purpose, because he knew it was risky, but did not want to give up a high-paying client.

    3) Mitnick neither signed nor prepared the return that was filed, but he and Trump had discussions and perhaps it got s far that Mitmick even gave him a proposed return. Trump then went to somebody else (Roy Cohn?) and changed the return to his liking, and the person or firm that prepared the return used Mitnick’s name as a means of protecting themselves.

    Without more, how can anyone pick among these alternatives?

    And those are only the ones that immediately spring to mind.

    I do get the idea that Mitnick wasn’t interested in clarifying what did happen.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  69. 63. That sounds like a cover story, custom made for Kenneth Starr. I doubt very much being humiliated by Hillary Clinton preceded Vincent Foster running out of teh White House in the middle of the day.

    And it wasn’t suicide; nothing about the story fits the evidence (he supposedly killed himeslf wit a hypothetical gun that would have been illegal to take into DC – by the way his widow found the gun taht he did take which was still in the closet and his murder wss unplanned and was probably done by the Saudis, where he went to blackmail the ambassador in order to raise money for legal fees. But forgot about diplomatic immunity.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  70. And I think it could be the email I sent to president@whitehouse.gov which I can see how it could have been printed out and routed to him, that scared him so much.

    The smoking gun is the leak to Fred Barnes printed on page 10-11 of the March 14, 1994 New Republic – right at the time of known FOster case leaks. It reveals that sometime in July 1993, Saudi arabian Ambassador to United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan paid a secret unscheduled visit to the White House where he met with only Bill Clinton and Sandy Burger.. Now if anybody can find some verification of that visit and the time and day….FOIA requests didn’t work.

    The new Ambassador is now his daughter, o maybe he;s been unpurged a little bit,

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  71. lets follow Occam’s razor, and assume the most likely outcome, the fact that foster was the first high profile suicide since forrestal in 49, did raise eye brows, as was the cleanup that the administration embarked that very night,

    narciso (d1f714)

  72. I know, I’m getting out there on a log,

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1113622/Brexit-news-UK-Jacob-Rees-Mogg-the-Brexit-Party-Nigel-Farage-Annunziata-Rees-Mogg

    meanwhile, the mouse is still trying to lure film back to the franchise it’s nearly destroyed under rian Johnson, (I was a fan of looper so I don’t know how episode 8, went so far afield,)

    narciso (d1f714)

  73. Time, although my comment #56 was addressed directly to you, I should have included others of similar ilk: #s 45 & 47 for example.

    Surely I am not the first to note that Trump is not the great dealmaker he claims to be. One of his many lies.
    And the Democrats who were in Congress in 2016/2017 were not intetested in impeaching him. Too useful as a bogeyman. Pelosi and Schumer still are not.

    Your last line about Trump being elected to bring peace and prosperity did raise my eyebrows. But in reality it’s a claim that could be made by any POTUS, including the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama. It’s not unique to Trump.

    Kishnevi (f6ba20)

  74. Venn der Trump he says, vee make Amereeka grate;
    Vee go ‘Heil!’ ‘Heil!’ back in der Trumpster’s face;
    Venn der Trump he says, vee full in Disneyland;
    Vee go ‘Heil!’ ‘Heil!’ build dat vall und make it grand!

    Venn der Trump he brags, and lies and rants and raves;
    Vee go ‘Heil!’ Heil!’ for attention that he craves;
    Venn der Trump he tweets, dumb dictates everyday;
    Vee go ‘Heil!”Heil!’ und follow anyway.

    Black und brown ist such a blight;
    Ven your favorite color’s vhite;
    Our soil ist sacred; did you see;
    He sold it out in Helsinki!

    Every one of foreign race;
    Must salute der Trumpster’s face;
    Not to love ist yuuuuuge disgrace;
    Build dat vall und pick up da pace;
    So vee ‘Heil’ Heil!’ back in der Trumpster’s face.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  75. Annunziata should at least change her name to something more British and less European.

    Kishnevi (f6ba20)

  76. narciso (d1f714) — 4/12/2019 @ 3:49 pm
    If you really want to shave with Occam’s razor, you would realize the likeliest scenario is that the Park Service police realized they had a high profile case to deal with, and in the best bureaucratic tradition, totally messed up the investigation.

    Kishnevi (f6ba20)

  77. 49

    “How do you know this?”

    Because I was alive I the 80’s and 90’s and often worked in NY. Trump was on the front pages of the NYT for everything–from the Wollman Rink, buying the Plaza, buying the Trump Shuttle, buying a yacht, living large in the Tower, and NJ casino deals. I have some idea of what he made of the TV specials like the Apprentice.

    And I would bet–not unreasonably–that the tax-evasion-jail-term given to Leona Helmsley in the 80’s was a stiff reminder to all the NY wealthy to play it straight.

    But if you’re darkly and conspiratorially suggesting that because we haven’t seen his returns, we can only conclude that the IRS ignored a big fish like that, and took his returns at face value, OK, well, you have your reality and I have mine.

    “Have you seen Trump’s tax returns and the audits he claims to have endured for years? Has he shared with you whether he had to pay any additional tax, penalties and interest because of an audit? Has he told you about the tax appeals he lost?”

    -NoX3. I haven’t seen the inside of Cheyenne Mountain either though, but I’m pretty sure its there.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82)

  78. one might question the premise that the GOP is “Trump’s party, through and through.”

    Well, I am again a member of the GOP but I deny that I’m loyal to Trump. I will be very disappointed if he doesn’t have a serious challenger.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  79. I provided a link, Mr. Mudd. You might want to read it.

    DRJ (15874d)

  80. As for Senator Harris having agun for self-protection, I am going to bet that she had less of a problem getting a carry permit in CA than I would have (if I’d been silly enough to try).

    I would be interested to know if 1) it’s a semi-auto and 2) if so, does it microstamp every round it fires?

    That may sound like a stupid thing to ask, but all gun manufacturers attempting to get a semi-auto on the CA approved roster in the last few years have had to answer “YES” to the microstamping question, even though it is currently impossible. This is due to former AG Harris’s certification that such technology exists. Even though it doesn’t.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  81. @49/79. HFM is accurate, DRJ. Lived and worked there in NYC then myself back then; t’was the go-go 80s–they were digging at him from every which way and he was on the front pages of the Daily Nooz and the NY Post 3 out of 5 days a week, ez, ‘specially during the Marla-Ivanna divorce wars. He and Nadler would go at all the time. A lot of time he’d get finedor slapped on the wrist or simply a nod-and-wink pass on his ‘celebrity status’- for instance, ad agencies knew the guy had a street rep for stiffing and/or low-balling vendorsd but many simply wanted his name on their client roster as a prestige name to leverage other business.

    NYers know the drill around on this dude. Most Americans west of the Hudson didn’t nd only got to know him from a board game and thay silly TeeVee show.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  82. Trump lives in the now, which is why it’s so hilariously easy for him to dismiss ‘knowledge’ of Wikileaks ‘today’ after embracing it for months ‘yesterday.’ He has no conscience; no sense of shame. No doubt there’s a clinical diagnosis for that kind of behavior. Might go good with strawberries, too. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  83. Yes that’s likely in 20 years the DC police will say something similar about seth rich.

    Myers voted for a guy who was a sandalista and who killed a groundhog year their judgement leaves something to be desired.

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  84. @79. LOL postscript- yeah, they really nailed the Queen of Mean [“…we don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes…”- great street theatre. If we could dig her up w/Steinbrenner, Cohn, Billy Martin, steady-Eddie-Koch, Bess Myerson, find Reggie and lard up Nadler, we could get the whole band back together again. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  85. But if you’re darkly and conspiratorially suggesting that because we haven’t seen his returns, we can only conclude that the IRS ignored a big fish like that, and took his returns at face value, OK, well, you have your reality and I have mine.

    It is entirely feasible to engage in skullduggery yet remain within the limits of the law. It is entirely feasible to be forced by the IRS to pay penalties and interest on disallowed deductions yet never see the inside of a courtroom, and never come to public knowledge.

    Not releasing the returns suggests one of three things:
    1) the theory that Trump’s business dealings with Russia have made him Putin’s tools gets its strength from Trump’s hiding his returns and other info, and by not releasing them he lets that theory flourish. Does he not realize that?
    2) the returns contain information he thinks is politically damaging, more damaging than refusing to release them would be, but not related to Russia in any way.
    3) Trump is a fool who, to quote that wise sage of an earlier decade, does not “know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em”.
    From my viewpoint, each of the three is equally likely.

    Kishnevi (f6ba20)

  86. DCSCA, are you saying that you and all New Yorkers have personal knowledge that Trump has no tax problems and never has?

    DRJ (15874d)

  87. No it comes all the lying on documents like ths dossier and the fisa request? They treated him worse than they did whitey bulger, not surprisingly the same person was running the investigation, the bogus Prague connection at Cohen they just had to chum the water.

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  88. How many reputations did they destroy, how much poison did they so, and how invulnerable have they been for so long:
    https://pjmedia.com/trending/splcs-hate-group-accusation-outed-as-a-scam-more-than-60-groups-considering-lawsuits/

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  89. ““Obama’s IRS” gave Avenatti a pass due to politics and gave Trump a pass because he’s squeaky clean. Congratulations; that argument just gave the Avenatti superfan an argument that the Avenatti indictment is pure politics from the Trump administration.”

    This is an inane and lazy comparison. Outside of perhaps the man who was such a great judge of character that he saw Tucker and Avenatti and immediately started sympathizing with Avenatti and suggesting Tucker needed a punch to the face for reasons of decorum(lol)…

    …there aren’t really that many ‘Avenatti superfans’ left, given that his associates, including his main client, were already starting to abandon and denounce him a few months prior to his indictment. He was already running on borrowed time, tired schtick, and guttering flames when they were finally snuffed out.

    Such is the way of things when you’re an ACTUAL small-time crook who mostly avoided scrutiny then hit the big time when you decided you could pull off the Great Russiagate Mass Hysteria Campaign.

    Jerrod (3d2536)

  90. #75, kish, you’re not the first to point out Trump’s expectations don’t always match his accomplishments. Sometimes they don’t, but you can’t say he’s unwilling to actually try, which is considerably more than many a loud-mouth, do-nothing, double-talking, lazy jackass is willing to risk.

    Democrats have been trying to prevent Trump from taking office since before the first vote was ever cast. They tried to deny him the GOP nomination. They sicced Obama’s weaponized spy agencies on him. Their noisy baboons in Congress were talking up impeachment almost before he was inaugurated.

    Incidentally, there was a brief lacuna in my final sentence. It should have been back to peace and prosperity.

    ropelight (4c4f38)

  91. “It’s all about who’s president when it’s handed down, right? If there’s anything we have learned from the Trump era, it’s that the rule of law doesn’t matter any more. Only politics does.”

    Well, less ‘who’s President’ then ‘will the corporate news media and their antifa enforcers attack and doxx us, our families, and our public lives personally if we file these charges against their paid media darling BEFORE their fake Russia hysteria investigation flames out?’

    I mean people who don’t spend their entire day blaming the President for everything can look at the bit players and likely scenarios that happen under the radar every day and make these judgments for themselves.

    Jerrod (fd6264)

  92. The dems sent a swarm of special prosecutors after reagans meese twice pierce the gipper James watt, the former threw momma Gorsuch under the bus, little came of it.

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  93. But ma Richard’s had a wry laugh at that, the dems memorized the dissent in Morrison as if it was Clintons black book and adopted Nixon’s argument against Amy inquiry

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  94. In any case, the real mark of Trump’s relative success against the deep state is that it has revealed itself to the world. What might have been a paranoid rumor at one time is now certified fact: the political establishment created a fake collusion story to spy on a presidential candidate, used the corrupt FISA system to give itself superficial legitimacy, and then created an establishment-controlled investigation which–since they knew from the start it could never find evidence of collusion–was probably designed to manipulate the president into doing something that could be counted as “obstruction”.

    Combined with this, media involvement has been so extensive as to make it effectively a government propaganda branch. No doubt many journalists were happy to believe anything that sounded semi-plausible and could damage a president they despised, but let’s not be excessively charitable: hundreds of influential journalists knew what was going on and played along because the ends justify the means.

    In such an environment, is it any wonder that Avenatti avoided public arrest, even after showing very public instability, until the hoax investigation collapsed?

    Jerrod (e7e63e)

  95. @88. No, he has had tax issues- city, state, etc., and it’s such a complex pile of stories it’s hard to get your arms around it all on a blog and to describe to folks who’ve lived outside of NYC and beyond the kind of Trump saturation the tri-stated area was subjected to and endured… but there has been some fairly comprehensive docs done on him and for television, they’re not too bad, but still only scratch the glossy surface. That NYT piece they spent months on was good, too, but the tedium and complexities got it lost in the media backwash. It’s hard to describe just how ‘pervasive’ Trump was in daily NYC life back in the day – like cowpies in a Texas cow pasture, the man was everyplace and if not on the pages of the Nooz or Post on the buses, trains and subways, on the local TV news virtually every night; that frigging Trump helicopter would zip up and down the river and along the Jersey coast to AC; you’d see his face on the front pages riding to work, he’d be on AM radio w/Howard Stern or Don Imus– even vividly recall two business meetings where Trump was the first thing that was discussed- just because of what he’d done that week. But west of the Hudson he was much less exposed– until The Apprentice took him national. What America is experiencing with him today is very old news to veterans of the NYC Trump era. And the thing is, he’s the same now as he was then. People just can’t– or won’t– look away.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  96. Yes and if you looked into the New York times that needed a Mexican oligarch to keep it afloat what would you find, we saw what pat Fitzgerald did selectively to hollinger, ultimately the court found he had overreached but he lost his position and the company was carved up like the apocryphal cake in godfather 2.

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  97. loud-mouth, do-nothing, double-talking, lazy jackass
    I will admit that lazy does not necessarily apply to Trump, even with all his executive time and golfing trios to Bedminster and Maralago…but the rest of that description fits him to a T.
    They sicced Obama’s weaponized spy agencies on him

    In fact, no. There is in fact less evidence for that than there is for the charge Trump colluded with Russia in 2016.
    I know Trump supporters have a hard time with this, but the reality is rather clear. Trump had considerable connections with the Putin regime before running for office and Team Trump had considerable contacts with associates of Putin regime. Any counterintelligence agency would have been failing at its job if it did not investigate those contacts. The FBI had more than enough reason to “spy” on Team Trump. That the contacts turned out to be nothing is no reason to allege that the FBI only had political motives. And since Trump refused to release his financial info, no one can truthfully say his business dealings with Putin have no influence on his decisions.

    Kishnevi (f6ba20)

  98. He had done minor business deals that had never amounted to anything, we know who actually had significant connections and the power to leverage them, what actions benefited a small ruling class of bureaucrats and bankers on both ends of ths atlantic.

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  99. He had done minor business deals that had never amounted to anything
    Actually, we don’t know, because that is all info he refuses to release. And if your life is made up of minor business deals, every deal is important. And his connections were more significant than Hillary’s.

    You have an unfortunate habit of mixing spy thrillers with reality.

    Kishnevi (f6ba20)

  100. “Trump had considerable connections with the Putin regime before running for office and Team Trump had considerable contacts with associates of Putin regime”

    SIGH. This fits under a particular genre of reporting techniques employed by the Russiagaters throughout this saga, what I call “Misleading Phraseology”.

    An alternative example would be the usage of the construction “contacts/ties/connections with Russia” to imply collusion between that nation and the Trump campaign. “Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians” one typical New York Times article reads. What’s misleading here is that both “connections/ties/contacts with” and “Russians” are terribly open to (mis)interpretation. The implication is that the Trump campaign engaged in criminal conspiracy with members of the Russian intelligence services, but in practice the “contacts” compiled by the New York Times in a showy chart include when Donald Trump Jr. “received [a] direct message from WikiLeaks” and when Donald J. Trump was “introduced to [the] Russian ambassador”. Here we see that “Russian” is stretched to include any person or entity that is itself (dubiously) associated with Russia and “contacts” apparently include perfunctory meetings with ambassadors. Undoubtedly by that standard the vast majority of elected officials in Washington have “contacts” with Russia!

    The media had begun to malign any sort of vague association with anything even remotely Russia related as nefarious, corrupt, and illegal (very Stalinist of them, though they would absurdly use that term to describe Trump himself).

    So no, the counterintel team had no “compelling reason to investigate.” This investigation was based in bad faith and motivated reasoning from the very beginning.

    Jerrod (8c9339)

  101. “Actually, we don’t know, because that is all info he refuses to release.”

    IF YOU DON’T RELEASE ALL NAKED PICTURES ON YOUR PHONE WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO ASSUME YOU WERE HAVING AN AFFAIR!!!

    Get over yourself.

    Jerrod (640fbe)

  102. 101… I think we’ll see evidence that the FBI, DoJ and the IC acted improperly, perhaps illegally and certainly without precedent or predicate. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be held to account.

    Colonel Haiku (6a972a)

  103. Ah the Russian ambassador who met with 30 senators (including fair claire) because they needed his support to swing the Iran deal, who was invited to the convention, now he may have had something to do with the death of Mikhail Lenin which happened a full year before the election.

    Narciso (a6de9a)

  104. “The FBI had more than enough reason to “spy” on Team Trump. That the contacts turned out to be nothing is no reason to allege that the FBI only had political motives.”
    Kishnevi (f6ba20) — 4/12/2019 @ 7:39 pm

    I mean, who wouldn’t take a golden showers tip seriously?

    Munroe (e8478c)

  105. @104 Ironically, one thing you left out in your calculations about “misleading phraseology” is the constant lying from Trump and his associates about contacts with Russians. Trump Sr, Trump Jr, Kushner, Flynn, Papadapolus, McFarland, Page, Gates, Manafort, Prince… all lied, obfuscated the truth, or if want to be charitable, “forgot” contacts with Russians.

    JRH (8f59ea)

  106. oh yeah and Sessions.

    JRH (8f59ea)

  107. “I mean, who wouldn’t take a golden showers tip seriously?”

    Someone who “has an unfortunate habit of mixing spy thrillers with reality.” (Really, it sounds like kishnevi is so bereft of convincing rejoinders and argument that he’s reduced to repeating rebuttals normally targeted directly at him, which is the precise definition of ‘living rent free in his head’ if I ever saw one.)

    Hey Kish, the best cure for this manic mental illness is to say “I was wrong, you were right, and I won’t be pushing this fake line in the future!” Confession is good for the soul AND the mind!

    Jerrod (215211)

  108. “all lied, obfuscated the truth, or if want to be charitable, “forgot” contacts with Russians. and Sessions.”

    Nah, the questioning in those cases was either meandering, imprecise or outright hostile to an investigation of the facts, and any blanket statement that requires me to accept Al “Groyper” Franken’s judgment of the facts on faith can be safely ignored.

    Jerrod (b3b0e2)

  109. Re: #56, should we presume such comments to be a metric for what is acceptable criticism of a disliked commenter? Inquiring minds would like to know.

    Leviticus (b22e40)

  110. @112. Trump’s pathological aversion to the truth is catching.

    JRH (8f59ea)

  111. Hey Kish, the best cure for this manic mental illness is to say “I was wrong, you were right, and I won’t be pushing this fake line in the future!” Confession is good for the soul AND the mind!

    So long, Jerrod.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  112. #50, Time wasted, please, your presumptuous conclusion isn’t accurate or clever, it’s unserious, silly and sophomoric.

    ropelight, I’ll give you a warning. Another such comment and you get a vacation at a minimum. No personal insults.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  113. “Patterico: Have you ever heard of the expression beating up on a straw man?”

    Forget about assaulting a straw man, has he ever heard of “fuggin’ that chicken”!?!?

    Same for you. I warn you all the time, Colonel. I’m surprised I’m not taking you out for a week or two but I’m feeling generous. Don’t push me.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  114. “suggesting Tucker needed a punch to the face for reasons of decorum(lol)…”

    Yeah, I knew Jerrod was on thin ice with that one. It was only a matter of time.

    Ptw (cfe1e5)

  115. The law, in its majestic equality, requires the rich as well as the poor to be provided with healthcare and legal services, to have jobs created by others specifically for them, and to pay income taxes, including the AMT.

    JSkorcher (a37984)

  116. Patterico: Your Blog -> your call! No quibbling.

    However, let me appeal your hasty decision regarding Jerrod.

    His comments are well composed, thoughtful, and interesting. They’re straight forward, often directed and well within the boundries of colloquial discourse, and perhaps more importantly they add to the diversity of views once ubiquitous here and now in short supply.

    Jerrod is obviously intelligent, educated, informed, opinionated, and irreverent – just the sort of commenter that sparks the elan vital so necessary to spirited debate.

    Additionally, Jarrod’s reference to Kish’s ongoing acute TDS was not only accurate, his comment also went on to include helpful recommendations for reversing the debilitating effects of Kool-Aid addection. Truth is Jerrod’s shield.

    I’ll say no more, the issue is yours alone to consider.

    ropelight (8b705b)

  117. Patterico: Your Blog -> your call! No quibbling.

    However, let me appeal your hasty decision regarding Jerrod.

    His comments are well composed, thoughtful, and interesting. They’re straight forward, often directed and well within the boundries of colloquial discourse, and perhaps more importantly they add to the diversity of views once ubiquitous here and now in short supply.

    Jerrod is obviously intelligent, educated, informed, opinionated, and irreverent – just the sort of commenter that sparks the elan vital so necessary to spirited debate.

    Additionally, Jarrod’s reference to Kish’s ongoing acute TDS was not only accurate, his comment also went on to include helpful recommendations for reversing the debilitating effects of Kool-Aid addection. Truth is Jerrod’s shield.

    I’ll say no more, the issue is yours alone to consider.

    He can apologize, just like you can apologize for what you just said about kish. For right now, though, given your recent warning, I’m putting you in moderation for a week.

    If Jerrod wants to make a thoughtful apology, I’ll consider reinstating him. I don’t think he’s capable of it.

    If you want to make a thoughtful apology, I’ll reinstate you right away. I do think you’re capable of it.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  118. 87: “Not releasing the returns suggests one of three things:”

    With all respect, it suggests many others. For example:

    (4), because a segment of his opponents, aside from honorable democrats, will use such information to harass and boycott his lenders, and business partners.

    Think I’m kidding? Someone in SF initiated a boycott of Ivanka Trump’s clothing line; a respectable paper runs an op-ed suggesting that departing Secretary Neilsen not be hired, and be run out of restaurants; his Press Sec and others have been harassed out of restaurants; a paper actually pieced together a list of members at some Trump golf course. In Los Angeles, when Trump visited once, a local banker or hedge fund guy tweeted that people should take to the streets, and warned that anyone attending a Trump fundraiser would be outed and harassed;

    (5), that he does not want his lenders subpoenaed by a congress more interested in harassing anyone connected with trump than the rising debt;

    Many more, but the supposition that he must be “hiding something,” while probably right in part, is not the only one, or even the compelling one.

    California interestingly has a state line of cases that prohibit discovery of tax returns in state cases, absent direct relevance. Its judges are not fools.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82)

  119. btw, it appears the indictment against Assange is not as open and shut as accounts suggest, although the massive release of additional wiki files, are problematic,

    narciso (d1f714)

  120. Mr. Mudd, you said in comment 2 that no one has found “one thing” wrong with Trump’s taxes, but I showed you a link in comment 49 that indicates Trump has lost tax appeals. Care to reconsider?

    DRJ (15874d)

  121. I suspect he’s going to continue to ignore your evidence, DRJ.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  122. @126. He’s been trying to ‘get away with it’ playing ‘catch me if you can’ for decades; the whole family has and when he’s snagged on something- on some part of a municipal or state/Fed code, it’s just enough to cop a plea or settle w/a fine on the QT and then jiggle and juggle some place else. It’s an endless nd exhausting chase game w/him- especially in the NY real estate world– and when he croaks, they’ll still be after him– but it won’t matter then.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  123. Have been putting up a security fence around the property here on the Cape, a lot of hard work, but the dog walkers and their dogs will be secure as my dogs won’t be able to jump a 5′ fence and rip them a new you know what. My two made a pit-bull and his master run away, thought I might have to hire an Avenatti type fixer, but decided on the security fence for the publics safety.

    mg (8cbc69)

  124. I’ve read that aggressive dogs are only reflecting the personality of their master.

    nk (dbc370)

  125. #me too, nk.

    mg (8cbc69)

  126. I also am putting up a couple signs on the fence A illustration of a dog looking through a rifle scope with the caption “My Dog has you in his Sites”

    mg (8cbc69)

  127. So a friend and I are walking down the street, past a house with a five-foot chain link fence, when this big Rottweiler comes charging up, snarling and slavering, and slams himself against the fence trying to get at us. We both jump in surprise. My friend quickly says: “Stay calm. Dogs can smell it when you’re afraid.” I said: “Of course he can smell it! How couldn’t he smell it? I pooped myself.”

    nk (dbc370)

  128. I was caddying for a friend in a Amateur event at Hyannisport and knew their was a German Shepard that lived off the 10th fairway and was always barking at the golfers. I packed a Porterhouse bone leftover from the night before and tossed it to him just prior to my friend hitting his shot. We still laugh about it.

    mg (8cbc69)

  129. True story:

    A friend and I were walking down a street (behind a supermarket)with which neither of us was familiar. A very large dog began barking at us as we approached “his” turf. I noticed that he was on a chain and decided to ignore the snarling beast. When we arrived at the edge of the property, the dog charged us. I lost my composure and jumped into the street. The dog’s chain ran out with the animal on the curb side of the sidewalk!

    “That chain was longer than I thought!” I yelled laughing. My friend had totally disappeared.
    “Steve! Where are you?” Steve stuck his head out of a dumpster that was across the street, saying, “he’s on a chain?” I guess it’s true; you don’t have to outrun the bear.

    felipe (023cc9)

  130. a lifelong laugh, felipe.

    mg (8cbc69)

  131. Since this thread has gone to the dogs, here’s the complete 1967 series of George Of The Jungle, including Tom Slick and Super Chicken. Don’t miss the pilot episode with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. Schenectady! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiex0W9P7U74yskV59-Z0Og/videos

    nk (dbc370)

  132. I have just the dog for you, mg. Monster ankle destroyer:

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/cockpit-dog?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bfshareemail

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  133. That looks to be a Pelosi-Avenatti hybrid, Col.

    mg (8cbc69)

  134. A trip down Strada di Tutti di Fruitti Avenatti… https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=sfVwotyqhHc

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  135. 98. Jerrod (e7e63e) — 4/12/2019 @ 7:19 pm

    : the political establishment created a fake collusion story to spy on a presidential candidate,

    I think it was Vladimir Putin who created the fake collusion story (in order so that Steele shouild not get at the real truth – a penetration story – which might inclde some collusion, by Mike Flynn for instance, but not by the people at whome fingers wre being pointed at.)

    It could also be that The Democrats who got that disinformation didn’t believe it but yet trued to use it to start an investigation of Trump, with the hopes and intent that the fact of an investigation would be made public, just so they could say he was under investigation like Hillary had been.

    But James Comey was very careful to see that there would not be any spying on the campaign.

    The big question Barr has was why wasn’t anybody in the Trump campaign informed of FBI concerns about some people associated with the campaign. That’s what what would usually be done. That’s what would be done even if they didn’t fully trust the man in charge, at least at the start. And there were two people associated woth the campaign they could have presumbably trusted: Former United States Attorneys Rudolph Giuliani and Chris Christie.

    used the corrupt FISA system to give itself superficial legitimacy, and then created an establishment-controlled investigation which–since they knew from the start it could never find evidence of collusion

    There was a counter-intelligence investigation during 2016.

    The criminal investigation into Trump (for possible obstrction of justice) was started by Andrew McCabe after Comey was fired. Rod Rosenstein did not feel he could simply close it down, but strove to prevent McCabe from being involved. He first may have tried to get Trump to appoint Mueller FBI Director (we don’t much about who floated Mueller’s name) and when they failed he appointed a special counsel and named Mueller to the job. Rosenstein considered Mueller, justifiably or not, to be non-partisan and also immune from criticism by Democrats that he was biased toward Trump, so he was the best person to kill the investigation.

    Rosenstein was perhaps trying to avoid being accused of obstruction of justice himself.

    In such an environment, is it any wonder that Avenatti avoided public arrest, even after showing very public instability, until the hoax investigation collapsed?

    Avenatti lost credibility in the Kavanaugh case, ad afetr that peoplle were stayinng away from him, and then he took on Nike. But there’d obviosly been an investigation into his finances going on before. Maybe he was being protected before by friends, I don’t know.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  136. 124. Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82) — 4/13/2019 @ 3:08 pm

    a respectable paper runs an op-ed suggesting that departing Secretary Neilsen not be hired, and be run out of restaurants;

    No, Michelle Goldberg sppecifically said she shouldn’t be screamed at in restaurants, but she should be a pariah. She shouldn’t get the kind of corporate job or prestigious academic appointment (or speaking fees) customary for ex-administration officials; and she should be blacklisted by corporations for following along with what Trump wanted to do as much as she did and it doesn’t matter that something was too much for her. In other words, once you’ve joined the dark side, you’re in it for good.

    She said boycotting those Trump officials associated with baby-snatching should be the place to start (and maybe then later, once they’ve established the principle, they can go after people associated with other Trump Administration policies, so that it’s either you join the shunning or you agree with what the people being shunned did?)

    This she calls accountability. Rural voters, who tend to be conservative, have disproportionate political power, but cosmopolitan prpgressives have disproportionate economic and cultural power. And they should use it.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/opinion/kirstjen-nielsen-family-separation-trump.html

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  137. 126:

    Sorry, did not mean to ignore your post. I read your linked article and don’t see it as supporting you at all:

    (a), the very fact that the local tax people knew about and denied a position he took shows–does it not–that they scrutinize his business, lusting as all governments do, for more revenue. Ask anyone that spends most of their life in Florida, but has a small vacation house in NY. You’ll hear from the NY tax people!

    And tax people talk to each other. The IRS also watches newspapers. So this rather cements my position” he has been under scrutiny for years. If they would have found something “wrong,” he’d have been slammed hard.

    (b), you appear to implicitly assume that a tax board denial is tantamount to “the taxpayer was wrong,” meaning “bad” or “illegal.” That is an odd position: while I am very conservative as to my tax returns, you don’t “owe” the government your income by ceding the area just on this side of the line. Many businesses come right up to the line, and may rightly or wrongly think they’ve found a way to move the line. Hence, Google incorporates abroad. The inversions. John Kerry registering his yacht outside his home state. Or a taxpayer might claim accelerated depreciation for something and the tax people disagree. Bill Clinton valued his old underwear at 99 cents on one of his returns. If the tax people said it was only worth 50 cents and he had appealed and lost he would not be “bad,” just wrong.

    This is why those boards exist. To decide. Sometimes the taxpayer wins. A tax payer with a reasonable position or even an aggressive one is usually not “wrong,” meaning illegal, if its disclosed and explained. They may lose the deduction, but to assume those show “bad” things is inaccurate.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82)

  138. 142:

    I did not mean Michelle Goldberg, who I cannot abide, and who, in a bow to health and sanity, I refuse to read: I meant the upstanding-ex-waiter and now pundit of sorts– who wrote the Op Ed the Boston Globe decided was a worthwhile contribution to civil political debate (its since delisted, as the Globe though better of it, but stories about it are easy to find).

    Boston Globe pulls Luke O’Neil column amid conservative backlash …
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/column-suggested-waiters-could-tamper-with-trump…
    2 days ago – A column suggested waiters could ‘tamper’ with Trump officials’ food. . recent resignation of former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

    Opinion | Luke O’Neil: Keep Kirstjen Nielsen … – The Boston Globe
    https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2019/04/10/oneil/…/story.html
    4 days ago – Keep Kirstjen Nielsen unemployed and eating Grubhub over her …

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82)

  139. 63. 70. 71. 72. 78.

    72. narciso (d1f714) — 4/12/2019 @ 3:49 pm

    lets follow Occam’s razor, and assume the most likely outcome, the fact that foster was the first high profile suicide since forrestal in 49, did raise eye brows, as was the cleanup that the administration embarked that very night,

    (And add the fake “suicide note” too, which contained accusations against the Wall Street Journal and others and said “The public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff” and focused on the travel office controversy as the big scandal Vincent Foster supposedly was concerned about.)

    That’s something a little bit more basic. That is, whatever happened, it indicated there was probably something wrong going on that Foster was involved with.

    But there turned out to be something wrong with all the details of his death, including the fact that his body was found in, of all places, Fort Marcy Park, and it is the opposite of Occam’s Razor to think that he committed suicide. (although it is also clear that his death came as asurroise Bill Clinton and his asssociates)

    But let’s go back to one thing you mentioned. What does Occam’s Razor tell you about the cleanup? It’s not what they leaked.

    They had to prevent Bernard Nussbaum, the White House counsel, and nominal boss, from looking at the files of Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel.

    That’s the only conceivable person these files could have been protected from!

    Nobody else could look at those legal files. Since when do investigators get to take a look at coonfidential legal files?

    Naturally the Clintons later on arranged for a scene with the Park Police two days later (July 22) where it was made to look like it was Bernard Nussbaum who was protecting the secrets held in Vincent Foster’s files!

    And they later on leaked that it had to do with Whitewater, and mixed up the files with other files, and turned it over to Kenneth Starr or somebody without saying what had been in the White House on July 20, 1993, and what had been elsewhere. I’m pretty sure none of what had been in the White House had anything to do with Whitewater (that would not have been the location for it, nor was it a big worry for the Clintons) and anything truly imcriminating or revealing (not the same thing) was removed on the evening of July 20, before Bernard Nussbaum could take a look.

    Now here;s some background: Hillary Rodham had told Bernard Nussbaum back in 1974 that Bill Clinton would become president and he would be his choice for White House counsel. Nussbaum laughed it off, but Hillary knew what she was talking about, even though Bill Clinton hit a few bumps on the road on his way to the White House.

    Notably, Senator Fulbright, whom he hoped to succeed in 1980, being defeated by Dale Bumpers in 1974 in a primary in Arkansas; then losing his race to get elected to The House of Representatives [after making plans to make the freshman class be important and himself its leader]; then losing his race for re-election as Governor in 1980; and finally being forced to drop out of the 1988 presidential race in July 1987 [after having done all that work to set up “Super Tuesday”] because his strategy of being the southern candidate wouldn’t work with Al Gore also in the race.

    I’m sure that was his reason: Polling that showed his strategy wouldn’t work, not spending more time with his 7-year old daughter Chelsea, and not fear of bimbo eruptions.

    The reason the Clintons chose Bernard Nussbaum for the position of White House counsel, having settled on him early, was because he wasn’t privy to any of Bill Clinton’s secrets. He would be the guiltless person “in charge.” A red herring. They chose him early because it was an important thing to get right.

    Then, on July 20, 1993, they suddenly had to keep him from seeing what was in the files of his nominal deputy.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)


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