DL Open Thread Thursday, July 8, 2021
Most people who want Donald Trump prosecuted for his life of crime felt disappointed when Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg was indicted for tax crimes over what were characterized as “fringe benefits.” Trump’s laywers certainly were thrilled when the media parroted their spin, but the truth is that it’s a lot more serious than the media has made it sound. Dumb fucker actually kept two sets of books, which experts say is almost a guarantee prosecutors will prevail — that’s what put the one-time owner of the Rusty Rudder in federal prison back in the ’80s.
As tax-code expert reporter David Cay Johnston points out, Trump’s “defense” — basically, that it’s peanuts — doesn’t hold up in the face of life sentences for petty thieves under so-called “three strikes” laws. Won’t cut any ice in court, either.
The most fascinating thing about reality-challenged Republicans is that they don’t hear themselves. One congressfool went on TV and said his party compatriots were OK with fixing roads and bridges, but they had no interest in “mucking it up” with health care and education. Republicans have no interest in those things beyond how to exploit them for profit, but they’re not supposed to say so out loud.
The mysterious neurological illness that’s killing songbirds has reached our area, and researchers still can’t figure out what’s causing it. Experts are telling people not to stock bird feeders for fear that it’s contagious and being spread where birds don’t practice social distancing.
A Delaware man who’s been on death row for more than 20 years had his conviction tossed out because of prosecutorial misconduct. sentenced to 45 years in 2008 for second-degree murder, had his conviction vacated. No link because it’s behind the News Journal paywall.
The floor is yours.
What is it with these guys and “two sets of books” ?
I wonder if they feel so insulated by money and white privilege that they don’t consider anything they do criminal or even particularly risky?
Who doesn’t have 2 sets of books? One you wife see and one she doesn’t
Those of us with working wives.
I’m starting to think Republicans may have a point when they say the infrastructure bill should be limited to concrete and steel stuff. Of course we also need big investments in human infrastructure, but perhaps that should be in another bill and fought as two separate battles.
Maybe if there was some electoral strategy at work.
Of course they have a point. Their point is to limit what Democrats can do. One of their Congresswads just admitted that their goal is chaos and gridlock for the next 18 months.
They want to build roads and bridges because they can take credit for it. They could take credit for health care, too, but having politicized it, they can’t, so they’ve boxed themselves into the absurd position that a lack of health insurance is actually good for the country.
Yikes! It’s the old two sets of books game, as noted will be shocked if there’s not a conviction. As for Trump’s lawsuit suspect it will be thrown in the garbage for numerous reasons and land with a resounding thud.
I didn’t even include it in the roundup. “Old man shouts at clouds” stopped being a story about 5 years ago.
More stuff about the history of caffeine that I didn’t know. From Michael Pollan:
“…the coffee break was invented, or formalized, at a necktie company in Denver in the 1950s as a solution to a problem with quality control and productivity. The idea that an employer gives you time off to consume a drug the company provides free of charge should tell you all you need to know about the ties between capitalism and caffeine.”
Caffeine is the only drug that has been scientifically shown to increase athletic performance (in large part because running human trials on some of the illegal ones would be unethical).
Toyota Decides To Stop Giving To Seditionist Legislators:
https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/562136-toyota-hits-reverse-on-donations-to-lawmakers-who
Overturned conviction is old news. 2014 story from CNN.
Thanks for the catch. Was looking for a link because of the paywall, grabbed the wrong thing. Nobody else has reported it yet, which is a sad commentary on the condition of newsgathering in Delaware.
Supreme Court ruled he received ineffective counsel from his public defender.
Talk about Republican morons not being able to hear themselves:
Donald Trump Jr. has come right out and acknowledged that one of the counts in the 15-felony indictment against his dad’s Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, is true.
In a rambling 13-minute video posted to Facebook on Thursday, Junior said that, yes, his father, former President Donald Trump, paid the private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandkids. “My dad did that,” he said, because he’s a “good guy.”
MSNBC’s Ari Melber said on “The Beat” Friday that Don Jr. may have made things “worse” for the Trump Organization and Weisselberg with his remarks. “This is about off-the-books tax crime allegations,” Melber said. (Check out the video up top.)