DL Open Thread: Friday, Feb. 16, 2024
Aleksei Navalny Dies In Russian Prison. Not as important as Fani Willis’ love life, and will be treated accordingly by the media. I mean, Tucker Carlson didn’t even ask Putin about him:
Aleksei A. Navalny, the most outspoken domestic critic of President Vladimir V. Putin, has died in prison, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said on Friday.
It said that Mr. Navalny, 47, had lost consciousness after taking a walk in the Arctic prison where he was moved late last year.
“The facility’s medical staff immediately arrived and an ambulance brigade was called,” the penitentiary service’s statement said. “All necessary resuscitation measures were taken, which did not lead to positive results. The ambulance doctors confirmed the death of the convict.”
Mr. Putin’s spokesman said that the death had been reported to Mr. Putin, according to the Tass state news service.
Dog Bites Man: Rethugs’ Star Witness Against The Bidens Is A Fraud. His name, I’m not making this up, is Alexander Smirnov, which perhaps is why the Rethugs never mentioned his name amidst their bombastic allegations:
Smirnov, 43, is described in charging documents as a former confidential human source for the FBI who gave agents false information in 2020 about a prominent political figure and his son. The description of the two individuals matches that of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and a person familiar with the matter said those are the individuals about whom Smirnov lied. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
Smirnov allegedly reported to an FBI agent in 2017 that he had a phone call with the owner of the Ukrainian firm Burisma, in which it was discussed that “Public Official 1’s son, was a member of Burisma’s Board.” The fact that Hunter Biden served on the company’s board was publicly known at the time.
In 2020, the indictment alleges, Smirnov brought new claims to the bureau, including that he knew of conversations from 2015 or 2016 in which Burisma executives said they hired the son “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” Those claims by Smirnov were false, the indictment alleges.
Comer and other congressional Republicans spent months arguing that the FBI informant’s claims were evidence that Hunter Biden — and by extension his father —engaged in corrupt business deals, and that the FBI did not pursue those claims.
Doesn’t the FBI conduct background checks on its alleged informants? Read the whole article. Perhaps Smirnov should spend some time in an Arctic prison…along with James Comer.
I’ve already discussed the idiocy of MSNBC’s wall-to-wall live coverage of the Fani Willis hearings. Maybe it’s just me, but the fact that a judge has ordered Trump to stand trial starting on March 25 is a bigger story.
We may well have an even bigger (much bigger) story on our hands today. Sticking with ‘America’s Newspaper’ for this one:
Donald Trump faces a possible nine-figure calamity Friday when a judge is expected to release his decision in the former president’s contentious New York civil fraud trial.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $370 million in penalties after Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last year that Trump had over-inflated the value of his real estate holdings – including the size of his own Trump Tower penthouse apartment – in order to get favorable bank loan terms.
Trump has without evidence attacked the proceedings as a politically motivated hit job orchestrated by a Democratic attorney general and judge, whom he has repeatedly lashed in public and on social media.
“This crooked judgement (sic) will be a dark and sad day for the justice system in New York State,” Trump wrote Wednesday in an all-caps post on Truth Social on the expected judgment, which is expected Friday.
The City Of Newark and the University Of Delaware both suck, so they stick the students with the tab. Because the students who attend the U of D do nothing to bolster the Newark economy–except almost everything. Let’s see if I’ve got this straight–the U of D simply will not honor its obligations to the City, the U of D will not open its books, the U of D is begging for lots more money from the Joint Finance Committee this year:
Newark says some 42% of real estate within the city is tax-exempt.
That’s because the University of Delaware, like all nonprofits under state law, doesn’t pay property taxes. It does pay millions in other operating costs to the city, like water and electricity, as well as certain fixed payments in lieu of taxes — but council says such “PILOT” payments haven’t been adjusted in nearly 60 years.
Okay:
1. Open your books.
2. Get rid of football, don’t even think of moving up to D-1.
3. Pay your bills.
Feel free to add to the list.
What do you want to talk about?
Remember a week or so when it leaked out that Biden said curse words in private? I think it should be leaked that Biden regularly calls Trump “Putin’s Bitch”. In addition to it being true, it would drive Trump even more insane.
Trump is $355M more a pussy than yesterday…
As David Cay Johnston has pointed out, this should reveal that he’s been a financial fraud all along. The money was all borrowed. He’s never been a billionaire except in his own mind.
I kinda like how Ari Melber described what the judge wrote:
“You’re not running a business, you’re running a con.”