October 24, 2020

Brooklyn United Marching Band and Drumline Put on a Show for Voters in Line

at the Barclay's Center.

https://twitter.com/jenist/status/1320015533392224257

October 16, 2020

So the Incumbent Republican President is campaigning in the well-known swing state of...

...checks notes...


Georgia tonight, 18 days before the election.

Looks like everything's going great for them.

October 16, 2020

Joni Ernst off by almost half on Break Even Price of Soybeans in Debate

https://twitter.com/GreenfieldIowa/status/1316911419913347072

Theresa Greenfield nailed the answer on corn

https://twitter.com/GreenfieldIowa/status/1316914211574976512

Not even close for the (hopefully former) Senator from Iowa.

October 16, 2020

Interesting Timeline Comparison Related to Giuliani Email Forgeries

April 7, 2019 - Rudy goes on Fox to push Hunter Burisma story. Other Fox shows had been hitting it for weeks through Peter Schweitzer's book. Late March through early April John Solomon is publishing multiple (later found to be) false stories in The Hill. Trump himself promotes the story in late April 2019 on Fox.

April 12, 2019 - Hunter Biden supposedly drops his laptop with incriminating information on it off at a rando strip mall tech shop.

Verdict: The invoice was likely produced at the time as part of the coordinated disinformation campaign.


********

September 24, 2019 - Speaker Pelosi announces impeachment inquiry.

September 26, 2019 - Full text of whistleblower's complaint is published in multiple news sources.

September 28, 2019 - The first PDF supposedly representing an incriminating email is produced, according to metadata.

October 9, 2019 - Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman arrested at Dulles Airport while trying to flee country.

October 10, 2019 - Gordon Sondland subpoenaed to appear before House inquiry.

October 10, 2019 - The second PDF supposedly representing an incriminating email from Hunter Biden's laptop is produced, according to metadata.

October 11, 2019 - Marie Yovanovich complies with subpoena and is deposed before the House inquiry.

Verdict: The forgery of the Biden emails was conducted in a panic as the impeachment inquiry was exploding.

October 8, 2020

I challenge anyone to read this forum right now, including both Debate Threads

And describe any substantive content of these debates at all.



What is even being talked about is hard to fathom out!

Go on, y'all.

October 2, 2020

If Saturday's SCOTUS Announcement was the Super-Spreader Event

Then the 2020 writers room has to get all the Emmys, because that's a wild, wild twist.

October 2, 2020

SCOTUS Confirmation Hearings in Peril before election?

Seems like it's something to consider...

September 28, 2020

The whole "savvy business people game their taxes" thing doesn't play when there's outright fraud

There are at least three disturbing cases of out-and-out tax fraud suggested (if not definitively proven) in the NY Times report:

1) Trump claimed to have "abandoned" his Atlantic City casino businesses in order to book them as a loss that he then subsequently used to avoid income taxes. But he collected payouts from those properties subsequent to have declared them abandoned. He would therefore be able to report no more than $3000 a year in losses from those properties. The matter is currently with the IRS and the Congressional panel that makes judgments on these issues, but if found that he collected even one red cent from the businesses subsequent to have declared them abandoned, he stands to owe $72 million plus interest (estimated $100 million). Declaring assets to be abandoned for the purposes of writing off losses, then collecting revenue from them is not "gaming the system." It's out and out fraud.

2) He double paid his family and otherwise used supposed consulting fees for write offs when there was no consulting. The Times article is pretty definitive on this, even matching payouts to the dollar in consulting fees to payments received by Ivanka Trump. She was working for the Trump Org and should have been receiving salary, but was also presumably received these consulting fees. Nice gig if you can get it, but that's double booking the same work where any of us come from, with the advantage of adding a business write-off line for the Trump Org. The Times also documents several projects where consultants are listed as paid on the tax form, but nobody involved in the project remembers any consultants, and several participants scoff at the idea that there were consultants. These write-offs are outright fraudulent, not savvy gaming of the tax system. You don't get to invent consultants or double book expenses even with our fucked up tax system.

3) The treatment of the Seven Springs estate - which Trump has claimed is "land conservation" for charity as well as an investment property, though the Trumps have always treated it as a personal home, and are even on record saying that. It's clownish misstatement. They've reaped over $20 million in write-offs from this mislabeling. It's fraud.

There are more cases in the Times article, but these are three that popped out at me. None of this is "savvy" use of the tax system. They're outright lies. People have gone to federal prison for less than this.

September 23, 2020

Counterpoint: The election will be called for Biden the minute West Coast polls close

Trump will slink off into obscurity with his whole fucked up family, and even half the Red Hats will deny ever having supported him the way people deny having bought Vanilla Ice's To the Extreme which sold 15 million copies.

September 19, 2020

Just as a reminder, Brett Kavanaugh, as a 17 year-old, attempted to [trigger warning]

hold down and rape a 15 year-old girl, together with his drunk friend. They pulled her into a room, slammed and held the door, pushed her on to a bed, and tried to rape her.

Everybody knows it.

They voted for him anyway, and pretended to be sniffy about it. Don't expect any Senate GOPers to do the right thing. They will do the worst of things every single time.