The Conversation -- June 16, 2024
Marie: Worth reading Akhilleus' commentary today on the Trump Combination Golf Club, Cemetery & Tax Break Bonanza. I thought Akhilleus was kidding, but most tax experts (with the exception of one at Bloomberg) opine that Trump is in for at least one huge tax break for dropping the remains of Wife No. 1 near the first tee-box. Fore!
~~~~~~~~~~
A Johnson Ploy Backfires. Andrew Solender & Juliegrace Brufke of Axios: "House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has roiled lawmakers in both parties by appointing a pair of hardline conservatives to the House Intelligence Committee.... Committee members fear the presence of Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) threatens to disrupt a hard-fought bipartisan consensus forged in the aftermath of the Trump era.... The picks were bound to be inflammatory: Perry's phone was seized by the FBI as part of its Jan. 6 probe, while Jackson has faced allegations of drinking on duty and harassing staff when he was the White House physician.... One Republican member said of Perry, who has been a thorn in the side of GOP leadership: 'Part of the problem is it is rewarding bad behavior.'... A group of Republican members of the Intelligence Committee met with Johnson in his office on Wednesday evening to voice their concerns. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) ... said his 'main concern' is maintaining 'trust' between the committee's members and the intelligence agencies." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See also his commentary at the end of yesterday's thread.
Presidential Race
Shawn McCreesh & Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "A Hollywood fund-raiser Saturday night intended to bolster President Biden's war chest turned into a platform for some of the most concerted and toughest attacks to date on ... Donald J. Trump by the Biden campaign, as entertainers, Barack Obama and even Jill Biden assailed Mr. Trump's ethics and his suitability to return to the White House. Ms. Biden, after being introduced by Barbra Streisand, said the choice was between her husband..., and Mr. Trump 'who wakes up every morning caring about one person and one person only: himself.... Mr. Trump has told us again and again why he wants the White House -- to give himself absolute power, to not be held accountable for his criminal action,' Ms. Biden continued. His aim, she told the crowd, 'was to destroy the democratic safeguards that stand in his way.' Mr. Obama invoked Mr. Trump's felony convictions -- something that Mr. Biden has for the most part avoided doing -- to applause from the crowd.... The event, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles..., helped to raise at least $28 million, his aides said...."
Will Weissert of the AP: "Donald Trump on Saturday night suggested President Joe Biden 'should have to take a cognitive test,' only to confuse who administered the test to him in the next sentence.The former president and presumptive Republican nominee referred to Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was the White House physician for part of his presidency, as 'Ronny Johnson.' The moment came as Trump was questioning Biden's mental acuity, something he often does on the campaign trail and social media.... He continued, 'Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much indeed immediately.'"
Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump repeated his characterization of Black communities as dangerous and depressed on Saturday, courting voters in a city he has called 'hell' and 'totally corrupt' as his campaign hopes incremental gains with Black voters could be decisive in swing states. 'Look, the crime is most rampant right here and in African American communities,' Trump said at 180 Church in Detroit. 'More people see me and they say, "Sir, we want protection. We want police to protect us. We don't want to get robbed and mugged and beat up or killed because we want to walk across the street to buy a loaf of bread."' The audience, which was not predominantly Black, cheered at the remark. He returned to the topic of crime when asked how he would address Black entrepreneurship. 'The biggest thing we can do is stop the crime,' he said." ~~~
~~~ Natalie Allison of Politico reports on Trump's campaign stop at a Black church in Detroit. "Among those included in Trump's new Black voter coalition was former Democratic Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who served time in prison for felony fraud and racketeering convictions, and whose sentence Trump commuted before leaving office." MB: Allison does not let on, as Arnsdorf writes, that the audience "was not predominantly black." That changes, well, the whole complexion of her report.
Maybe this will shame a few MAGAt parents and grandparents into voting for the decent guy. Thanks to RAS for the lead: ~~~
Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Ex-Trump White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin told Mediaite that ... Donald Trump discussed 'executing' people at multiple White House meetings."
Putting all those felonies in perspective: ~~~
All of this criminal stuff is pretty bad, but I still can’t get over the whole burying your ex-wife on a golf course thing.
— John Collins (@Logically_JC) June 15, 2024
~~~ Looks like some investigative reporter uncovered some clandestine follow-up activity: ~~~
Trump and Melania exhume Ivana to collect some top secret documents and a scarf Melania had always envied. pic.twitter.com/r9QhyzgBgY
— Osborne Cox (@Osborne__Cox) April 23, 2024
Are You Better Off This Fathers Day Than You Were Fathers Day 2020? Let's check. New York Times: "President Trump on Saturday fired the federal prosecutor [Manhattan U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman] whose office put his former personal lawyer [Michael Cohen] in prison and is investigating his current one [Rudy Giuliani], heightening criticism that the president was carrying out an extraordinary purge to rid his administration of officials whose independence could be a threat to his re-election campaign." MB: In a second Trump administration, no relatively independent people would be hired.
Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times: "As head of the judicial branch -- the title is chief justice of the United States, not chief justice of the Supreme Court -- a chief justice has many responsibilities, more than 80 of them specified by federal statutes that convey wide-ranging authority. But inside the 'conference,' the court's term for the nine justices as a collective, real authority depends not on statutes but on qualities of leadership.... If there is a blueprint for addressing the issues now swirling around the court, it has eluded a chief justice who might not have acquired the institutional capital to call on in a time of need."
The WashPo's New Leadership: Part of the Problem. Justin Scheck & Jo Becker of the New York Times: "The publisher and the incoming editor of The Washington Post, when they worked as journalists in London two decades ago, used fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles, according to a former colleague, a published account of a private investigator and an analysis of newspaper archives. Will Lewis, The Post's publisher, assigned one of the articles in 2004 as business editor of The Sunday Times. Another was written by Robert Winnett, whom Mr. Lewis recently announced as The Post's next executive editor. The use of deception, hacking and fraud is at the heart of a long-running British newspaper scandal, one that toppled a major tabloid in 2010 and led to years of lawsuits by celebrities who said that reporters improperly obtained their personal documents and voice mail messages." The reporters detail the circumstances, including the high likelihood that Lewis lied about his culpability.
~~~~~~~~~~
Florida. Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "As residents and businesses in South Florida assessed the damage from this week's historic rainfall and floods, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration pushed back against assertions that the storm had anything to do with climate change.... The Republican governor declared a state of emergency for South Florida, but at a news briefing Friday he downplayed the idea that the storm was unusual.... 'This clearly is not unprecedented,' he said. 'I think the difference is, you compare 50 to 100 years ago to now, there's just a lot more that's been developed, so there's a lot more effects that this type of event can have.' His communications team also made light of the storm, dismissing it as typical summer rainfall.... The brouhaha over how to characterize the storm came a month after DeSantis signed a bill that removes most references to climate change in state law.... DeSantis vetoed storm-related projects this week...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm sure there are many Floridians who would like to shove Gov. DeNialist's face beneath the sewerage-infested floodwaters that have surged into their homes.
~~~~~~~~~~
Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.
News Lede
Saturday in the Park in Guns America. New York Times: "A gunman opened fire at a Michigan splash park on Saturday in what the authorities said was a random attack that left at least eight people injured, including two children, one of whom was in critical condition. The person thought to be the shooter was later found dead in a nearby home, the police said. The shooting occurred at Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad in Rochester Hills, Mich., a Detroit suburb, the authorities said. Officers were called to the scene just after 5 p.m."
Share Article
Reader Comments (7)
This Fathers' Day memory, with it easily discerned political content ("everything's political!"), appeared in the local paper yesterday.
Like all of us, my father was a blend of his age and experience.
Born in 1911, he died just short of his eightieth year. War work in the Tacoma shipyards brought him from North Dakota to the Pacific Northwest in the 1940’s. After the War he opened a hardware store in Arlington where he practiced his Depression-confirmed virtues of thriftiness and hard work, both erected on the foundation of piety that had him on his knees every night, praying, before he went to bed.
Closely related to his religion was his clear sense of right and wrong, sometimes clearer to him than to me, particularly as I grew older and developed opinions of my own. By the time I was in college, our political worlds had wildly diverged. I never entirely understood how a former Franklin Roosevelt supporter could in 1964 vote for Barry Goldwater, a man who opposed civil rights and suggested the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
While there were some unpleasant times between us in those years, the disagreements are not what has endured. What stuck with me was his ever-present drive to do the right thing. Even when the right and the wrong of a particular situation might have been open to question, my father’s desire to do what he thought was right dictated the way he lived and conducted his business.
For my father the businessman, service came with the sale. When he sold an appliance, he installed it; if it failed, he made sure it got fixed. I suspect he thought that approach would cement his reputation as a helpful merchant and bring repeat business, and I’d guess it did. I know, though, that much of the extra trouble he went to was not motivated by his business sense, but by his strict sense of responsibility and duty.
Memory does not tell me much of what I did or how useful I might have been that night, but I remember one trip in the ’49 International pickup and the cramped home of the widow whose oil heater had quit in the cold and dark of winter. Perhaps because she had no one else to turn to, she’d called my father. Maybe I held a flashlight or some tools for him, I don’t know, but my father fixed the problem, and we left that gray-haired lady safer and warmer than she was when we came.
It was father’s sense of duty that bound him to help those in need, when the payment was not in dollars and cents but in the feeling that he had helped someone else. Money might have been part of the initial transaction, but his willingness to go beyond any contractual obligation, to give of himself and his time, were the essential elements of the many services he performed.
I don’t know why my father took me along on those occasional evening trips. Maybe he was after a bonding experience between father and son. Maybe he wished to teach me something about his business. What he did teach me was much about himself.
One night, he placed me in the truck’s bed to steady a refrigerator roped against the cab. That was one long, cold ride into the country. Weighing far less and not nearly as tall as the refrigerator, I wondered what I was supposed to do if the refrigerator began to tip. Fortunately, though it shifted with every bump, the refrigerator stayed in place, as has that sense of obligation and duty those trips instilled in me.
Once, years later when he was dying of cancer and did not have the strength to walk on his own, when I lifted him onto his wheelchair, I remember being embarrassed at how our roles had shifted. Sensing my discomfort, he said, “That’s what families are for.” It’s the natural order of things, he seemed to be saying. Because at times we all need help, we should never hesitate or be embarrassed to give it.
I’ll always be grateful to my father for that lesson. It has served me well.
On his first Fathers Day as a father, my young father had never seen his adorable daughter Marie. He was still stationed in Europe after having served as a bombardier over Italy & Germany. Life was so much harder then. And decidedly more uncertain.
@Marie
You are so right.
The harder and more uncertain elements of our parents' lives have been mostly forgotten--or never learned or acknowledged in the first place.
We and the children in our social and economic class have led relatively privileged lives.
IMO that privilege has led to a lot of whining....and to the Whiner in Chief...the poor little rich brat who sullies our lives.
On the other hand, before the Bush Crash and when people were still satisfied with a 1200 sq. ft. starter home, most young folks could afford to buy a house and the majority of Americans were not living in rentals.
I think Donald and Melanie are digging to try and find Donald's
integrity, compassion, respect for his fellow man, intelligence, etc.
How far is it to China again?
@Ken Winkes writes, "... before the Bush Crash and when people were still satisfied with a 1200 sq. ft. starter home, most young folks could afford to buy a house and the majority of Americans were not living in rentals."
Well, I looked it up, and that turns out to be only partially true. Until the late 1940s, fewer than half of Americans owned their own homes. (In 1900, the rate was 46.7%.)
That changed after WWII, thanks to the GI bill as well as the Great Depression-era innovations of the FHA & Fannie Mae. The rate of home ownership in the U.S. since 1960 has fluctuated, but not by much. It was 62.1% in 1960 & 63.7% in 2015.
What has changed -- on average -- is the percentage of the home the so-called "homeowner" actually owns. In the early 1900s a typical mortgage covered only half the price of a home and required balloon payoff after five years. Now of course, mortgages generally cover 80% or 90% or even 95% of the sales price.
As you say, the other change has been in the size of housing. The average price of a new house built in 1973 was 1,525 sq. ft.; by 2016, that was 2,422 sq. ft. Not only that, "Forty years ago, we had 526 square feet of living space per person; today, we have 969 square feet of living space per person."
It would be tempting to bemoan the loss of "family values" and argue the chicken-and-egg effect of how bigger houses play into the breakdown of the cohesive "family unit" and vice-versa. But I take a somewhat more positive (and perhaps pollyanna-ish) attitude. I have a feeling the father of the house had his 969 sq. ft. back then, and everybody else had to share the rest. That is, today's larger houses may reflect the desire to accommodate larger spaces for family members other than head-of-household.
@Marie,
Yeah, I simplified. In a hurry. Off to Seattle per grandchildren's late request to watch a little league playoff game.
Happy Fathers' ( and grandfathers' and grandmothers' and mothers' and everyone's) Day to all.
The Trump Plethora of Prickishness
The sheer amount, the depth and breadth of Trump cupidity, mendacity, and depravity, overwhelms our ability to recall even some of the more egregious examples of his galactic prickishness. Each day, often on an hourly basis, the litany of Orange outrages expands almost exponentially. I had forgotten about the ghoulish necrophilia connected to Trump’s use of his first wife’s corpse as a deductible asset (he fucked her even after death), allowing him to lasso huge tax breaks by getting his golf course declared a cemetery.
The Trump excuse was that it’s a beautiful place to be interred, blah, blah, blah, suggesting that he’d like to be planted there too, surrounded by divots and run over be rich drunk guys tooling around in golf carts. Fat chance.
First, when was he ever so solicitous of Ivana Trump when she was alive? But dead, he suddenly found a use for her. And have you seen the burial spot? It’s a sad little plot without even a headstone. He cheaped it up right to the end, just a small, flat plaque. Second, there’s no way this vainglorious fuckstick would be okay with an obscure little plot next to a sand trap. He’ll want a gaudy, gold plated mausoleum that makes Grant’s Tomb look like a toll booth on the Jersey Turnpike.
So that’s bullshit. As with everything Trumpy, it’s all about money, and seeing what he can get away with.
“Brooke Harrington, a tax researcher and professor of sociology at Dartmouth, [wrote] that using the golf course as a cemetery was ‘a trifecta of tax avoidance.’” Sticking his former wife’s body in a shallow grave on his golf property allows him to eliminate property, real estate, and sales tax in one fell swoop. And in case you’re wondering how a single grave constitutes a cemetery…
“She added that in New Jersey, there is ‘no stipulation regarding a minimum [number] of human remains necessary for the tax breaks to kick in.’”
Bingo! One dead former wife=cemetery=millions in tax breaks.
But that wasn’t his only scheme for getting out of paying his fair share of taxes. This other chisel I never even heard about. It’s his claim that he’s really Farmer Don. I am not even kidding:
“While registering the golf course as a cemetery would exempt it from taxes, the former president already found a way to slash his tax bill for the New Jersey club by registering it as a farm, the Huffington Post reported in 2019.
Trump reportedly owns several goats and farms hay at the resort, which reduced his tax bill by around $88,000 a year, according to a Huffington Post analysis.
Under this arrangement, the golf course was taxed at just over $6 an acre in 2019, rather than $462 an acre.”
The chiseling never stops. The fraud never sleeps.
But thinking of Old PrickDonald having a farm, called to mind an image of Fatty and Melanie as the couple in Grant Woods’ iconic painting, “American Gothic”, in their case more like American Toxic. I rather like Fatty’s white hood and KKK Invisible Empire logo on his farmer togs. Melanie, as always, displays the, um, talent that landed her an Albert Einstein visa.
Wonder if Princess Ivanka is celebrating Father’s Day by recalling how her daddy used her dead mother’s corpse as a tax break.
Those Republicans…always with the family values.