Oh, William, how you joke! You know this guy is planning on a BIG plot at Arlington with an eternal flame. There will be space for all the pilgrimages, like Lourdes.
"Trump silenced women with payoffs to deceive voters in 2016. It became a crime when he allegedly falsified documents in furtherance of other crimes." - J Rubin, WAPO
Argh! I am still having trouble making sense of this. I have read that the act of the hush money payoffs - ugly as they may be - are not illegal. Nor am I sure that the coverup in itself is illegal; it's the manner in which the payments were covered up that is the "smoking gun." Am I missing something?
BTW, I just loved last Friday's Five/8. LB's "rant" regarding the history with the Genovese and Gambino family was stellar! Your input, Greg, wasn't too shabby either...thanks!
The point LB made is Trump is a mob-connected lifelong criminal. Never forget that Al Capone went down on income tax evasion charges. Lifelong criminals inevitably leave long trails of felonies and misdemeanors.
Lynell , the illegal part is that he used personal payments (to Cohen for Stormy D.'s payment) as business expenses, thus becoming tax deductions. Normal business expenses are deducted from income to give your taxable amount (in simplest terms); thus, it is tax fraud, an illegal deduction. If he had not done that, the rest of the process, as distasteful as it was, wasn't illegal.
Perhaps this trial is an important step in the disillusionment of the American populace, in the literal and potentially positive meaning of that term—getting us past the illusion that our democracy could be taken for granted and urging us to a more mature understanding of what needs to be done to fortify the Union.
Way back when, in another life, I worked for a small company whose husband-and-wife owners liked to think of themselves as equivalent to the Trumps. The wife even mentioned, more than once, that she thought her husband LOOKED like Donald Trump, as if that was an aspirational thing. So, anyway, at one point in the early '90s, the husband had a heart attack and survived. The wife, in some kind of I-don't-know-what, decided that since her husband had survived, SHE deserved a new mink coat. I was the bookkeeper, and the coat cost upwards of $9,000. She brought the receipt to work, gave it to me, and told me to expense it to the company. My question, of course, was in what General Ledger account am I supposed to expense a mink coat? It ended up, as I recall, in Attorney Fees, I kid you not! So, I guess those two bozos WERE a lot like the Trumps. By the time the company folded in 2013, I knew where ALL the bodies were buried. The wife, who I'd "served" for 22 years, ended up trying to throw me under the bus by implying that somehow, it was MY fault the company folded instead of their own mismanagement from golf courses in Florida -- again, more Trump-adjacent behavior. The husband died in 2020 just before the COVID lockdown, and other than at the wake, I haven't spoken to the wife since I left that shitty, shitty company, owned by those shitty, shitty people. So, all this to say, that Trump is NOT a unicorn. There's plenty of business owners who do exactly what he did and continue to do. He just got caught.
Michael Cohen taped Trump and advised him NOT TO PAY Stormy Daniels in cash—mob like behavior—no paper trail. In what was likely a CYA move by Cohen, he set the boss up. This whole business started in August 2015 when no one really thought Trump would be the 2016 GOP nominee. Had Trump not been the penny-pinching abjectly poor businessman (pun intended) and apparently equally poor mob boss he would have simply paid off these people with an NDA and cash. Case closed. But this case and the other Trump cases are symptoms and signs made manifest of Trump’s psychopathology, and by extension his cult followers. There is no antipsychotic medication for these people. That leaves legal accountability and defeat at the ballot box as treatment.
Hey Greg, just checked CoPilot for something besides “let that sink in” and got “digest that”. Otherwise, always a great post but am so glad tomorrow is break day.
Connect the dots between the people and hush money payments in Trump's 'Catch And Kill' election interference scheme with this visual guide
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/04/22/catch-and-kill-visual-guide-to-trumps-election-interference-scheme/
Thank you, Deepak. I’m going to grab my coffee then come back and follow the visual guides.
It’s TUESDAY🎉 As testimony continues, take a moment (or ten) to savor the schadenfreude.
What happens if he joins Ivana under the golf course before election day? (We can always hope)
Oh, William, how you joke! You know this guy is planning on a BIG plot at Arlington with an eternal flame. There will be space for all the pilgrimages, like Lourdes.
🤣🤣🤣
It's really happening. It's giddy-making!
"Trump silenced women with payoffs to deceive voters in 2016. It became a crime when he allegedly falsified documents in furtherance of other crimes." - J Rubin, WAPO
#TrumpStinks 🍄
1. As a young man I read and liked the stinker’s book ‘The Art Of The Deal.’
2. I came to a saner understanding of life.
3. He’ll probably have Martha Stewart decorate his cell.
4. Billserle.com hopes he won’t have to vote against the f**king* stinker.
5.* fucking.
Argh! I am still having trouble making sense of this. I have read that the act of the hush money payoffs - ugly as they may be - are not illegal. Nor am I sure that the coverup in itself is illegal; it's the manner in which the payments were covered up that is the "smoking gun." Am I missing something?
BTW, I just loved last Friday's Five/8. LB's "rant" regarding the history with the Genovese and Gambino family was stellar! Your input, Greg, wasn't too shabby either...thanks!
The point LB made is Trump is a mob-connected lifelong criminal. Never forget that Al Capone went down on income tax evasion charges. Lifelong criminals inevitably leave long trails of felonies and misdemeanors.
As I have been sayin' for 3 years, "Trump will be Al Caponed!"
True, this, Sharon!
Lynell , the illegal part is that he used personal payments (to Cohen for Stormy D.'s payment) as business expenses, thus becoming tax deductions. Normal business expenses are deducted from income to give your taxable amount (in simplest terms); thus, it is tax fraud, an illegal deduction. If he had not done that, the rest of the process, as distasteful as it was, wasn't illegal.
Ah, thanks, William. That I understand.
Thanks for the link about Grant lol I did not know that.
Perhaps this trial is an important step in the disillusionment of the American populace, in the literal and potentially positive meaning of that term—getting us past the illusion that our democracy could be taken for granted and urging us to a more mature understanding of what needs to be done to fortify the Union.
Way back when, in another life, I worked for a small company whose husband-and-wife owners liked to think of themselves as equivalent to the Trumps. The wife even mentioned, more than once, that she thought her husband LOOKED like Donald Trump, as if that was an aspirational thing. So, anyway, at one point in the early '90s, the husband had a heart attack and survived. The wife, in some kind of I-don't-know-what, decided that since her husband had survived, SHE deserved a new mink coat. I was the bookkeeper, and the coat cost upwards of $9,000. She brought the receipt to work, gave it to me, and told me to expense it to the company. My question, of course, was in what General Ledger account am I supposed to expense a mink coat? It ended up, as I recall, in Attorney Fees, I kid you not! So, I guess those two bozos WERE a lot like the Trumps. By the time the company folded in 2013, I knew where ALL the bodies were buried. The wife, who I'd "served" for 22 years, ended up trying to throw me under the bus by implying that somehow, it was MY fault the company folded instead of their own mismanagement from golf courses in Florida -- again, more Trump-adjacent behavior. The husband died in 2020 just before the COVID lockdown, and other than at the wake, I haven't spoken to the wife since I left that shitty, shitty company, owned by those shitty, shitty people. So, all this to say, that Trump is NOT a unicorn. There's plenty of business owners who do exactly what he did and continue to do. He just got caught.
Michael Cohen taped Trump and advised him NOT TO PAY Stormy Daniels in cash—mob like behavior—no paper trail. In what was likely a CYA move by Cohen, he set the boss up. This whole business started in August 2015 when no one really thought Trump would be the 2016 GOP nominee. Had Trump not been the penny-pinching abjectly poor businessman (pun intended) and apparently equally poor mob boss he would have simply paid off these people with an NDA and cash. Case closed. But this case and the other Trump cases are symptoms and signs made manifest of Trump’s psychopathology, and by extension his cult followers. There is no antipsychotic medication for these people. That leaves legal accountability and defeat at the ballot box as treatment.
Hahahaaaahaaha !!
My preferred outcome:
#MangoWanker Turdking is at a rally, pisses himself, and has a massive stroke, (while the audience screams with laughter) ...
Disabling and debilitating, unable to type or tweet, incontinent and helpless and unable to speak, fed through an IV and pooping into a bedpan...
but fully aware of the prison hospital, for the rest of his life.
Hey Greg, just checked CoPilot for something besides “let that sink in” and got “digest that”. Otherwise, always a great post but am so glad tomorrow is break day.