During one of the debates Trump asked Biden how he came to own three very expensive homes. Trump made a sarcastic face and said something like “it makes no sense”, but then he let it go. I think he could’ve won the election with that issue alone. That is the populace tact that could win - Dem or GOP. Nancy how did you become rich? Hammer on that. Mitch can’t help but notice you’re a millionnaire. What are the politicians tax returns say, how much did they earn and does that equate to 3 homes.
And their wealth is just the grease on the rails that moved the big money. Trump was already rich and was immune to the trap. It was fun to watch a incorruptable patroit swinging like Iron Mike against the tide of slime. Hope he gets in the ring again, but he's earned a retirememt imo.
Trump came from a family fortune based on being a slumlord, not paying your bills and solving problems by suing people. He is not a patriot, he is a grifter.
Slowly, very slowly, I feel like there is a convergence between left and right developing in Matt's comments page, on at least some key issues. It's one of the main reasons I'm here. Not everyone is feeling the love, but some perceptible and gratifying connections are being made.
That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)
But here's an undeniable fact: Public service has made Trump poorer, but it has made the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons much, much richer.
Skeptic says: "...That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)"
First off, the Secret Service does not "charge" or bill presidents for their work. The government, a.k.a. the taxpayers, pick up the tab.
And from BusinessInsider:
"Even when Trump's golf club in Bedminster, N.J. was closed up earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, the documents obtained in the lawsuit show the Secret Service still got hit with a $21,800 charge for a cottage rental and other room fees....The usual rate for agents to stay at a Trump property — even when there's no indication he will stop by — is $567 per night, according to the Post....That's a far cry from the mere "50 bucks" per room Eric Trump claimed the taxpayers dish out when defending the practice back in October 2016."
Perhaps it's an accounting error with the travel ledgers. Junior miscatalogued the $50 bucks for, you know, maybe a discount hooker down on her luck---something like that, but for goodness sake who knows with those boys....
Donald Trump’s adult children reportedly cost taxpayers $140,000 in Secret Service security in the month after the clan’s patriarch left the White House in January.
Ordinarily, family members of a president lose their security detail when they leave office. But in the case of the four Trump siblings and two of their spouses, the former president issued a directive to extend post-presidency protections by six months.
The costs, obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics, do not include security protections at Trump properties in New Jersey, Palm Beach and Briarcliff, New York. With those factored in, the total would likely be far higher, according to the group.
According to the watchdog, records reveal that the Trump children maintained a “breakneck speed of travel, and racked up significant hotel and transportation bills for the Secret Service”.
Transport costs alone amounted to $52,296.75, and hotel costs totaled at least $88,678.39.The watchdog found that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump went from their jobs at the White House to a 10-day vacation in Utah, racking up hotel costs of $62,599. After a month in Miami, they stayed at Trump’s Bedminster golf property for three days in late February.
Eric and Lara Trump spent much of February at Trump’s Briarcliff property, interspersed with trips to New York, Miami and Palm Beach, at a cost of $12,742.
Donald Trump Jr also spent time in New York City, on Long Island, and in upstate New York, racking up bills of $13,337.
But Citizens for Ethics said the Secret Service did not provide records of spending at Trump businesses.
“While it may be tempting to put the story of the Trump family’s profiteering in the past, we cannot until they have actually stopped directing taxpayer money into their own bank accounts,” the group said.
Ah, the Trumps: the family that drifts together....grifts together.
The gullibles don't realize that in the USA (and in the world) it is real estate mobsters who bribe or blackmail politicians, not vice-versa. Trump probably could have been convicted many times over of bribery, but that issue was never brought up because the vast majority of the politicians he bribed must have been from the Democratic party (in NYC and NJ, likely to get building permits and other favourable decisions).
His attitude to Republicans instead was different: he was one of their biggest campaign donors ever (probably to get even more favourable tax rules for real estate).
"Incorruptible" is going too far. But he did have a certain degree of immunity that occasionally produced interesting remarks. Roughly along these lines was my favorite, his declaration that he loved the "poorly educated." It was really kind of brilliant.
RJF, Trump didn't want to explain how he got so "rich". Especially when his tax information was almost released. That would have been a disaster for him.
That is just one of the many baseless smears about Trump.
He is very rich, if only because he inherited a lot of NYC real estate decades ago, and NYC has ballooned in price over the decades.
Also the tax return is pointless, we all know that thanks to various loopholes he did not pay tax, but he has give a far more useful document. A previous commenter has summyrized well:
“Tax returns tell you nothing of substance. Check out Biden's from 2017, for example. [...] The real picture - the best view - is in the required financial disclosures. Then you see assets and other income sources not available in a return. Trump's are available too. He IS fabulously wealthy and has impressive assets. The point is, tax returns are a distraction - they are in no way a meaningful look at someone's finances. This is especially true when multiple corporations and corporations within corporations complicate the view.”
Maybe he isn't as rich as he wanted people to think he was. If, as this article proposes, the US is a plutocracy. Then, Trump has to maintain his Master of the Universe illusion.
Once again, if you don't know how much Trump owes then you CANNOT speculate upon how wealthy he is.
He's on public record stating that he counts loans as assets. If I get to define the standards and definition of wealth, I too could be fabulously wealthy.
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
Which means he already knew how the game was played. He built in NYC, one would have to be an expert in precisely the corruption the article describes. In fact, that may have been his secret sauce and why the establishment feared him.
This is hilarious. Confirmation that Hunter Thompson was right. A decent chunk of the US liked Nixon for being a clever crook. An even larger group likes Trump for the same.
I think Thompson was right about quite a few things. Ever heard of Brad Marchand? Hockey player for Boston. He's a total dick but holy mackinaw can that guy play hockey. Dirty, mean, vicious Hockey. The fans love him. He wins a lot too.
They didn't fear him very much they just couldn't do much to him because they're all complicit in war crimes and massive fraud. What reforms did Trump make ?
Yeah I missed your point. You’re saying if Trump made a big deal of it -Joe’s wealth -it would have blown up in his face because his tax return would show all kinds of unflattering stuff. You are right.
Ha! No they don't... Real estate - how many people were arrested because of NINJA loans? Casinos - regulated by the NGC. Crookedness inherent - are you saying "people" are ok with this? People did like Nixon too, but people also fired him.
Perhaps if tax burdens were equitably distributed among all U.S. citizens, the tax code made fair once again, these sorts of talk show gotchas, this never ending fixation on the peculiarly acquired wealth of a small but not insubstantial subset of parasitic citizenry, we could move on to, say, solving other problems...
This is exciting: a book I would actually read by and about a politician whose only flaws have been remarkable prescience and integrity. I recently tweeted at Kucinich a few times urging him to run for the open Ohio Senate seat. With the book out of the way (and now on my reading list), maybe he will give that idea some serious thought.
Oooh...that word, that word. I was thinking while I read the article "He might as well have a scarlet "I" tattooed on his forehead, so all the elected apparatchiks and brokers could avoid him. "INTEGRITY". I wonder if the brains of people like Pelosi and McConnell can actually process it, or if so, with the beginning provision "A trait exhibited by people *not yourself or your political allies*, which involves adherence to moral and ethical principles; etc."
I'm on the right, but I was always skeptical of the Iraq War.
I'll never forget when Kucinich was on some Sunday morning chat show in around 2004, and a Bush apologist was flaunting photos of old chemical weapons receptacles that were found in Iraq, arguing that there really were WMD.
Kucinich politely asked if he could have the photos, the hack agreed, and Kucinich asked the cameraman to zoom in on one. It showed a long, rusted out metal canister, looking like something you'd see in a scrap metal yard.
Kucinich asked, just slightly raising his voice, "We went to war--over this?"
The Bushee started stuttering and hemming and hawing and otherwise showing what a direct hit it was.
Saddam Hussein was between a rock and a hard place. He didn't have a nuclear program after 1981 aside from a pile of yellowcake and some high level wastes at Osirak, surrounded by a huge dirt berm you can see on a Google Maps satellite shot. He had a small bioweapons program. He had chemical weapons. But he had UN inspectors breathing down his neck on one side and Iran on the other. He feared a loss of deterrence vis a vis Iran if he came clean about what little he actually had. So he prevaricated. When actually invaded, he made drug deals with the most likely leaders - strangely enough the Iranians and the Syrians. Most of the chemical weapons left (mostly artillery shells) after the wars and his internal use of it went to Syria, and most of that was either used or destroyed by now. The remnants of his nuclear program were removed from Iraq by the US in 2008 or so. The bioweapons program I know nothing about where it went, but it wasn't huge and basically amounted to weaponized anthrax. Not that that is nothing, but it's not the world-ending threat we once thought it was.
Kucinich's political stuff in 2004 might have seemed poignant but it was pretty ill informed.
I understood Kucinich's point to be that there was not a sufficient national security reason to invade. It sounds like you might agree with that, but only in hindsight.
But there were quite a few savvy players (including people on the right like Bob Novak) who smelled a rat and tried to raise the alarm before the invasion.
Personally never cared about the whole Iraq weapons canard. I always saw it as a casus belli. I wanted to take down two countries hard. THEN LEAVE!! The mistake as I see it was staying around to make those two shit hole countries (classic Trump) into electoral paradises. Only idiot DC swamp rats could believe that. It did make a lot of people rich though.
After 911 I felt the most expeditious effective way to “fight terrorism”(terrorism being a technique not an ideology) was to hammer two countries. Then leave. Then make it policy(unofficial) that if your country shielded terrorists or financed terrorists something very bad would happen to you, your family, or your country. Possibly all three. That was my preferred policy. Unpleasant but effective.
Very fair and cogent analysis of the situation. The Iraq fiasco was an extraordinarily stupid move by Bush, but everyone who screamed “No blood for oil” was completely missing the point-Saddam would happily have sold the US all the oil we wanted w/ zero need to invade for control. The invasion was about daddy issues and dick waving, NOT ensuring a constant oil supply. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran-they will sell oil to the dude who pissed on their collective grandmas graves if the price is right.
The reality is more likely that after installing Saddam's regime in 1978, Rumsfeld, Cheney and HW Bush and their pals decided to attack their own puppet government -just to have a show and spend those sweet, sweet defense dollars.
Nothing more than a banana republic that was used for a couple of decades to pressure Iran, Syria, Yemen, and whoever was nearby and at odds with US policy. I'm looking at you, Turkey. The primary goal though was oil fields to drain.
When you factor in that it was a US-controlled dictatorship since 1978, the Iraq Wars equate to genocide for profit. I don't judge servicemen and women who served in that theater, and know quite a few. Most of them agree that it wasn't necessary or justified.
Just another act in a play the US Dept. of State was putting on involving a wave of grabs to consolidate resources and power. Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Brazil, Guatemala, Chile, Afghanistan and they halted briefly at Syria because of Russia's pipeline plans. So they "partnered up" to "destroy ISIS/ISIL", taking turns dropping expensive ordinance all over the place.
«Saddam would happily have sold the US all the oil we wanted w/ zero need to invade for control. The invasion was about daddy issues and dick waving, NOT ensuring a constant oil supply.»
I think that misses completely the points, because the 2nd Iraq war had been long planned by Cheney and the Deep State, and like the attacks on various other countries, from Serbia to Lybia, it had a main purpose: showing that the USA can wreck a country to intimidate the others. After Iraq was wrecked and Saddam executed, Ghaddafi became extraordinarily eager to whatever...
As to oil, the USA is in essence an "hydraulic empire", and needs to show it controls the flow of oil worldwide, and control here means the ability to stop that flow. Just having the ability to buy that oil is not enough. Consider the Nordstream 2 case:
* Germany has built both a terminal terminal for gas transported from the USA and Qatar by USA ships, and a terminal for gas pipelined from Russia, so it has a backup for either option.
* The USA government objects to that because it says having terminal for both american and russian gas *reduces the security of Germany* over the option of depending only on american supplied gas.
* The obvious real reasoning is that if the german government ever steps out of line, and they have only a terminal for gas transported by american controlled ships, the USA government can reroute the ships to other countries, and 20-30% of german industry is wiped out, and many millions of houses freeze in winter.
The common narrative is that Bush lied as a pretext to invade Iraq. The truth is more difficult to find and understand. Saddam refused to prove the WMD reports false. In a Western court of law it is not incumbent upon the accused to prove his innocence. The arena was one not at all understood in the West, and Saddam proved to be grand master in his game.
Saddam ran the most successful deception operation since the XX Committee in World War II. He believed that unless Iran concluded he had WMD it would invade and conquer Iraq. For Iran to come to that conclusion, everybody had to come to that conclusion. It could not succeed if even one country's intelligence service could prove the contention wrong.
He was assured by senior members of government in both France and Russia, paid agents, that Bush was a fool and they could easily control Bush to protect Iran. Oops.
This is documented by an FBI Agent's debriefing of Saddam; the agent's story was documented by a major US Network (ABC, IIRC). The entire deception operation is documented and in storage at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. How it has escaped a demand for public release is puzzling.
The Network never again broadcast the agent's story, and not a single other news source has carried the story. That one is neither puzzling nor mysterious.
Otherwise, I, too, have been a Kucinich fan for years. He makes his decisions based on principles, not short-term personal or partisan gains. His positions were less important to me than his decision-making process.
I think the revulsion over the 2nd Gulf War can't be understood purely in terms of the WMDs.
Many people now forget the anthrax scare that followed soon after the Twin Towers attack. What people do remember is that a group opportunists that always wanted a war with Iraq and always wanted something like the Patriot Act, the TSA and Homeland security and mass surveillance of the American people leveraged our fear into their standing wish list of authoritarian resolutions we are all now stuck with. It's a repeat of the American people discovering after WWI that the British were actually using the Lusitania to transport weapons at the time the Germans attacked it. People felt duped because they were.
I think that's why many people aren't very interested in the true history of the WMD's. When they say the WMD were a lie, they are actually referring to a series of lies more nebulous that never sat quite right with them.
People like DK at the time are a proxy for those who stood against all of that whether people realize it or not.
Being actually part of WMD cleanup in Iraq, I agree with you. I never thought the things I found there were somehow a justification for what was done over the prior (at the time) 6 or 7 years.
At a high level, of course, everything is a lie. There are always caveats and counterexamples one could bring up to everything that bubbles to the surface in government or media. I'm reminded of Voltaire, "History is the lie commonly agreed upon". Large narratives are never the objective truth.
I was against it (and Afghanistan) from the very beginning but I went over and did my part in it anyway. My reason was that we would never do what was required to win either war, and just get a bunch of people killed for no good reason. Guess what, I was right.
Have voted straight party line Republican my whole life*, but not because I agree with very much the party is for. It just tends to screw things up more to vote that way, and especially in the age of Trump.
* Except for that one youthful indiscretion of voting for Clinton in '92. Sue me. Bush was puking on the Japanese prime minister and Perot sounded like he was nuts.
That's the entire US experience in a nut shell. Anyone wanting to do anything that disturbs the socioeconomic pecking order is made to sound like a nut via the branch of the CIA we call the press.
Who knew voting could be made into blackmail where you just vote for the least damaging tyrant to your demographic knowing all the while you're merely choosing whose friends and family we're going to make rich this cycle while they rubber stamp the pre-approved agenda from the DAVOS crowd.
Perot was kind of a nut though. Very easy to caricature. The thing that did him in for me was leaving the campaign and then reentering late in the summer. Absent that, he would have gotten my vote.
He was dodging the heat that the press was hurling at him. Not a very well thought out tactic at all.
The thing is it takes a nut to not cave into the pressure of the cabal.
I think it's pretty irrelevant now though.
We're just along for the ride now and when you see this level of ineptitude you arrive at a point where you just have to admit you live in the same kind of banana republic the empire has set up everywhere else around the world.
Why wouldn't they use the same secret sauce at home that they do everywhere else ?
Look at how our foreign policy is now domestic policy....
I think we've gone beyond individual countries and are well into setting up corporate industrial zones within a one world government and single currency.
Realistically though, how do you get money out of politics? Serious question. Even avowedly anti-capitalistic regimes end up making their leadership rich.
You force the corporate TV and radio stations to give equal blocks of free airtime to all candidates who qualify for ballot status in enough states to have a statistical chance of winning. Why then would you need gobs of campaign cash? It’s the monopolist broadcasting corporations that rake in all that dark campaign money. The public airwaves have been hijacked to corrupt our own election system. We need to take them back.
I, personally, called the National Guard office and was asked what military training I had. I told the Lt. Col. who answered my exprience was with NASA, not any of the armed forces and was very politely declined and asked not to call back. This man's army doesn't need computer programmers with over 600 hours experience crewing high altitude aircraft.
I am not a conscientious objector by any standard that I consider appropriate. It would be an insult to conscientious objectors of faith for me to claim so.
I did what I did because it was for people I knew and cared for, not because it was for patriotism or some national goal. Just like most everyone else. My story was a female CW3 who had already done three tours in SWA who was going to be sent back for a fourth unless I would cover for her under orders. I did it. She separated and got a nice job with the FAA.
What I want to know is what did Obama do to Kucinich on Air Force One at the end of the Healthcase debate to turn Kucinich into a sellout from that moment forward? Obamacare, as Nader put it, was "A blowjob for the insurance industry."
Thank you! I was and still am baffled by how many liberals got on board with Obamacare when it seemed to me that all it did was put more power in the hands of the special interests. I saw it as a big step *away* from a single payer option, not a step toward it.
Exactly. Our government officials would NEVER vote in a true single payer system because that would mean an end to Medicaid, Medicare, the VA, and most importantly, their own gold-plated health benefits. In a true single payer system, everyone gets the same benefits.
...and the base level "lifeline" for poor people was shitty and overpriced insurance that only doctors an hour's drive would take patients on the ACA plans.
I suspect that if you believe that only a wholly government-run healthcare system is acceptable, then anything else is a crass giveaway. So maybe Kucinich has a more nuanced perspective than Nader. As a reporter who covered both the Clinton health effort and Obama’s, and who used Obama’s, ACÁ is a lifeline for many. I’d remind you that Nader’s 2000 campaign in effect elected Bush, who Nader maintained was tweedle-Dee to Gore’s tweedle-dum. Bush = Gore. Only if you stand so far to the side that you view life through a telescope that makes everything look side-by-side.
Sure it is, pal. Have you ever tried to sign up for that sweet ACA health care?
I have... and after having to pay more than I would have previously, I was being referred to doctor's offices 15 miles away who were just processing as many cheap-ass visits as they could because the ACA only paid *so much*. Most practices just never bothered to associate or provide for ACA plan holders.
It jacked the price of insurance premiums up 400% and didn't give the truly needy anything more than an option to BUY insurance; not "get healthcare". Medicare and Medicaid actually paid claims. This was not healthcare; it was insurance -and shitty, overpriced insurance at that.
Nader is right, of course.
The ACA became a lifeline for padding insurance aristocrats' pockets -not for poor people.
It's actually quite a good hustle since it got more people paying and those already paying to pay more while not paying anyone but the insurance companies.
That's Wall Street level on both ingenuity and the balls it took to propose it.
There's really not a two car parade anywhere on earth that our elite can't fuck up is there ?
"It's actually quite a good hustle since it got more people paying"
Some people just quit paying -- "quit paying" is hyperbole, they still had to pay the fine -- and opted to die instead, because they can't afford garbage privatized healthcare. That's where we're at.
Obama was the spokesmodel for a program he didn't promulgate, understand, or negotiate. The ACA was designed by children and brought to us by Rahm and a cohort of shysters in thick with private equity. Folks arguing for and imagining the ACA is a health care program are horribly mistaken,
You could say that about Oshama's entire presidency. The man was a highly educated shill with a wonderful speaking voice who mostly propounded platitudes, that when examined, really said nothing at all.
People talk about TDS, and its real, but no more real than ODS, where cons saw this man as some sort of socialist radical and libs saw him as the embodiment of all that is virtuous, as meanwhile his 8 years were nothing but a continuation of the same old same old, but done in a style that infuriated cons and delighted libs.
The man is as fake as the thirst he had in Flint Michigan, and a total Manchurian Candidate for the status quo.
Thing is the insurance companies lost massive amounts of money from the ACA the same time as premiums tripled. Doctors also lost money. If it was wall street greed that undid ACA it was a very particularly incompetent greed.
My health insurance premiums TRIPLED under ACA. The post-fiasco spin put on by the Dems was that the small increase in people coverage was the goal all along, but if you actually look back at Obama's election he was literally promising that everyone's premiums would drop by $1000 per year. I don't think this was due to handouts to insurance companies, because my county went from having 7 to having one provider as soon as Obamacare was implemented and we felt damn lucky that that final one didn't pull out. Rather it's that Democrats have this image of themselves as being smart technocrats but really they don't understand what they're doing, and the policies they think they want they have no idea what the consequences will be because they simply do not understand what reality is. Just about everyone lost from the ACA except for poor people who got increased subsidies. And that could have been done just by slightly increasing funding to Medicaid.
"Just about everyone lost from the ACA except for poor people who got increased subsidies."
I know this is already a dogpile on ACA -- I might be the last dog, and certainly the mangiest -- but try being an unemployed person or a marginally employed (i.e. working, but still poor) person and see what it does for you.
I paid the government a fine last year for the crime of not paying for privatized health insurance. It tells you who is the boss around here.
As weak as the assumption that everybody who voted for Jill Stein or the Libertarians or who wrote somebody in or stayed on the couch would gave voted for Hillary.
They do the same thing on the right, by the way, to argue that the libertarian vote costs Republicans elections. It's stupid for the same reason: you can't assume that a libertarian voter would go Republican if the libertarian weren't on the ticket.
No one is arguing that people should be denied health care. Of course they should have health care. The argument is Obamacare was a blowjob for the insurance industry. Which it was. They also left out the blow job for private equity, which was a very, very satisfying blow job.
How do you arbitrate lifesaving care vs stuff that is not absolutely necessary?
Attaching actual price tags to things would certainly help. If we knew that extending prenatal care to all people would cost X billion, funding that would be much better than relying on volunteer obstetricians (yes that is a thing) and unpaid bills to "fund" this. But no one really knows.
If I had a point, I think you're missing it. What the ACA did for any self employed person (me) was to double the rate and halve the service, with a $6,784 deductible. That is not health care. I was arbitrated out of the system, and so were all my tradespeople friends and associates.
What the ACA did for private equity was lock in their stranglehold on big Pharma (drug costs) and clinical services (they own the clinics and hospitals). I'm discussing the locked in nature of all the worst things about health care. You're discussing moral and ethical issues, which I understand. The ACA does not get us to where we are able to make moral or ethical choices; our options are delineated by big insurance and private equity. The ACA is not a health care policy; it's a locked in revenue stream and massive profit center for insurance and private equity.
It would also require the long-needed balls to graduate the value of "estimated year of life saved" differently for 20-year-olds and 95-year-olds. -
Such balls are not in evidence, not in the media, government, the insurance industry, nor academia. (I know, insurance people can and do make such calculations, they're just never used and almost never admitted.)
That is, of course, the slippery slope to end all slippery slopes.
I still think the Democrats made a huge tactical mistake letting Clinton get away with his perjury. Replacing him with Gore would have made Gore a shoo-in in 2000. I can't imagine his response to 9/11 would have been worse than what actually happened.
But he had trouble keeping his human mask on over his reptilian face. He had to go. When the glued his mask on tight, it didn't move enough to be convincing...
Especially as he made the campaign promise that he wouldn't sign a health care bill without it. Stupid me, i voted for him based on that, pretty much. I haven't voted Dem top of the ticket ever since.
I knew some first time voters who were SHOCKED when Obama, after his election, was presented with a poll showing marijuana legalization was the big issue on the minds of college students, and asked about it, and 'answered' "Heh heheh."
Going to read this book. It is funny that my fellow liberals don’t get why I don’t think Trump supporters are automatically dirtbags. The poor ones are getting fucked over like I was. We just came to different ways to protest the political dirtbags in office and professional class media enablers for both teams.
Like I said before, I'll never vote Republican because of the belief in a superior white social hierarchy that underlies all their policies. I was the same social class as the poor whites so I get why they like it, pisses off the upper class when they don't use their stupid ass pronouns or some asshole tells a drywaller to code(which I did by the way, but they don't acknowledge the huge class barrier and discrimination against the poor). Hell, I laughed at shit Trump said even though I knew he was a piece of shit that stiffed contractors. My old co-workers would spout some stupid half-formed, bullshit opinions due to their lack of rigorous education to challenge their bullshit. But if I needed help moving, doing a flooring project, etc. they would show up with a six pack and tools. My current co-workers understand macro economics and can talk circles around me, but no way in hell would they help put cabinets up in my kitchen. I don't know what the fuck I am talking about, but there are a lot of decent Trump supporters with dumbass opinions.
«never vote Republican because of the belief in a superior white social hierarchy that underlies all their policies»
That is not quite right, that is too influenced by Corey Robin and similar propaganda about what is means to be "reactionary".
Actually the Republican Party has no such belief about a "superior white social hierarchy", they are merely the instrument of those who have a position of incumbency and want to protect and further it. Whatever the color of the incumbents and whether their incumbency is about a social hierarchy or not. In particular many republicans are "whigs" like the most of the Democratic Party, that is they are socially liberal, and the incumbency they protect and further is that of power in the markets, not social hierachy. It is the "tory" side of the Republicans that is about "social hierarchy", the "tradcons", and it is the "dixie" side that cares about color.
This sounds like a long read but now I'm very interested in checking it out. Since 2004 was the first election I was old enough to vote in, I've always thought of Kucinich as the first (and last) hope of a major political party candidate whom I could consider to at least be anti-war adjacent. Since I am very firmly anti-war, everybody else in the Dem & Rep camps has been a pretty easy "Pass" from me (I'll always regret being duped into believing even for a second that Obama was a worthwhile vote from an anti-war perspective). That also means that I'm pretty used to both parties and their adherents shitting on me left & right (pun intended) as being unpatriotic or a Nazi sympathizer or whatever, so I certainly sympathize a lot with guys like Kucinich when I see them getting shit on by the Left & the Right in an alternating fashion.
"He understands the catastrophe of default, but he can’t sell; he’s worried about the city, but also his soul."
This is the kind of dilemma that hits me hard, too, and I feel like it's an argument that's gone by the wayside between two competing materialist philosophies (Capitalism vs. Socialism/Marxism is probably the easiest shorthand for it) that have gained such hegemony over the years that any discussion of a "soul" or things outside the narrow materialist view get instantly discarded. I'm a long-since renounced Evangelical, but some of those things still stick with me since there's still a lot to learn from things like the Sermon on the Mount and even Talmudic Law from the early "Old Testament" writings.
I think it was Vonnegut who I read once described himself as a "Christ-loving Atheist" and I thought that was a good way of putting it. Especially as a musician/artist, the idea of selling my soul has always been there -- you see artists sell out to make a bunch of drivel to pad their pockets, and they never get their souls back, the thing that made them so beautiful to begin with. In fact, they rarely want it back because they have all these material possessions and their kids go to fancy schools, so why would they care about something like a soul? Maybe it's just because my name is Matthew so I've always leaned in to that book in the Bible, but even 15 years after quitting the faith and splitting from churches, I still remember Matthew 19:26 (my paraphrase): "For what would it profit a man, to gain the whole world but to lose his own soul?" For all my lefty principles and such, I could never truly feel like a part of the Left these days with how much they focus on materialistic needs, and I'm considered a person who "fetishizes poverty" when I fondly remember stories from my Grandma about how poor her family was, but the idea that "we may not have much money, but we've always got each other" really MEANS something. Lots of people have covered this song (I absolutely love the Jeff Buckley version), and these lines have always stood out to me from Satisfied Mind:
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
compared to the man with a satisfied mind
Thanks for the review Matt, I'll have to look into this book when I've got the appetite for a 700-pager, haha.
Do you know if you are unauthorized /Foreign and want to become a citizen all you need is a doctors signature that you were born in a Hospital in the US and or you can use a Baptism paper?
«the first (and last) hope of a major political party candidate whom I could consider to at least be anti-war adjacent. Since I am very firmly anti-war»
I voted for Kucinich in the Democratic primaries in DC in both 2004 and 2008. He won the DC primary in 2004. Then, for reasons that were never explained to the public, the Democratic establishment decided on a do-over. So, we had a second primary, and John Kerry won. Again, no explanation and virtually no press coverage. Anyone I talked to about my vote described Kucinich as “weird.” One supposedly progressive commentator even remarked on the weird way Kucinich ate noodles. So we got polished and corrupt instead of honest, smart and unconventional. We can’t say we’ve never had choices.
You touched on a live wire there, Nancy. No one talks about the rigged primaries where the losing party actually challenges the prevailing narrative. Instead, our attention is deflected to the general election where both parties stack the odds in their dominant constituency.
The was politics works in the USA and several other "Washington Consensus" places has been described "you can vote for any candidate you want as long as we nominate the candidates we want".
"Then, for reasons that were never explained to the public, the Democratic establishment decided on a do-over."
The Democratic establishment used to consume wearisome amounts of time and effort on the "do-over," but has recently moved to the more effective and efficient "pre-over." Progress!
"We can’t say we’ve never had choices."
Democratic primary voters aren't allowed to have nice things.
Thanks Matt. This kind of reporting is keeping the spotlight where it should be, not so much Dems vs Republicans, but on the "riggers" and the "riggees" (so to speak. )
I never could understand why Trump was supposedly a pariah from the day he came down the escalator. It was precisely his pie-in-the-face behavior to the riggers that scared everybody to death. I think he was caught off guard by the extent to which those in his own party (and administration) were entrenched in the rigged system. He was a real threat, and I think he was getting close to the core of the problem so he had to be gotten rid of. It's the riggers vs the riggees.
True. Unfortunately Trump did not understand the depth or intensity of his Machiavellian opposition. He should have fired 50% of the Federal beuracracy. An empty chair is better then an avid enemy
Yup-Trump nominated Andy Puzder, the CEO or Hardee’s as SecLabor-a smart nomination-the man understands the real labor market-but he got whacked by the DC-PC complex.....
I'm not Trump supporter, but his early strategy of surrounding himself with Generals was a really bad strategy. No one obtains that rank without being an absolute snake in the grass. If he thought they would simply follow his orders he understood the military even less than I already assumed.
Good point. Trump had to be maximally attacked and removed because he was already wealthy and powerful, and he could therefore focus on what mattered to him, ie, America's "greatness". The trough feeders could not control him through the usual channels, and he knew all about how they stayed in power. He had to go.
«I never could understand why Trump was supposedly a pariah from the day he came down the escalator.»
My main theory, looking at the type of people most affected by TDS, and their unthinking, gut feeling of revulsion at Trump, and the often ridiculous arguments against him they come up, ignoring far more realistic ones, is that they object to him as a person, because he is "lowbrow", a vulgar performer, and they hate the idea of being ruled by someone they see as an inferior, an Orange Baboon. They want their boss to look the part. NN Taleb has written appositely:
“What did we learn from the failed TRUMP experiment? (cont) Someone in office, like a High Priest of Baal, a Patriarch, a doge, a judge, or a mafia don, must observe a certain decorum & a certain ornamental deportment. This holds even more true in a secular democracy. #Lindy”
It is somewhat like the revulsion that many from the other side felt at the presidency of BH Obama, even if he was a suave reganist elitist, because they also hated the idea of being ruled by someone they considered an inferior.
My first impression of Kucinich was not great, but in the following years I have found him to be an honest and forthright man. Based on this very fine article, I can now presume my first impressions were based on false reporting AKA: Fake News. It's more than clear to me today that what we have is a somewhat hidden group of criminals masquerading as politicians, news media, and corrupt corporations, where the bottom line is to gain wealth for themselves at the expense of their neighbors and fellow citizens. Add to that a federal government that supports the activity, as long as someone form within it gains as well.
«what we have is a somewhat hidden group of criminals masquerading as politicians, news media, and corrupt corporations, where the bottom line is to gain wealth for themselves at the expense of their neighbors and fellow citizens.»
Isn't that the American Dream? Isn't "get a little of that ice cream" without too many scruples the dream of the Great American Middle Class? If so many voters are corrupt don't they deserve representation too? I have a quote here from famous historian Newt Gingrich, part of a speech in which he argued that it is futile to try to do environmental regulation in the USA:
"If you have a society where almost every middle class person routinely fudges the law, that’s telling us something. We have laws that matter – murder, rape, and we have laws that don’t matter. The first thing that every good American says each morning is “What’s the angle?” “How can I get around it?” “What does my lawyer think?” “There must be a loophole!” [...] America is the most incentive-driven society on the planet.”
It's a good question, but Gingrich is a politicians, so he does see things differently than an enlightened human. I believe it was Socrates that said...The unexamined life is not worth living.
Excellent comment. I am occasionally tempted to admire Gingrich based upon his occasional, flippant candor about the way things actually work in Washington, but then I remember that he's The Thing from John Carpenter's THE THING (1982).
I was immediately impressed by Dennis Kucinich when he was one of the few (if any at that time) Croatian-Americans in Congress, and he nobly, on principle, opposed US military action against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia. Dennis could have easily earned strong support from nationalistic Croatian-Americans, including many in his district, by backing such moves. Instead, he risked their strong enmity by opposing those acts of war, publicly. After that, I contributed to all his presidential campaigns.
We need people of integrity. Otherwise, any system can and will be gamed.
There were Croatians (or Serbs, different side, same mentality) from Independence or Strongsville who were sending their teenage kids over to the battle zone on summer break in the early 90s, where they were set up w/sniper rifles in fairly safe positions and basically told “Shoot at anything that moves beyond point X”
There's probably a novel to be written about regional loyalties in Ohio during that period in the late '90s when Serbs were the designated US Official Enemy.
The Dayton Accords were the biggest story in town since the Wright Bro’s. started buzzing around-you can still get a ride in one of their original Wright B flyers.
Matt, thank you SO much for doing the interview and writing the book review. I almost feel you’ve vindicated him on so many levels, and I thank you for that too. I voted for the man in 2004 and was ready to do it again in 2008 before he pulled out of the race. I remember the first time I heard him speak (I was a transplant from Puerto Rico at the time) and my jaw fell to the floor; who is this man, I wondered. Well, he turned out to be THE most “unelectable” candidate from that time. I miss him.
We probably need more tell-all stories about the powers that be - starting with General Smedley Butler's uncovering a fascist plot to take over the government in the 30s, to Henry Wallace's being pushed out of the democratic party, to Kennedy's fights with intelligence and JCOS inside the administration, to Nixon's decision to open up relations with China to get the inside skinny on the military industrial reaction. Ford was a placeholder for the intelligence community and just about everyone after that played ball with the neoliberal establishment to some extent.
We need more institutional exposure of how the hidden state plays ball - beyond assassinations, dirty wars, coup d'etats, and rigging elections.
Here's a hot flash for you, mcelroyj. There is no hidden state. There's no reason to hide the state. Because the folks who run the state own everything and everybody worth owning. It's right in front of your eyes and my eyes. They're not shy anymore. And they're operating from the assumption that there's not a damn thing we can do about it. They may be right! No need for hide and seek. It's the difference between building a ballpark in San Diego And Toronto. You need a dome in Toronto, but not San Diego. The boys and girls of the State these days play in San Diego. We know where the keep the Beluga, we just can't get at it.
"We need more institutional exposure of how the hidden state plays ball - beyond assassinations, dirty wars, coup d'etats, and rigging elections...."
Sounds as though you're volunteering for the project you've outlined above. Careful. Last person to undertake that sort of challenge, Ed Snowden, was reduced to renting a cold water flat in Vologda from Boris Feldsparovich. All that stuff you list above is low-hanging fruit plucked long ago. Here's some reading for you. Keep us posted on how deep that deep state really is....cheers...
Smedley Butler: “War is a Racket”: Smed’s a bit of a nut. But he’s got heart and his head is in the right place. Read this 25 years ago. War is definitely a racket, but that’s been self-evident for, say, 6,000 years. Available now in audio version and might be fun listening after a handful of psilocybin-based snacks.
John Nichols, “The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party.” Nice , recently published updated overview of Wallace’s quixotic ‘48 presidential campaign on the progressive ticket. Also gives succinct account of the concerted---and successful---effort to jettison Wallace from the ‘44 ticket. This was handled by some of the reactionary elements within the democratic party. Wallace was perceived as a sort of radical poindexter, a tolerated eccentric during the early days of the new deal, a compromise choice in 1940, but wholly unacceptable as a potential president given Roosevelt’s rapidly failing health.
The ‘44 demo nominating convention was a mere formality. In collusion with the machinations of the legislators, Roosevelt hustled Wallace off to a two-month fact finding trip to Siberia and never spoke to him about the ‘44 ticket until he was for all practical purposes a dead candidate. Despite failing health, FDR evidently retained his sense of humor.
The ‘44 demo nominating convention was a mere formality. “Conspiracy of the pure in heart” indeed. By the way, Wallace was never kicked out of the democratic party. He merely left it when he surmised there was no place for him in a party drifting to the right in response to political pressures of the cold war. Have always been a Wallace fan.
But for my money, Dwight Macdonald’s biography offers the best delineation of Wallace’s idiosyncratic personality and wide-ranging curiosity across disciplines as a policy polymath. And it’s Macdonald, always worth the time no matter the subject. Unfortunately, it’s out of print.
As for Nixon and China, there are a forest-full of books detailing extensively Nixon’s possible motives for going to China. Only the serpent knows. Here I like the conventional wisdom: Watergate was getting warm, and the calaboose closer.
Books too numerous to showcase, though I’d start with Kissinger’s memoirs and Margaret Macmillan’s “Nixon in China,” pretty much the scholarly gold standard for this subject. Garry Wills’ “Nixon Agonistes” is worth a view---a great work detailing Nixon’s ambition and shrewd calculations in all things statecraft and prepares one for the lizard mind that will eventually navigate simultaneously the rapprochement with China and the brewing circus of Watergate.
My rule of thumb: show me a conspiracy and I’ll show you human frailty and unmitigated dunderheadedness. But then you’re not alone. Most of the commenters on Taibbi’s site are awash in conspiracy theories. One supposes it’s the scholarly equivalent of an Alex Jones rant.
I remember Dennis Kucinich running for president. He was never once allowed to be front and center...that spot was reserved for Clinton and Obama. He was shoved to the far side of the stage, but every time he got a chance to say something, what he said made sense, was realistic, rang of sincerity and made me always say, this is the guy I want for president. The others, by comparison, were, well, stupid, including the two who were front and center, though Obama fooled a lot of people. I have wondered often what kind of a world we would live in if we were allowed to have a decent president, such as Kucinich, Stein, Gabbard. That won't happen in my lifetime....or ever, I expect. I loved the guy for the way he was and missed him when he fell out of sight. Look forward to his book. Thanks, Matt, for this.
«if we were allowed to have a decent president, such as Kucinich, Stein, Gabbard»
There is a yuuuge difference as Trump discovered between being in office and being in power, they are not quite the same thing. Some presidents had actual power because they had what is called a "power base", that is backers who trusted them and helped them, and a lot of minions whose careers they had nurtured and who trusted them and helped them, and lots of experience working the actual levers of power. Basically powerful presidents had to be "machine politicians", the leaders of their own faction, a faction that mattered.
I strongly suspect that there was a switch from machine politician candidates to primaries to select candidates because the powerful finance and business lobbies realized that machine politicians thought of themselves as principals, having their own power base, instead of as representatives of their sponsors. Primaries tend to require a lot of money, giving more power to the sponsors over candidates, and they tend to select "popular", "looks good" politicians, who rarely have their own power base.
Trump (and Sanders, and Corbyn in England) was an exception to that, because he was bankrolled by his own fortune, and was a corrupter, instead of being corrupted, but he still did not have any political power base, no knowledge of how to make the mere office of president gain some actual power, including no knowledge of the administrative machine. He probably thought that he could solve all problems with permanent campaign mode on one side, and just doing his usual as a real estate mobster does on the other side, but on the other side he fought with people as rich as himself, and far more experienced in driving national policies, with other principals, with other "sponsors".
Though, my hunch is that Trump and Jeff Zucker were tapped to recreate a presidential reality show to manufacture consent for some truly evil "solutions" to a truly evil sounding boogeyman.
Thanks, I understand the way it works. You're right. What I was talking about, that won't happen in my lifetime, if ever, is a genuinely honest president with a cabinet of the same and a Congress who have integrity, so that all work for the governed. In other words, where people after power, money and control don't run anything. As I said, won't happen.
Kucinich's loss in 08 was America's loss. Instead we got obie, the transformational president that bombed brown people every single day of his Nobel Peace Prize presidency, gave us nearly $11TRILLION in new debt, waged culture wars and race wars and spied on every single American for Amazon (giving Bezos the $600M CIA contract that let him buy the WaPo and your privacy), all while leaving office some $20million richer.
I look forward to The Division of Light and Power, primarily because the U.S. media no longer reports on government corruption - after all, fiction, aspersions, and witch hunts are much more fun and much more lucrative than bearing the burden of the 4th Estate and actually investigating wrong doing by the people we've elected to govern us.
One might ask Kucinich how he managed to navigate power for so long while remaining unscathed (other than his national political brand). So many of his ideas had and do have merit, but I guess I find myself in the middle of being gobsmacked by his audacity/will to challenge power and his sheer luck of not being ruined more than just his reputation in Washington temporarily. There are worse outcomes and fates than his.
Another way to say this is that if WaPo is singing his praises now (decades after the fact), then he must have been an easy threat to dismantle. Someone like Philip Agee or Julian Assange seems to rankle the deep state and their whorish brethren congress much more Kucinich. These benign caricatures like Adlai Stephenson, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders seem to get walked upon and bullied more than they lead people to a new path.
There is a great deal to admire in DK, no doubt - but if he was the best opportunity for a sane Presidential choice in the last 40 years, we are clearly fucked.
"Someone like Philip Agee or Julian Assange seems to rankle the deep state and their whorish brethren congress much more [than] Kucinich."
Brutal, mcelroyj, but fair.
A digression closer to my own l'il hidey-hole; if corruption is utterly endemic to a political entity such as the City Council of Cleveland, OH, do we imagine that the federal security/intelligence services are clean as the driven snow?
I think that's the point - the anti-communist 50's was the test case for how the tripartite nature of power works (the state or the face of democracy, the corporatocracy including financial/media domination to manufacture consent and socialize loss, and then the hidden state where surveillance, military expansion, drug-running financed dirty tricks in bed with the mob at home and abroad).
20 years younger, prefer longer sentences if you haven't noticed by now, and his name has 2 L's where mine has one. As far as the comparison, I'm an amateur in brutal pessimism and have never spent more than a week in California. My hideouts in include the states of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and the confines of Kansas City, Bethesda and Madison. Have more in common with Thomas Frank than I do James Ellroy (then again his childhood is stark).
My background is in academia/teaching, coaching, and family finance/investing but history and podcasting are current passions.
Regarding Kucinich’s battle with the power company, ANYTHING involving power and natural resource extraction and utilization is going to be fraught with the nastiest corruption, rent seeking, ignoring of constituent needs and power struggles imaginable. Why? B/c control of resources allows a political leader/junta/strongman/oligarchy to control the $$$ of the state w/out demanding taxes from the citizenry AND eliminating the need to respond to the citizenry’s legitimate needs. The bigwigs get theirs, they can ignore everyone else.
«ANYTHING involving power and natural resource extraction and utilization is going to be fraught with the nastiest corruption, rent seeking, ignoring of constituent needs and power struggles imaginable.»
There are two egregious examples that I often make: the "apex laws" for mineral rights, and the hereditary peanut growing monopolies for wealthy southern farmers.
«Why? B/c control of resources allows a political leader/junta/strongman/oligarchy to control the $$$ of the state w/out demanding taxes from the citizenry AND eliminating the need to respond to the citizenry’s legitimate needs.»
That was precisely the purpose of those hereditary peanut growing monopolies: the idea was that segregationist southern politicians wanted a reliable source of campaign funding, so they created a category of peanut rentiers whose profits depended on their vote to renew the monopoly regime.
I haven't followed that for a while, but I think that growing peanuts in the USA is still a federal crime if done without one of those hereditary peanut growing permits.
During one of the debates Trump asked Biden how he came to own three very expensive homes. Trump made a sarcastic face and said something like “it makes no sense”, but then he let it go. I think he could’ve won the election with that issue alone. That is the populace tact that could win - Dem or GOP. Nancy how did you become rich? Hammer on that. Mitch can’t help but notice you’re a millionnaire. What are the politicians tax returns say, how much did they earn and does that equate to 3 homes.
And their wealth is just the grease on the rails that moved the big money. Trump was already rich and was immune to the trap. It was fun to watch a incorruptable patroit swinging like Iron Mike against the tide of slime. Hope he gets in the ring again, but he's earned a retirememt imo.
Trump came from a family fortune based on being a slumlord, not paying your bills and solving problems by suing people. He is not a patriot, he is a grifter.
Trump was immune to the trap ? Ha ! That's fucking hilarious !
Holy shit. I needed a laugh today. I agree that Trump may have at some point bitten off a human ear like Mike Tyson.
Love Iron Mike. He too could fight
I'm a fan of Mike Tyson. Especially because of who he is now.
Dude you just called Trump incorruptible. Matt’s audience is not gonna like that.
Slowly, very slowly, I feel like there is a convergence between left and right developing in Matt's comments page, on at least some key issues. It's one of the main reasons I'm here. Not everyone is feeling the love, but some perceptible and gratifying connections are being made.
That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)
But here's an undeniable fact: Public service has made Trump poorer, but it has made the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons much, much richer.
Good, and true point
Could a politician on either side ride this line of thinking - lambasting all Pols - to the White House? Glenn Greenwald as campaign chair.
Wow you read Matt's mind on his June 3 essay!
Please list the first 7 numbers between 1 an 53 that come to mind. 😃
Skeptic says: "...That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)"
First off, the Secret Service does not "charge" or bill presidents for their work. The government, a.k.a. the taxpayers, pick up the tab.
And from BusinessInsider:
"Even when Trump's golf club in Bedminster, N.J. was closed up earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, the documents obtained in the lawsuit show the Secret Service still got hit with a $21,800 charge for a cottage rental and other room fees....The usual rate for agents to stay at a Trump property — even when there's no indication he will stop by — is $567 per night, according to the Post....That's a far cry from the mere "50 bucks" per room Eric Trump claimed the taxpayers dish out when defending the practice back in October 2016."
Perhaps it's an accounting error with the travel ledgers. Junior miscatalogued the $50 bucks for, you know, maybe a discount hooker down on her luck---something like that, but for goodness sake who knows with those boys....
https://www.businessinsider.com/secret-service-billed-1-million-trump-properties-rooms-wapo-2020-9
And Skeptic, don't think of this as a "complaint," merely a friendly reprimand....
Hey Skeptic,
Why doncha introduce yourself to Google and basic internet research, and layoff the sloppy propaganda---or stick to UFO and crypto sites.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/08/trump-secret-service-detail-children-post-white-house
Donald Trump’s adult children reportedly cost taxpayers $140,000 in Secret Service security in the month after the clan’s patriarch left the White House in January.
Ordinarily, family members of a president lose their security detail when they leave office. But in the case of the four Trump siblings and two of their spouses, the former president issued a directive to extend post-presidency protections by six months.
The costs, obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics, do not include security protections at Trump properties in New Jersey, Palm Beach and Briarcliff, New York. With those factored in, the total would likely be far higher, according to the group.
According to the watchdog, records reveal that the Trump children maintained a “breakneck speed of travel, and racked up significant hotel and transportation bills for the Secret Service”.
Transport costs alone amounted to $52,296.75, and hotel costs totaled at least $88,678.39.The watchdog found that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump went from their jobs at the White House to a 10-day vacation in Utah, racking up hotel costs of $62,599. After a month in Miami, they stayed at Trump’s Bedminster golf property for three days in late February.
Eric and Lara Trump spent much of February at Trump’s Briarcliff property, interspersed with trips to New York, Miami and Palm Beach, at a cost of $12,742.
Donald Trump Jr also spent time in New York City, on Long Island, and in upstate New York, racking up bills of $13,337.
But Citizens for Ethics said the Secret Service did not provide records of spending at Trump businesses.
“While it may be tempting to put the story of the Trump family’s profiteering in the past, we cannot until they have actually stopped directing taxpayer money into their own bank accounts,” the group said.
Ah, the Trumps: the family that drifts together....grifts together.
«Dude you just called Trump incorruptible»
The gullibles don't realize that in the USA (and in the world) it is real estate mobsters who bribe or blackmail politicians, not vice-versa. Trump probably could have been convicted many times over of bribery, but that issue was never brought up because the vast majority of the politicians he bribed must have been from the Democratic party (in NYC and NJ, likely to get building permits and other favourable decisions).
His attitude to Republicans instead was different: he was one of their biggest campaign donors ever (probably to get even more favourable tax rules for real estate).
"Incorruptible" is going too far. But he did have a certain degree of immunity that occasionally produced interesting remarks. Roughly along these lines was my favorite, his declaration that he loved the "poorly educated." It was really kind of brilliant.
Totally agree. We should be going after pols on both sides on this issue. It’s disgusting
RJF, Trump didn't want to explain how he got so "rich". Especially when his tax information was almost released. That would have been a disaster for him.
That is just one of the many baseless smears about Trump.
He is very rich, if only because he inherited a lot of NYC real estate decades ago, and NYC has ballooned in price over the decades.
Also the tax return is pointless, we all know that thanks to various loopholes he did not pay tax, but he has give a far more useful document. A previous commenter has summyrized well:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/which-is-the-real-working-class-party/comments#comment-707998
“Tax returns tell you nothing of substance. Check out Biden's from 2017, for example. [...] The real picture - the best view - is in the required financial disclosures. Then you see assets and other income sources not available in a return. Trump's are available too. He IS fabulously wealthy and has impressive assets. The point is, tax returns are a distraction - they are in no way a meaningful look at someone's finances. This is especially true when multiple corporations and corporations within corporations complicate the view.”
You aren't curious about a wealthy persons finances and how they became so wealthy? It's amazing how many people applaud the rich for being crooked.
Maybe he isn't as rich as he wanted people to think he was. If, as this article proposes, the US is a plutocracy. Then, Trump has to maintain his Master of the Universe illusion.
Peoples finances should be a personal matter if they're not breaking the law. Why are you only concerned with this one set of citizens?
Most are not crooked as they provide most of the jobs we have:
Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB)
Search domain census.govhttps://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb.html
The 2017 Statistics of U.S. Businesses counted employment of 128.6M, of which 68.0M worked for enterprises 500+ in size and 60.5M for those under 500.
Once again, if you don't know how much Trump owes then you CANNOT speculate upon how wealthy he is.
He's on public record stating that he counts loans as assets. If I get to define the standards and definition of wealth, I too could be fabulously wealthy.
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
Which means he already knew how the game was played. He built in NYC, one would have to be an expert in precisely the corruption the article describes. In fact, that may have been his secret sauce and why the establishment feared him.
This is hilarious. Confirmation that Hunter Thompson was right. A decent chunk of the US liked Nixon for being a clever crook. An even larger group likes Trump for the same.
I think Thompson was right about quite a few things. Ever heard of Brad Marchand? Hockey player for Boston. He's a total dick but holy mackinaw can that guy play hockey. Dirty, mean, vicious Hockey. The fans love him. He wins a lot too.
They didn't fear him very much they just couldn't do much to him because they're all complicit in war crimes and massive fraud. What reforms did Trump make ?
I have accidentally outed myself as a Trump supporter
Whatever. You can be anything you want. I was just explaining why that strategy for Trump would have been a disaster.
Yeah I missed your point. You’re saying if Trump made a big deal of it -Joe’s wealth -it would have blown up in his face because his tax return would show all kinds of unflattering stuff. You are right.
No it wouldn’t-people understand A-how real estate developers and casino owners make $$, and B-the crookedness inherent in those endeavors.
Ha! No they don't... Real estate - how many people were arrested because of NINJA loans? Casinos - regulated by the NGC. Crookedness inherent - are you saying "people" are ok with this? People did like Nixon too, but people also fired him.
Absolutely.
Perhaps if tax burdens were equitably distributed among all U.S. citizens, the tax code made fair once again, these sorts of talk show gotchas, this never ending fixation on the peculiarly acquired wealth of a small but not insubstantial subset of parasitic citizenry, we could move on to, say, solving other problems...
This is exciting: a book I would actually read by and about a politician whose only flaws have been remarkable prescience and integrity. I recently tweeted at Kucinich a few times urging him to run for the open Ohio Senate seat. With the book out of the way (and now on my reading list), maybe he will give that idea some serious thought.
Thanks, Matt!
Stay tuned
As a Dem? If so, he must be a glutton for punishment ...
Oooh...that word, that word. I was thinking while I read the article "He might as well have a scarlet "I" tattooed on his forehead, so all the elected apparatchiks and brokers could avoid him. "INTEGRITY". I wonder if the brains of people like Pelosi and McConnell can actually process it, or if so, with the beginning provision "A trait exhibited by people *not yourself or your political allies*, which involves adherence to moral and ethical principles; etc."
I'm on the right, but I was always skeptical of the Iraq War.
I'll never forget when Kucinich was on some Sunday morning chat show in around 2004, and a Bush apologist was flaunting photos of old chemical weapons receptacles that were found in Iraq, arguing that there really were WMD.
Kucinich politely asked if he could have the photos, the hack agreed, and Kucinich asked the cameraman to zoom in on one. It showed a long, rusted out metal canister, looking like something you'd see in a scrap metal yard.
Kucinich asked, just slightly raising his voice, "We went to war--over this?"
The Bushee started stuttering and hemming and hawing and otherwise showing what a direct hit it was.
Damn, I was impressed.
Saddam Hussein was between a rock and a hard place. He didn't have a nuclear program after 1981 aside from a pile of yellowcake and some high level wastes at Osirak, surrounded by a huge dirt berm you can see on a Google Maps satellite shot. He had a small bioweapons program. He had chemical weapons. But he had UN inspectors breathing down his neck on one side and Iran on the other. He feared a loss of deterrence vis a vis Iran if he came clean about what little he actually had. So he prevaricated. When actually invaded, he made drug deals with the most likely leaders - strangely enough the Iranians and the Syrians. Most of the chemical weapons left (mostly artillery shells) after the wars and his internal use of it went to Syria, and most of that was either used or destroyed by now. The remnants of his nuclear program were removed from Iraq by the US in 2008 or so. The bioweapons program I know nothing about where it went, but it wasn't huge and basically amounted to weaponized anthrax. Not that that is nothing, but it's not the world-ending threat we once thought it was.
Kucinich's political stuff in 2004 might have seemed poignant but it was pretty ill informed.
I understood Kucinich's point to be that there was not a sufficient national security reason to invade. It sounds like you might agree with that, but only in hindsight.
But there were quite a few savvy players (including people on the right like Bob Novak) who smelled a rat and tried to raise the alarm before the invasion.
Personally never cared about the whole Iraq weapons canard. I always saw it as a casus belli. I wanted to take down two countries hard. THEN LEAVE!! The mistake as I see it was staying around to make those two shit hole countries (classic Trump) into electoral paradises. Only idiot DC swamp rats could believe that. It did make a lot of people rich though.
After 911 I felt the most expeditious effective way to “fight terrorism”(terrorism being a technique not an ideology) was to hammer two countries. Then leave. Then make it policy(unofficial) that if your country shielded terrorists or financed terrorists something very bad would happen to you, your family, or your country. Possibly all three. That was my preferred policy. Unpleasant but effective.
Very fair and cogent analysis of the situation. The Iraq fiasco was an extraordinarily stupid move by Bush, but everyone who screamed “No blood for oil” was completely missing the point-Saddam would happily have sold the US all the oil we wanted w/ zero need to invade for control. The invasion was about daddy issues and dick waving, NOT ensuring a constant oil supply. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran-they will sell oil to the dude who pissed on their collective grandmas graves if the price is right.
The reality is more likely that after installing Saddam's regime in 1978, Rumsfeld, Cheney and HW Bush and their pals decided to attack their own puppet government -just to have a show and spend those sweet, sweet defense dollars.
Nothing more than a banana republic that was used for a couple of decades to pressure Iran, Syria, Yemen, and whoever was nearby and at odds with US policy. I'm looking at you, Turkey. The primary goal though was oil fields to drain.
When you factor in that it was a US-controlled dictatorship since 1978, the Iraq Wars equate to genocide for profit. I don't judge servicemen and women who served in that theater, and know quite a few. Most of them agree that it wasn't necessary or justified.
Just another act in a play the US Dept. of State was putting on involving a wave of grabs to consolidate resources and power. Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Brazil, Guatemala, Chile, Afghanistan and they halted briefly at Syria because of Russia's pipeline plans. So they "partnered up" to "destroy ISIS/ISIL", taking turns dropping expensive ordinance all over the place.
The show goes on, of course.
«Saddam would happily have sold the US all the oil we wanted w/ zero need to invade for control. The invasion was about daddy issues and dick waving, NOT ensuring a constant oil supply.»
I think that misses completely the points, because the 2nd Iraq war had been long planned by Cheney and the Deep State, and like the attacks on various other countries, from Serbia to Lybia, it had a main purpose: showing that the USA can wreck a country to intimidate the others. After Iraq was wrecked and Saddam executed, Ghaddafi became extraordinarily eager to whatever...
As to oil, the USA is in essence an "hydraulic empire", and needs to show it controls the flow of oil worldwide, and control here means the ability to stop that flow. Just having the ability to buy that oil is not enough. Consider the Nordstream 2 case:
* Germany has built both a terminal terminal for gas transported from the USA and Qatar by USA ships, and a terminal for gas pipelined from Russia, so it has a backup for either option.
* The USA government objects to that because it says having terminal for both american and russian gas *reduces the security of Germany* over the option of depending only on american supplied gas.
* The obvious real reasoning is that if the german government ever steps out of line, and they have only a terminal for gas transported by american controlled ships, the USA government can reroute the ships to other countries, and 20-30% of german industry is wiped out, and many millions of houses freeze in winter.
"After Iraq was wrecked and Saddam executed, Ghaddafi became extraordinarily eager to whatever..."
For all the good that did him the end.
I think Bashar looked at the end-game of Saddam's and Muammar's careers and was like, "Nah, the US can keep its ball. Not playing."
I could document this and the rest but I choose not to. Do your own research. Hint, "Operation McCall".
Not my fault you are ill-informed.
The common narrative is that Bush lied as a pretext to invade Iraq. The truth is more difficult to find and understand. Saddam refused to prove the WMD reports false. In a Western court of law it is not incumbent upon the accused to prove his innocence. The arena was one not at all understood in the West, and Saddam proved to be grand master in his game.
Saddam ran the most successful deception operation since the XX Committee in World War II. He believed that unless Iran concluded he had WMD it would invade and conquer Iraq. For Iran to come to that conclusion, everybody had to come to that conclusion. It could not succeed if even one country's intelligence service could prove the contention wrong.
He was assured by senior members of government in both France and Russia, paid agents, that Bush was a fool and they could easily control Bush to protect Iran. Oops.
This is documented by an FBI Agent's debriefing of Saddam; the agent's story was documented by a major US Network (ABC, IIRC). The entire deception operation is documented and in storage at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. How it has escaped a demand for public release is puzzling.
The Network never again broadcast the agent's story, and not a single other news source has carried the story. That one is neither puzzling nor mysterious.
Otherwise, I, too, have been a Kucinich fan for years. He makes his decisions based on principles, not short-term personal or partisan gains. His positions were less important to me than his decision-making process.
Areslentjust now
I think the revulsion over the 2nd Gulf War can't be understood purely in terms of the WMDs.
Many people now forget the anthrax scare that followed soon after the Twin Towers attack. What people do remember is that a group opportunists that always wanted a war with Iraq and always wanted something like the Patriot Act, the TSA and Homeland security and mass surveillance of the American people leveraged our fear into their standing wish list of authoritarian resolutions we are all now stuck with. It's a repeat of the American people discovering after WWI that the British were actually using the Lusitania to transport weapons at the time the Germans attacked it. People felt duped because they were.
I think that's why many people aren't very interested in the true history of the WMD's. When they say the WMD were a lie, they are actually referring to a series of lies more nebulous that never sat quite right with them.
People like DK at the time are a proxy for those who stood against all of that whether people realize it or not.
Being actually part of WMD cleanup in Iraq, I agree with you. I never thought the things I found there were somehow a justification for what was done over the prior (at the time) 6 or 7 years.
At a high level, of course, everything is a lie. There are always caveats and counterexamples one could bring up to everything that bubbles to the surface in government or media. I'm reminded of Voltaire, "History is the lie commonly agreed upon". Large narratives are never the objective truth.
Now that's a lie - it commonly agreed that Napoleon said that :-)
I was against it (and Afghanistan) from the very beginning but I went over and did my part in it anyway. My reason was that we would never do what was required to win either war, and just get a bunch of people killed for no good reason. Guess what, I was right.
Have voted straight party line Republican my whole life*, but not because I agree with very much the party is for. It just tends to screw things up more to vote that way, and especially in the age of Trump.
* Except for that one youthful indiscretion of voting for Clinton in '92. Sue me. Bush was puking on the Japanese prime minister and Perot sounded like he was nuts.
That's the entire US experience in a nut shell. Anyone wanting to do anything that disturbs the socioeconomic pecking order is made to sound like a nut via the branch of the CIA we call the press.
Who knew voting could be made into blackmail where you just vote for the least damaging tyrant to your demographic knowing all the while you're merely choosing whose friends and family we're going to make rich this cycle while they rubber stamp the pre-approved agenda from the DAVOS crowd.
Perot was kind of a nut though. Very easy to caricature. The thing that did him in for me was leaving the campaign and then reentering late in the summer. Absent that, he would have gotten my vote.
He was dodging the heat that the press was hurling at him. Not a very well thought out tactic at all.
The thing is it takes a nut to not cave into the pressure of the cabal.
I think it's pretty irrelevant now though.
We're just along for the ride now and when you see this level of ineptitude you arrive at a point where you just have to admit you live in the same kind of banana republic the empire has set up everywhere else around the world.
Why wouldn't they use the same secret sauce at home that they do everywhere else ?
Look at how our foreign policy is now domestic policy....
I think we've gone beyond individual countries and are well into setting up corporate industrial zones within a one world government and single currency.
How about you ?
Realistically though, how do you get money out of politics? Serious question. Even avowedly anti-capitalistic regimes end up making their leadership rich.
You force the corporate TV and radio stations to give equal blocks of free airtime to all candidates who qualify for ballot status in enough states to have a statistical chance of winning. Why then would you need gobs of campaign cash? It’s the monopolist broadcasting corporations that rake in all that dark campaign money. The public airwaves have been hijacked to corrupt our own election system. We need to take them back.
I, personally, called the National Guard office and was asked what military training I had. I told the Lt. Col. who answered my exprience was with NASA, not any of the armed forces and was very politely declined and asked not to call back. This man's army doesn't need computer programmers with over 600 hours experience crewing high altitude aircraft.
So they let me off. I wasn't grateful.
I am not a conscientious objector by any standard that I consider appropriate. It would be an insult to conscientious objectors of faith for me to claim so.
I did what I did because it was for people I knew and cared for, not because it was for patriotism or some national goal. Just like most everyone else. My story was a female CW3 who had already done three tours in SWA who was going to be sent back for a fourth unless I would cover for her under orders. I did it. She separated and got a nice job with the FAA.
What I want to know is what did Obama do to Kucinich on Air Force One at the end of the Healthcase debate to turn Kucinich into a sellout from that moment forward? Obamacare, as Nader put it, was "A blowjob for the insurance industry."
Thank you! I was and still am baffled by how many liberals got on board with Obamacare when it seemed to me that all it did was put more power in the hands of the special interests. I saw it as a big step *away* from a single payer option, not a step toward it.
Exactly. Our government officials would NEVER vote in a true single payer system because that would mean an end to Medicaid, Medicare, the VA, and most importantly, their own gold-plated health benefits. In a true single payer system, everyone gets the same benefits.
No shit-requiring every US citizen to forcibly purchase an industry’s product or face the IRS-Al Capone and Pablo Escobar are green with jealousy.
...and the base level "lifeline" for poor people was shitty and overpriced insurance that only doctors an hour's drive would take patients on the ACA plans.
Total trash; should have been aborted.
A BJ and they swallowed, licking their lips.
I suspect that if you believe that only a wholly government-run healthcare system is acceptable, then anything else is a crass giveaway. So maybe Kucinich has a more nuanced perspective than Nader. As a reporter who covered both the Clinton health effort and Obama’s, and who used Obama’s, ACÁ is a lifeline for many. I’d remind you that Nader’s 2000 campaign in effect elected Bush, who Nader maintained was tweedle-Dee to Gore’s tweedle-dum. Bush = Gore. Only if you stand so far to the side that you view life through a telescope that makes everything look side-by-side.
Sure it is, pal. Have you ever tried to sign up for that sweet ACA health care?
I have... and after having to pay more than I would have previously, I was being referred to doctor's offices 15 miles away who were just processing as many cheap-ass visits as they could because the ACA only paid *so much*. Most practices just never bothered to associate or provide for ACA plan holders.
It jacked the price of insurance premiums up 400% and didn't give the truly needy anything more than an option to BUY insurance; not "get healthcare". Medicare and Medicaid actually paid claims. This was not healthcare; it was insurance -and shitty, overpriced insurance at that.
Nader is right, of course.
The ACA became a lifeline for padding insurance aristocrats' pockets -not for poor people.
It's actually quite a good hustle since it got more people paying and those already paying to pay more while not paying anyone but the insurance companies.
That's Wall Street level on both ingenuity and the balls it took to propose it.
There's really not a two car parade anywhere on earth that our elite can't fuck up is there ?
"It's actually quite a good hustle since it got more people paying"
Some people just quit paying -- "quit paying" is hyperbole, they still had to pay the fine -- and opted to die instead, because they can't afford garbage privatized healthcare. That's where we're at.
Earn more money and make friends at City Hall!
Obama was the spokesmodel for a program he didn't promulgate, understand, or negotiate. The ACA was designed by children and brought to us by Rahm and a cohort of shysters in thick with private equity. Folks arguing for and imagining the ACA is a health care program are horribly mistaken,
You could say that about Oshama's entire presidency. The man was a highly educated shill with a wonderful speaking voice who mostly propounded platitudes, that when examined, really said nothing at all.
People talk about TDS, and its real, but no more real than ODS, where cons saw this man as some sort of socialist radical and libs saw him as the embodiment of all that is virtuous, as meanwhile his 8 years were nothing but a continuation of the same old same old, but done in a style that infuriated cons and delighted libs.
The man is as fake as the thirst he had in Flint Michigan, and a total Manchurian Candidate for the status quo.
Thing is the insurance companies lost massive amounts of money from the ACA the same time as premiums tripled. Doctors also lost money. If it was wall street greed that undid ACA it was a very particularly incompetent greed.
Nader is always right.
My health insurance premiums TRIPLED under ACA. The post-fiasco spin put on by the Dems was that the small increase in people coverage was the goal all along, but if you actually look back at Obama's election he was literally promising that everyone's premiums would drop by $1000 per year. I don't think this was due to handouts to insurance companies, because my county went from having 7 to having one provider as soon as Obamacare was implemented and we felt damn lucky that that final one didn't pull out. Rather it's that Democrats have this image of themselves as being smart technocrats but really they don't understand what they're doing, and the policies they think they want they have no idea what the consequences will be because they simply do not understand what reality is. Just about everyone lost from the ACA except for poor people who got increased subsidies. And that could have been done just by slightly increasing funding to Medicaid.
"Just about everyone lost from the ACA except for poor people who got increased subsidies."
I know this is already a dogpile on ACA -- I might be the last dog, and certainly the mangiest -- but try being an unemployed person or a marginally employed (i.e. working, but still poor) person and see what it does for you.
I paid the government a fine last year for the crime of not paying for privatized health insurance. It tells you who is the boss around here.
No surprise there since it was almost identical to a plan proposed by American Heritage, a conservative think tank.
Wrong, Nader didn't elect Bush and this old trope is a media invention sold off for access by hacks.
The numbers show a totally different story and only the Clinton mafia keep this trope alive to threaten anyone that doesn't fall in line with the DNC.
Presuming everyone who showed up to vote for Nader would have pulled a lever (or punched a chad) for Gore is the weak link in that theory.
As weak as the assumption that everybody who voted for Jill Stein or the Libertarians or who wrote somebody in or stayed on the couch would gave voted for Hillary.
They do the same thing on the right, by the way, to argue that the libertarian vote costs Republicans elections. It's stupid for the same reason: you can't assume that a libertarian voter would go Republican if the libertarian weren't on the ticket.
No one is arguing that people should be denied health care. Of course they should have health care. The argument is Obamacare was a blowjob for the insurance industry. Which it was. They also left out the blow job for private equity, which was a very, very satisfying blow job.
How do you arbitrate lifesaving care vs stuff that is not absolutely necessary?
Attaching actual price tags to things would certainly help. If we knew that extending prenatal care to all people would cost X billion, funding that would be much better than relying on volunteer obstetricians (yes that is a thing) and unpaid bills to "fund" this. But no one really knows.
If I had a point, I think you're missing it. What the ACA did for any self employed person (me) was to double the rate and halve the service, with a $6,784 deductible. That is not health care. I was arbitrated out of the system, and so were all my tradespeople friends and associates.
What the ACA did for private equity was lock in their stranglehold on big Pharma (drug costs) and clinical services (they own the clinics and hospitals). I'm discussing the locked in nature of all the worst things about health care. You're discussing moral and ethical issues, which I understand. The ACA does not get us to where we are able to make moral or ethical choices; our options are delineated by big insurance and private equity. The ACA is not a health care policy; it's a locked in revenue stream and massive profit center for insurance and private equity.
It would also require the long-needed balls to graduate the value of "estimated year of life saved" differently for 20-year-olds and 95-year-olds. -
Such balls are not in evidence, not in the media, government, the insurance industry, nor academia. (I know, insurance people can and do make such calculations, they're just never used and almost never admitted.)
That is, of course, the slippery slope to end all slippery slopes.
I still think the Democrats made a huge tactical mistake letting Clinton get away with his perjury. Replacing him with Gore would have made Gore a shoo-in in 2000. I can't imagine his response to 9/11 would have been worse than what actually happened.
It more than likely would have been the same due to the fact he was owned by roughly the same people.
But he had trouble keeping his human mask on over his reptilian face. He had to go. When the glued his mask on tight, it didn't move enough to be convincing...
At least Al Gore would have sounded less dumb saying nuclear.
There's little difference between Al Gore and GWB. Gore would have used 9-11 to attack Iraq just like Bush did. He even admitted in campaign speeches.
Gore won, remember. Oh, yes, it was the Supreme Court who won.
Especially as he made the campaign promise that he wouldn't sign a health care bill without it. Stupid me, i voted for him based on that, pretty much. I haven't voted Dem top of the ticket ever since.
I knew some first time voters who were SHOCKED when Obama, after his election, was presented with a poll showing marijuana legalization was the big issue on the minds of college students, and asked about it, and 'answered' "Heh heheh."
Good question
Going to read this book. It is funny that my fellow liberals don’t get why I don’t think Trump supporters are automatically dirtbags. The poor ones are getting fucked over like I was. We just came to different ways to protest the political dirtbags in office and professional class media enablers for both teams.
Forgot to add, he reminds me of Michael Moore. Laughed at, but now everyone knows he was right. I am still keeping score.
Art,
Actually, Dennis Kucinich is smarter than Michael Moore, I've noticed.
Join the crowd...
Much smarter.
Good work Art! Vilifying Trump supporters is bigotry.
Like I said before, I'll never vote Republican because of the belief in a superior white social hierarchy that underlies all their policies. I was the same social class as the poor whites so I get why they like it, pisses off the upper class when they don't use their stupid ass pronouns or some asshole tells a drywaller to code(which I did by the way, but they don't acknowledge the huge class barrier and discrimination against the poor). Hell, I laughed at shit Trump said even though I knew he was a piece of shit that stiffed contractors. My old co-workers would spout some stupid half-formed, bullshit opinions due to their lack of rigorous education to challenge their bullshit. But if I needed help moving, doing a flooring project, etc. they would show up with a six pack and tools. My current co-workers understand macro economics and can talk circles around me, but no way in hell would they help put cabinets up in my kitchen. I don't know what the fuck I am talking about, but there are a lot of decent Trump supporters with dumbass opinions.
this comment rules.
«never vote Republican because of the belief in a superior white social hierarchy that underlies all their policies»
That is not quite right, that is too influenced by Corey Robin and similar propaganda about what is means to be "reactionary".
Actually the Republican Party has no such belief about a "superior white social hierarchy", they are merely the instrument of those who have a position of incumbency and want to protect and further it. Whatever the color of the incumbents and whether their incumbency is about a social hierarchy or not. In particular many republicans are "whigs" like the most of the Democratic Party, that is they are socially liberal, and the incumbency they protect and further is that of power in the markets, not social hierachy. It is the "tory" side of the Republicans that is about "social hierarchy", the "tradcons", and it is the "dixie" side that cares about color.
This sounds like a long read but now I'm very interested in checking it out. Since 2004 was the first election I was old enough to vote in, I've always thought of Kucinich as the first (and last) hope of a major political party candidate whom I could consider to at least be anti-war adjacent. Since I am very firmly anti-war, everybody else in the Dem & Rep camps has been a pretty easy "Pass" from me (I'll always regret being duped into believing even for a second that Obama was a worthwhile vote from an anti-war perspective). That also means that I'm pretty used to both parties and their adherents shitting on me left & right (pun intended) as being unpatriotic or a Nazi sympathizer or whatever, so I certainly sympathize a lot with guys like Kucinich when I see them getting shit on by the Left & the Right in an alternating fashion.
"He understands the catastrophe of default, but he can’t sell; he’s worried about the city, but also his soul."
This is the kind of dilemma that hits me hard, too, and I feel like it's an argument that's gone by the wayside between two competing materialist philosophies (Capitalism vs. Socialism/Marxism is probably the easiest shorthand for it) that have gained such hegemony over the years that any discussion of a "soul" or things outside the narrow materialist view get instantly discarded. I'm a long-since renounced Evangelical, but some of those things still stick with me since there's still a lot to learn from things like the Sermon on the Mount and even Talmudic Law from the early "Old Testament" writings.
I think it was Vonnegut who I read once described himself as a "Christ-loving Atheist" and I thought that was a good way of putting it. Especially as a musician/artist, the idea of selling my soul has always been there -- you see artists sell out to make a bunch of drivel to pad their pockets, and they never get their souls back, the thing that made them so beautiful to begin with. In fact, they rarely want it back because they have all these material possessions and their kids go to fancy schools, so why would they care about something like a soul? Maybe it's just because my name is Matthew so I've always leaned in to that book in the Bible, but even 15 years after quitting the faith and splitting from churches, I still remember Matthew 19:26 (my paraphrase): "For what would it profit a man, to gain the whole world but to lose his own soul?" For all my lefty principles and such, I could never truly feel like a part of the Left these days with how much they focus on materialistic needs, and I'm considered a person who "fetishizes poverty" when I fondly remember stories from my Grandma about how poor her family was, but the idea that "we may not have much money, but we've always got each other" really MEANS something. Lots of people have covered this song (I absolutely love the Jeff Buckley version), and these lines have always stood out to me from Satisfied Mind:
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
compared to the man with a satisfied mind
Thanks for the review Matt, I'll have to look into this book when I've got the appetite for a 700-pager, haha.
My Ukrainian grandma’s theology (she got 4 kids illegally baptized in the USSR-my dad was born in Germany after WWIl) “Do 3 shots for the Trinity!!!”
Do you know if you are unauthorized /Foreign and want to become a citizen all you need is a doctors signature that you were born in a Hospital in the US and or you can use a Baptism paper?
Converting unauthorized into CITIZENS:
Baptismal certificate
Hospital birth certificate
Census record
Early school record
Family Bible record
Doctor's record of postnatal care
https://www.thoughtco.com/proof-of-u-s-citizenship-3321592
«the first (and last) hope of a major political party candidate whom I could consider to at least be anti-war adjacent. Since I am very firmly anti-war»
But that is... COMMUNISM! :-)
I know you're up to it, Matthew. You don't shy away from writing a long comment.
I voted for Kucinich in the Democratic primaries in DC in both 2004 and 2008. He won the DC primary in 2004. Then, for reasons that were never explained to the public, the Democratic establishment decided on a do-over. So, we had a second primary, and John Kerry won. Again, no explanation and virtually no press coverage. Anyone I talked to about my vote described Kucinich as “weird.” One supposedly progressive commentator even remarked on the weird way Kucinich ate noodles. So we got polished and corrupt instead of honest, smart and unconventional. We can’t say we’ve never had choices.
You touched on a live wire there, Nancy. No one talks about the rigged primaries where the losing party actually challenges the prevailing narrative. Instead, our attention is deflected to the general election where both parties stack the odds in their dominant constituency.
«No one talks about the rigged primaries»
The was politics works in the USA and several other "Washington Consensus" places has been described "you can vote for any candidate you want as long as we nominate the candidates we want".
"Then, for reasons that were never explained to the public, the Democratic establishment decided on a do-over."
The Democratic establishment used to consume wearisome amounts of time and effort on the "do-over," but has recently moved to the more effective and efficient "pre-over." Progress!
"We can’t say we’ve never had choices."
Democratic primary voters aren't allowed to have nice things.
Thanks Matt. This kind of reporting is keeping the spotlight where it should be, not so much Dems vs Republicans, but on the "riggers" and the "riggees" (so to speak. )
I never could understand why Trump was supposedly a pariah from the day he came down the escalator. It was precisely his pie-in-the-face behavior to the riggers that scared everybody to death. I think he was caught off guard by the extent to which those in his own party (and administration) were entrenched in the rigged system. He was a real threat, and I think he was getting close to the core of the problem so he had to be gotten rid of. It's the riggers vs the riggees.
True. Unfortunately Trump did not understand the depth or intensity of his Machiavellian opposition. He should have fired 50% of the Federal beuracracy. An empty chair is better then an avid enemy
It is so hard to fire those dweebs, though. And getting replacements that aren't already part of the same broken system is nigh-impossible.
Yup-Trump nominated Andy Puzder, the CEO or Hardee’s as SecLabor-a smart nomination-the man understands the real labor market-but he got whacked by the DC-PC complex.....
I'm not Trump supporter, but his early strategy of surrounding himself with Generals was a really bad strategy. No one obtains that rank without being an absolute snake in the grass. If he thought they would simply follow his orders he understood the military even less than I already assumed.
His own DOJ tried to impeach him. The DOJ supported the Dossier as fact and went after everyone.
Correct
Good point. Trump had to be maximally attacked and removed because he was already wealthy and powerful, and he could therefore focus on what mattered to him, ie, America's "greatness". The trough feeders could not control him through the usual channels, and he knew all about how they stayed in power. He had to go.
«I never could understand why Trump was supposedly a pariah from the day he came down the escalator.»
My main theory, looking at the type of people most affected by TDS, and their unthinking, gut feeling of revulsion at Trump, and the often ridiculous arguments against him they come up, ignoring far more realistic ones, is that they object to him as a person, because he is "lowbrow", a vulgar performer, and they hate the idea of being ruled by someone they see as an inferior, an Orange Baboon. They want their boss to look the part. NN Taleb has written appositely:
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1351145008506798084
“What did we learn from the failed TRUMP experiment? (cont) Someone in office, like a High Priest of Baal, a Patriarch, a doge, a judge, or a mafia don, must observe a certain decorum & a certain ornamental deportment. This holds even more true in a secular democracy. #Lindy”
It is somewhat like the revulsion that many from the other side felt at the presidency of BH Obama, even if he was a suave reganist elitist, because they also hated the idea of being ruled by someone they considered an inferior.
My first impression of Kucinich was not great, but in the following years I have found him to be an honest and forthright man. Based on this very fine article, I can now presume my first impressions were based on false reporting AKA: Fake News. It's more than clear to me today that what we have is a somewhat hidden group of criminals masquerading as politicians, news media, and corrupt corporations, where the bottom line is to gain wealth for themselves at the expense of their neighbors and fellow citizens. Add to that a federal government that supports the activity, as long as someone form within it gains as well.
«what we have is a somewhat hidden group of criminals masquerading as politicians, news media, and corrupt corporations, where the bottom line is to gain wealth for themselves at the expense of their neighbors and fellow citizens.»
Isn't that the American Dream? Isn't "get a little of that ice cream" without too many scruples the dream of the Great American Middle Class? If so many voters are corrupt don't they deserve representation too? I have a quote here from famous historian Newt Gingrich, part of a speech in which he argued that it is futile to try to do environmental regulation in the USA:
"If you have a society where almost every middle class person routinely fudges the law, that’s telling us something. We have laws that matter – murder, rape, and we have laws that don’t matter. The first thing that every good American says each morning is “What’s the angle?” “How can I get around it?” “What does my lawyer think?” “There must be a loophole!” [...] America is the most incentive-driven society on the planet.”
It's a good question, but Gingrich is a politicians, so he does see things differently than an enlightened human. I believe it was Socrates that said...The unexamined life is not worth living.
Excellent comment. I am occasionally tempted to admire Gingrich based upon his occasional, flippant candor about the way things actually work in Washington, but then I remember that he's The Thing from John Carpenter's THE THING (1982).
https://youtu.be/El389qn8dZs
I was immediately impressed by Dennis Kucinich when he was one of the few (if any at that time) Croatian-Americans in Congress, and he nobly, on principle, opposed US military action against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia. Dennis could have easily earned strong support from nationalistic Croatian-Americans, including many in his district, by backing such moves. Instead, he risked their strong enmity by opposing those acts of war, publicly. After that, I contributed to all his presidential campaigns.
We need people of integrity. Otherwise, any system can and will be gamed.
There were Croatians (or Serbs, different side, same mentality) from Independence or Strongsville who were sending their teenage kids over to the battle zone on summer break in the early 90s, where they were set up w/sniper rifles in fairly safe positions and basically told “Shoot at anything that moves beyond point X”
There's probably a novel to be written about regional loyalties in Ohio during that period in the late '90s when Serbs were the designated US Official Enemy.
The Dayton Accords were the biggest story in town since the Wright Bro’s. started buzzing around-you can still get a ride in one of their original Wright B flyers.
Matt, thank you SO much for doing the interview and writing the book review. I almost feel you’ve vindicated him on so many levels, and I thank you for that too. I voted for the man in 2004 and was ready to do it again in 2008 before he pulled out of the race. I remember the first time I heard him speak (I was a transplant from Puerto Rico at the time) and my jaw fell to the floor; who is this man, I wondered. Well, he turned out to be THE most “unelectable” candidate from that time. I miss him.
We probably need more tell-all stories about the powers that be - starting with General Smedley Butler's uncovering a fascist plot to take over the government in the 30s, to Henry Wallace's being pushed out of the democratic party, to Kennedy's fights with intelligence and JCOS inside the administration, to Nixon's decision to open up relations with China to get the inside skinny on the military industrial reaction. Ford was a placeholder for the intelligence community and just about everyone after that played ball with the neoliberal establishment to some extent.
We need more institutional exposure of how the hidden state plays ball - beyond assassinations, dirty wars, coup d'etats, and rigging elections.
Here's a hot flash for you, mcelroyj. There is no hidden state. There's no reason to hide the state. Because the folks who run the state own everything and everybody worth owning. It's right in front of your eyes and my eyes. They're not shy anymore. And they're operating from the assumption that there's not a damn thing we can do about it. They may be right! No need for hide and seek. It's the difference between building a ballpark in San Diego And Toronto. You need a dome in Toronto, but not San Diego. The boys and girls of the State these days play in San Diego. We know where the keep the Beluga, we just can't get at it.
Mind numbingly infantile post, while trying to appear edgy. Read more post less.
mcrlroyj, have not forgotten about you.
"We need more institutional exposure of how the hidden state plays ball - beyond assassinations, dirty wars, coup d'etats, and rigging elections...."
Sounds as though you're volunteering for the project you've outlined above. Careful. Last person to undertake that sort of challenge, Ed Snowden, was reduced to renting a cold water flat in Vologda from Boris Feldsparovich. All that stuff you list above is low-hanging fruit plucked long ago. Here's some reading for you. Keep us posted on how deep that deep state really is....cheers...
Smedley Butler: “War is a Racket”: Smed’s a bit of a nut. But he’s got heart and his head is in the right place. Read this 25 years ago. War is definitely a racket, but that’s been self-evident for, say, 6,000 years. Available now in audio version and might be fun listening after a handful of psilocybin-based snacks.
John Nichols, “The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party.” Nice , recently published updated overview of Wallace’s quixotic ‘48 presidential campaign on the progressive ticket. Also gives succinct account of the concerted---and successful---effort to jettison Wallace from the ‘44 ticket. This was handled by some of the reactionary elements within the democratic party. Wallace was perceived as a sort of radical poindexter, a tolerated eccentric during the early days of the new deal, a compromise choice in 1940, but wholly unacceptable as a potential president given Roosevelt’s rapidly failing health.
The ‘44 demo nominating convention was a mere formality. In collusion with the machinations of the legislators, Roosevelt hustled Wallace off to a two-month fact finding trip to Siberia and never spoke to him about the ‘44 ticket until he was for all practical purposes a dead candidate. Despite failing health, FDR evidently retained his sense of humor.
The ‘44 demo nominating convention was a mere formality. “Conspiracy of the pure in heart” indeed. By the way, Wallace was never kicked out of the democratic party. He merely left it when he surmised there was no place for him in a party drifting to the right in response to political pressures of the cold war. Have always been a Wallace fan.
But for my money, Dwight Macdonald’s biography offers the best delineation of Wallace’s idiosyncratic personality and wide-ranging curiosity across disciplines as a policy polymath. And it’s Macdonald, always worth the time no matter the subject. Unfortunately, it’s out of print.
As for Nixon and China, there are a forest-full of books detailing extensively Nixon’s possible motives for going to China. Only the serpent knows. Here I like the conventional wisdom: Watergate was getting warm, and the calaboose closer.
Books too numerous to showcase, though I’d start with Kissinger’s memoirs and Margaret Macmillan’s “Nixon in China,” pretty much the scholarly gold standard for this subject. Garry Wills’ “Nixon Agonistes” is worth a view---a great work detailing Nixon’s ambition and shrewd calculations in all things statecraft and prepares one for the lizard mind that will eventually navigate simultaneously the rapprochement with China and the brewing circus of Watergate.
My rule of thumb: show me a conspiracy and I’ll show you human frailty and unmitigated dunderheadedness. But then you’re not alone. Most of the commenters on Taibbi’s site are awash in conspiracy theories. One supposes it’s the scholarly equivalent of an Alex Jones rant.
I remember Dennis Kucinich running for president. He was never once allowed to be front and center...that spot was reserved for Clinton and Obama. He was shoved to the far side of the stage, but every time he got a chance to say something, what he said made sense, was realistic, rang of sincerity and made me always say, this is the guy I want for president. The others, by comparison, were, well, stupid, including the two who were front and center, though Obama fooled a lot of people. I have wondered often what kind of a world we would live in if we were allowed to have a decent president, such as Kucinich, Stein, Gabbard. That won't happen in my lifetime....or ever, I expect. I loved the guy for the way he was and missed him when he fell out of sight. Look forward to his book. Thanks, Matt, for this.
«if we were allowed to have a decent president, such as Kucinich, Stein, Gabbard»
There is a yuuuge difference as Trump discovered between being in office and being in power, they are not quite the same thing. Some presidents had actual power because they had what is called a "power base", that is backers who trusted them and helped them, and a lot of minions whose careers they had nurtured and who trusted them and helped them, and lots of experience working the actual levers of power. Basically powerful presidents had to be "machine politicians", the leaders of their own faction, a faction that mattered.
I strongly suspect that there was a switch from machine politician candidates to primaries to select candidates because the powerful finance and business lobbies realized that machine politicians thought of themselves as principals, having their own power base, instead of as representatives of their sponsors. Primaries tend to require a lot of money, giving more power to the sponsors over candidates, and they tend to select "popular", "looks good" politicians, who rarely have their own power base.
Trump (and Sanders, and Corbyn in England) was an exception to that, because he was bankrolled by his own fortune, and was a corrupter, instead of being corrupted, but he still did not have any political power base, no knowledge of how to make the mere office of president gain some actual power, including no knowledge of the administrative machine. He probably thought that he could solve all problems with permanent campaign mode on one side, and just doing his usual as a real estate mobster does on the other side, but on the other side he fought with people as rich as himself, and far more experienced in driving national policies, with other principals, with other "sponsors".
Excellent summary.
Though, my hunch is that Trump and Jeff Zucker were tapped to recreate a presidential reality show to manufacture consent for some truly evil "solutions" to a truly evil sounding boogeyman.
Thanks, I understand the way it works. You're right. What I was talking about, that won't happen in my lifetime, if ever, is a genuinely honest president with a cabinet of the same and a Congress who have integrity, so that all work for the governed. In other words, where people after power, money and control don't run anything. As I said, won't happen.
Kucinich's loss in 08 was America's loss. Instead we got obie, the transformational president that bombed brown people every single day of his Nobel Peace Prize presidency, gave us nearly $11TRILLION in new debt, waged culture wars and race wars and spied on every single American for Amazon (giving Bezos the $600M CIA contract that let him buy the WaPo and your privacy), all while leaving office some $20million richer.
I look forward to The Division of Light and Power, primarily because the U.S. media no longer reports on government corruption - after all, fiction, aspersions, and witch hunts are much more fun and much more lucrative than bearing the burden of the 4th Estate and actually investigating wrong doing by the people we've elected to govern us.
One might ask Kucinich how he managed to navigate power for so long while remaining unscathed (other than his national political brand). So many of his ideas had and do have merit, but I guess I find myself in the middle of being gobsmacked by his audacity/will to challenge power and his sheer luck of not being ruined more than just his reputation in Washington temporarily. There are worse outcomes and fates than his.
Another way to say this is that if WaPo is singing his praises now (decades after the fact), then he must have been an easy threat to dismantle. Someone like Philip Agee or Julian Assange seems to rankle the deep state and their whorish brethren congress much more Kucinich. These benign caricatures like Adlai Stephenson, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders seem to get walked upon and bullied more than they lead people to a new path.
There is a great deal to admire in DK, no doubt - but if he was the best opportunity for a sane Presidential choice in the last 40 years, we are clearly fucked.
"Someone like Philip Agee or Julian Assange seems to rankle the deep state and their whorish brethren congress much more [than] Kucinich."
Brutal, mcelroyj, but fair.
A digression closer to my own l'il hidey-hole; if corruption is utterly endemic to a political entity such as the City Council of Cleveland, OH, do we imagine that the federal security/intelligence services are clean as the driven snow?
I think that's the point - the anti-communist 50's was the test case for how the tripartite nature of power works (the state or the face of democracy, the corporatocracy including financial/media domination to manufacture consent and socialize loss, and then the hidden state where surveillance, military expansion, drug-running financed dirty tricks in bed with the mob at home and abroad).
Are you James Ellroy posting under a thinly veiled pseudonym? If so, I enjoyed your AMERICAN trilogy. Good work.
20 years younger, prefer longer sentences if you haven't noticed by now, and his name has 2 L's where mine has one. As far as the comparison, I'm an amateur in brutal pessimism and have never spent more than a week in California. My hideouts in include the states of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and the confines of Kansas City, Bethesda and Madison. Have more in common with Thomas Frank than I do James Ellroy (then again his childhood is stark).
My background is in academia/teaching, coaching, and family finance/investing but history and podcasting are current passions.
Regarding Kucinich’s battle with the power company, ANYTHING involving power and natural resource extraction and utilization is going to be fraught with the nastiest corruption, rent seeking, ignoring of constituent needs and power struggles imaginable. Why? B/c control of resources allows a political leader/junta/strongman/oligarchy to control the $$$ of the state w/out demanding taxes from the citizenry AND eliminating the need to respond to the citizenry’s legitimate needs. The bigwigs get theirs, they can ignore everyone else.
«ANYTHING involving power and natural resource extraction and utilization is going to be fraught with the nastiest corruption, rent seeking, ignoring of constituent needs and power struggles imaginable.»
There are two egregious examples that I often make: the "apex laws" for mineral rights, and the hereditary peanut growing monopolies for wealthy southern farmers.
«Why? B/c control of resources allows a political leader/junta/strongman/oligarchy to control the $$$ of the state w/out demanding taxes from the citizenry AND eliminating the need to respond to the citizenry’s legitimate needs.»
That was precisely the purpose of those hereditary peanut growing monopolies: the idea was that segregationist southern politicians wanted a reliable source of campaign funding, so they created a category of peanut rentiers whose profits depended on their vote to renew the monopoly regime.
I haven't followed that for a while, but I think that growing peanuts in the USA is still a federal crime if done without one of those hereditary peanut growing permits.