The Tiny Tyrant’s Campaign Scam.

The Trump International Hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, is seen in Washington on Dec. 21, 2016. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

It should be more than obvious by now that Trump never wanted to actually be president. He sucks at the job, to say the very least. He’s a fucking idiot who doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he’s doing, he’s incapable of learning, and doesn’t have the sense to surround himself with sane, responsible, knowledgeable people. He did get one thing right: campaigning. He could go out, be himself, an empty void of narcissism and hate, and discovered people in fear of losing their white privilege would cheer. He also discovered that campaigning was a great scam. So, he’s doing what he’s capable of doing, going back to the scamming. Ignoring that whole pesky president business, he’ll be hosting a re-election fundraiser tonight. If there’s a better argument for stripping obscenely people of their wealth, I don’t what it is. This might all be fun and power games for them, but it’s a different story for all of us out here on the ground.

If there’s anything President Donald Trump loves more than his business empire, it’s being a candidate on the campaign trial. Wednesday night, he’ll combine both roles as he hosts his first reelection fundraiser, the earliest of any sitting president.

The fundraiser, which people have paid anywhere from $35,000 to upwards of $110,000 to attend, will be held at Trump’s second residence along Pennsylvania Avenue — the Trump International Hotel.

Trump International has become one Trump’s most glaring conflicts of interest, visible from the White House lawn. When he signed a 60-year lease with the General Services Administration in 2013, he signed a contract that contains a clause that reads:

No member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States or the Government of the District of Columbia, shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.

In March the GSA released a letter saying the Trump Organization is in “full compliance” with the lease, largely because he moved his business interests from the hotel into a trust. However as ProPublica reported in April, the trust is handled by Trump’s children and he is the sole beneficiary, able to remove funds from the trust without disclosing it to the public.

Being in a continuous campaign mode is profitable. In 2000, Trump speculated that he could “be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it,” and there is evidence to support the claim that he has profited off of both the campaign and the presidency. When Trump initially set up his campaign headquarters at Trump Tower, he prided himself on being self-funded with a low-cost operation. He later quadrupled the rent to $169,758 after he began receiving funds from donors even though he employed less staff than in the months prior.

The pattern of profiteering off his initial run is continuing into his reelection campaign. According to FEC filings, the Trump campaign has sent $274,000 in rent to his offices in Trump Tower, even though his reelection campaign only employs 20 people. That works out to about $91,000 a month, which is more than half of what he paid at the height of his campaign when 168 employees were on payroll.

So donors who are paying upwards of $110,000 to attend Wednesday night’s even for Trump’s reelection campaign, are also funneling funds back to Trump twice. First, through the Trump hotel for the space, food and drinks. Second, the money that’s left over will go to Trump’s campaign expenses, which includes rent at Trump Tower. Because he still retains ownership, any event hosted at a Trump Organization Property by Trump the president, also benefits Trump the businessman.

Trump has also found ways to leverage the presidency to advance his business interests outside of his campaign.

Think Progress has the full run down on the scam.

From Babadook to BabaDong.

Well, there’s scary for you. :D

Behold the BabaDong, a high quality silicone dildo. The Babadong has a sturdy base, so you can strap it on and take it anywhere! Don’t worry if it gets dirty on your adventures (which it most likely will…) because the BabaDong is dishwasher safe! The BabaDong has a length of 7.5 inches from base to tip and a girth of 5 3/4 in. around it thickest part. This campaign is for PRE-ORDERS. The BabaDong will only go into production if the minimum goal is met. IF NOT EVERYONE WILL BE REFUNDED.

If you’d like to read more about this project, and/or support it, head on over to the BabaDong gofundme page.

Word Wednesday.

Peach

Verb.

2 . Transitive verb: to inform against: betray.

Intransitive verb: to turn informer.

[Origin: Middle English pechen, short for apechen to accuse, from Anglo-French apecher, empecher to ensnare. A shortening of appeach, an obsolete variant of impeach. Related: Peached; peaching. ]

(1560)

“I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabman who brought you away. I have the commissionaire who saw you near the case. I have Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up for you. Ikey has peached, and the game is up.” – The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle.

While James Cagney never actually said the line “you dirty rat”, I can hear his voice in my head, saying “you dirty, rotten peach!”

Work, Work, Work 98.

Current Hours: 1,219. Skeins Used: 191. Current hours are from yesterday, today was just too fractional, a bit here, a bit there, and I’m not aware of time enough to keep track things like ‘7 minutes’, ’22 minutes’ and the like, so I just don’t count it. Also, today, I had to spend a fair amount of time line breaking. Usually, I’m not paying attention when I’m working on the tree quilt, my mind tends to wander on to other things while the fingers work. When working on large blocks of one colour, it’s easy enough to fall into doing rows of knots, rather than random sets. I don’t want people focusing on lines or rows, so a few knots here, a few there, break up the visual line.

© C. Ford, all rights reserved.

The Wisdom of Rick Joyner, Fucking Idiot.

 

WISDOM IN THREE PARTS:

Part I:

A. Back off and let those men who want to marry men, marry men.
B. Allow those women who want to marry women, marry women.
C. Allow those folks who want to abort their babies, abort their babies.

In three generations, there will be no more Democrats.

Part II:
10 Poorest Cities in America (How did it happen?)
City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level

1. Detroit, MI 32.5%
2. Buffalo, NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati, OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland, OH 27.0%
5. Miami, FL 26.9%
5. St. Louis, MO 26.8%
7. El Paso, TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee, WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia, PA 25.1%
10. Newark, NJ 24.2%

What do these top ten cities (over 250,000 pop.) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

Detroit, MI – (1st on poverty rate list) hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1961

Buffalo, NY – (2nd) hasn’t elected one since 1954

Cincinnati, OH – (3rd) not since 1984

Cleveland, OH – (4th) not since 1989

Miami, FL – (5th) has never had a Republican mayor

St. Louis, MO – (6th) not since 1949

El Paso, TX – (7th) has never had a Republican mayor

Milwaukee, WI – (8th) not since 1908

Philadelphia, PA – (9th) not since 1952

Newark, NJ – (10th) not since 1907

Einstein once said, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats… yet they are still POOR.

Part III:

“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”
~Abraham Lincoln

“Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a much
closer look at the American Indian.”
~Henry Ford

Okay, all this idiocy can be distilled right down to: kill off all political parties except for conservative republican, always support the rich, and if you’re poor, go fuck yourself, because that’s your fault, natch. I’ll just briefly note that a good many white people on the poor side of life voted for the Tiny Tyrant, and many of them are now crying in their beer, because he hasn’t done one thing for them. At least the ones bright enough to figure out what a scam it all is. That last quote by Ford is pernicious, to say the least. After a partially successful genocide, and massive theft, no, the government didn’t do much for Indians, because they were busy stealing every fucking thing they could, and really didn’t want those inconvenient leftovers getting in the way. This would be Joyner’s way of expressing that ol’ white supremacy: white is might is right, yessir.

Let’s take a brief look at what some of those brilliant republicans have been saying about all us peons:

Paul Ryan says people just don’t want insurance, that’s all.  All those millions who would lose healthcare, ah, that’s their choice.

The Regime has threatened the insurance of low income people if Trumpcare isn’t passed, but hey, they care about you, they really do!

Sen. Ron Johnson explained how people with pre-existing conditions don’t deserve health coverage, because it’s like crashing a car.

Rep. Pete Olsen was laughing over prenatal and maternity care, pointing out that since people with those nifty X chromosomes didn’t need that shit, why should they pay for it?

Now, the vote on Trumpcare has been canceled. (Yay!) Don’t get over excited though, because this is far from over, and McConnell will not give up easily, nor will Ryan, Trump, or all the other empty bags of flesh who are utterly devoid of empathy.

Yes, I’m sure we are all so darn impressed with how republicans care for people, especially those pesky poor people. Rick Joyner’s “wisdom” can be found here.

Angel Dust.

No, not that kind of angel dust. This would be Jehovah blessed, gold dust, from angels. Angel dandruff. Whatever it might be, it’s got Lance Wallnau all kinds of high, as he descends further into the well of weirdness. Naturally, the angeldruff is gold, what better colour for money-grubbing members of the Religious Reich?

Right-wing preacher Lance Wallnau posted a video on his Facebook page yesterday recounting a meeting he had just attended that had such a strong presence of the Lord that he left literally covered in angelic gold dust.

Wallnau said he had recently joined with several “Seven Mountains” activists in Bend, Oregon, at a meeting where “I literally could feel the rush of God in the room, the hair stood up right on the back of your neck.”

On top of that, Wallnau said he also kept “getting this gold dust and glitter on my face” because of the presence of angels.

“That stuff is real,” he said. “It’s like angels were in the room.”

So, gold glitter is real. Yeah, that’s not news. Glitter is one of the most evil things on the planet, y’know. Can’t get rid of it. Years later, you’ll still be picking bits of glitter out of wherever. If Jehovah is a glitter peddler, oh, that’s bad news, dude. So, it was like angels were in the room, or angels were in the room? Because there are lots of stories about fairy dust and pixie dust, and so on. Could have been socialist pixies droppin’ the glitter bomb on you, Lance. Never know. Probably should track those ‘angels’ down and interrogate them.

These angels are on assignment to take control of the media for Jesus, Wallnau said, which is why “the New York Times and CNN [are] in such deep doo-doo and what’s happening with Hollywood and Johnny Depp and Bill Maher and all the big mouths and the crazies as they’re running their mouths; God is literally taking the wheels off of the chariot of pharaoh as he’s trying to persecute what God is doing” through President Trump.

I kinda think it’s your god emperor Trump who is in “deep doo-doo”. I will grant you the crazies are running their mouths, you fellas in the Religious Reich seem to be utterly incapable of shutting up, even when the slightest reflection would tell you yeah, maybe I should keep that to myself. So all of media, from journalism to television/movies to idiot preachers on the net, that’s pharaoh? Hmm. Do you really want to bring that up, Lance? Jehovah doesn’t have a good track record with chariots, seeing as they confounded him to the core. That brings us back to iron, which seems to have a nasty effect on your god. In many of the old stories about magical beings, iron is inimical to them. So, combined with the glitter, I’d say there’s a suspicion your god is some sort of evil elvish being. Don’t listen, Lance, the elves just want to play with you! I recommend reading Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett. Don’t worry, the witches are the good kind.

There’s video at the link for those who might want to watch. Via RWW.

Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal.

Aidan O’Shea, Regina Strayhorn, Ayun Halliday, and Ben Watts in Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal (all photos by Jonathan Slaff).

We do not live in a time of subtlety. If you need evidence, take a look at the news. Shaded, nuanced criticism of President Donald Trump would sound like a whisper next to a tornado. It was refreshing, then, to see a play that dispenses with elegant critique of the president in favor of a gloves-off battery. Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal combats Trump’s logorrhea of vulgarities with its own. Trump is never actually named in the script, but the title alone tells you who it’s about, and the text gives plenty of indications. It is replete with scatological jokes; the story tells of a society that makes a Faustian pact to choose a king who will supposedly better their lives, but then shits on all of his subjects. Having made this deal, the citizens are forced not only to live under the shitty reign (and rain) of this despot, but also to pretend they love it, even as the king ends the world in nuclear war. To describe this play as a scathing satire of Trump would be putting it mildly.

[…]

In addition to adopting the rhetorical position of Biblical prophecy, it also plays with Biblical material in clever ways. Jesus’s lines from the Gospels are articulated as ironically inverted versions that resemble Trump’s likely misinterpretations of them, such as: “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall save it, and whosoever shall lose his life is a loser and deserves it.”

[…]

The piece is not subtle, and that’s probably fitting. When the president of the United States of America has condoned sexual assault, has publicly said that he would date his own daughter were they not related, has boasted about the size of his penis during a debate, and has both said and tweet-spewed other horrors too numerous to name here (I won’t even go into policy), comparing him to Caligula and Nero doesn’t seem so far-fetched. A play like this would have been too heavy-handed if it were directed at any other recent president, but these days, the rules of public discourse seem to have been thrown out. Now is not the time for art to play nice.

Performances of Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal continue through June 26 at Judson Memorial Church (55 Washington Square South, Greenwich Village, Manhattan).

John Sherer’s full review is at Hyperallergic, and well worth reading.