Wednesday Open Thread

10 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. Morning Memo from TPM.

   Note how Trump, under criminal indictment in four jurisdictions, not only surrounds himself with police but folds in his own quest for presidential immunity, offering to provide the same immunity to law enforcement. (He’s said this before, but I don’t think it’s been in this kind of setting.) It’s remarkable dynamic, a case study in Orwellian language and authoritarian machinations.

   I know it’s hard to see Trump’ clownishness as sophisticated. But this is multi-layered sophistication, whether conscious or not. He’s wrapping himself in the mantle of police, holding himself out as a law-and-order candidate, casting judges and prosecutors as criminals and himself as their victim, and thus positioning himself as aligned with police in the pursuit of criminals while benevolently promising (unconvincingly) that he will protect them with the same immunity he will win for himself.

   Also, It looks like Jack Smith has had up to HERE with "judge" Eileen "Loose" Cannon.

   The issue at hand is her failure to have yet ruled on Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss based on his inane, unprecedented, and counterfactual reading of the Presidential Records Act. Instead of rejecting the argument out of hand, Cannon not only is entertaining it but ordered the two sides to propose jury instructions based on two different deeply flawed interpretations of the PRA.

   That set up an nearly impossible challenge for Smith: How do you draft jury instructions that are so wrong on the law without looking like an idiot, undermining your own case, and pissing of the judge?

   The answer: You can’t.

   So Smith went all in, no longer trying to placate, educate, or hand-hold Cannon.

   Smith ripped her interpretations of the PRA: “both of the Court’s scenarios are fundamentally flawed and any jury instructions that reflect those scenarios would be error.” He said her “legal premise is wrong” and her requested jury instructions “would distort the trial.”

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2. That paper-thin House majority gets even thinner – at least temporarily ….

   U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert hospitalized for blood clot, undergoes surgery (msn.com)

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   1. So maybe all those mileage reimbursement reports weren't bogus? They would constitute a lot of sitting. Will she be back in time to make a thunderous appearance in the lower chamber and help kill the Ukraine aid package Johnson has promised to bring to the floor? 

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3. The decline of Christianity in America can be laid at the feet of frauds like Franklin.  My good man, do you mean RFK Jr the serial liar, conspiracy theorist, and former heroin addict whose wife hanged herself after she found his diary where he graphically detailed several dozen affairs he had with other women. Praise (White Prosperity) Jesus!! 

   Exhibit B:  

   Trump lied about talking to a murder victim's family.

   The family says it never happened

   But Garcia’s sister, acting as a family spokeswoman, said Tuesday that Trump and his campaign have not contacted her or other immediate relatives — and rebuked the GOP presidential nominee’s effort to make the case part of his calls for a border crackdown.

   Finally, this Caitlyn freak show weighs in: I couldn't give two schitts about her transgender issues, it's everything she's drug in to the Big Top circus. "I'm not the hypocrite, YOU'RE the hypocrite"!!!  

   

    

    
    

    

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   1. Now, now, Martina, let's cut the family values president some slack. Keep in mind that the first of his three wives did retract her accusation that he raped her after he anteed up the amount of cash and prizes he was willing to give her in the divorce separation agreement. 

      As for Caitlyn raising “one of the most successful families in the world”???
      ROFLMAOPIMP

      By what metric is being born a Cardassian considered some kind of lifetime achievement?

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4. So this news makes perfect sense — Trump's $175 million bond was provided by a "Buy here, Pay here" loan company.  They are bottom feeders that grant used car loans at 24% interest, based on admittedly false credit apps, repo the car after the almost inevitable default, allowing the dealer to resell the same clapped out car over and over again.  Rinse and repeat…

   Don Hankey, who made a fortune offering high-interest auto loans to customers with poor credit, said providing the $175 million bond to Trump is a good business deal

   Hankey said that one of his businesses, Westlake Financial Services, provides loans to 1.5 million customers and that “quite often, when credit statements or financial statements are submitted to us, the values are exaggerated on some of the assets. … I would say it probably happens on 75 percent of our applications.”

   A 2015 article in Forbes magazine described Hankey calculating how he might provide a hypothetical customer with a low credit score a loan at 23.99 percent. The article said that his company at the time had 336,000 outstanding car loans from 23,000 auto dealerships, and that his company repossessed 250 cars per day because of problems with repayment.

   250 x 365 = 91,250 repos per year, over a quarter of all loans outstanding.  He's worth over $8 billion, so he's a much more successful shark than Trump.

    

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   1. Because he only hires the best people …..

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5. Maybe my math if off, but I don’t think a single one of Womack’s Hatriots got elected to the Woodkand Park City Council yesterday? 

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   1. The four Womackers: Tim Northrop, Frank Connors, Eric Lockman and Don Dezellem.  None of them appear to have been elected.  Looks like Colorado Gilead will have to wait for another day. 
       

      

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6. While he may not have gone so far as to pick up the phone and punch in the numbers, perhaps he thought about calling. That should be sufficient …..

   Contradicting Trump, Ruby Garcia’s Sister Says He Never Contacted Family – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

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