Weekend Open Thread

11 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

1. The Bulwark has a Jared Polis / Tim Miller conversation on Trump's visit to Aurora.

   ‘How Much Do We Want to Give Him Air?’— A Governor Grapples With Trump’s ‘Insanity’

   “How much do we want to give him air? We’re talking about him. That’s what he wants. I’m trying to shift to how great Aurora is. I mean, whether it’s Koreatown or Stanley Marketplace or, you know, the new rec center that was actually funded by marijuana dollars . . . Aurora’s got a lot going on, and I’d love to pivot to that and attract more businesses and families to our third largest city. . . . Not only is all well. It’s better than it was. It is a much better city than it was in the ’80s and ’90s, and frankly, it is a safer city than it was two years ago.” 

    

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2. This article basically spells out Trump's business model for Trump Tower and his Miami condo buildings.

   The truth is that there are a lot of people buying luxury real estate who have a lot of money. Dirty money. And that money is distorting the market for ordinary homebuyers.

   In March, federal authorities seized a Manhattan luxury apartment owned by the daughter of Denis Sassou Nguesso, longtime ruler of the Republic of the Congo in central Africa. The forfeiture complaint in U.S. District Court charges that the funds used to buy the $7 million apartment, which overlooks Central Park, originated from “misappropriation, theft, or embezzlement” from the Congo treasury, and traces the layers of shell companies through which the stolen money was laundered.

   Press accounts have highlighted the famous name on the outside of the apartment building: Trump International Hotel and Tower.

   The sums are not small. Nearly a decade ago, The New York Times estimated that anonymous shell companies accounted for more than half of all purchases in Manhattan and Los Angeles, nearly half in the San Francisco Bay area and over a third in Miami. Comparable statistics are not available for more recent years, but this suggests that the amount of hidden wealth invested in real estate in Manhattan alone surpasses $100 billion.

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   1. “How many units of money laundering do you want?”

      Yes. I’ve long believed that these tall Manhattan buildings (and Honolulu condos) are money laundering units. The taxi driver from Azerbaijan who buys a $2 million condo, and then his sister, father, uncle and niece buy four more.

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3. Well, Praise The Lord! Hiedi's crusading to make sure our ballot dropoff boxes are safe, and I'm sure there are no ulterior motives here whatsoever:

   Hundreds of Ballot Drop Boxes across Colorado…would you like to learn how to be a Citizen Observer? Many of these are not monitored adequately. Let’s make sure they are… Sign up here! #copolitics #election http://coloradodropbox.com

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   1. what sort of monitoring would be "adequate"? 

      I'm happy to have Republicans suck volunteers into such a job … one that won't make a scintilla of difference to the outcomes.

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      1. I'm obviously cynical, but my gut says she's not interested in adequate monitoring at all, but is interested in spreading narratives about "ballot harvesting" and the vote by mail system in general. Plus, I sort of expect this could put some really lovely characters at certain drop boxes, and I won't be surprised if there are reports of harassment.

         Colorado law already requires video monitoring at drop boxes, but I think I read Hiedi or a supporter of hers alleging that the cameras aren't of good enough quality. Maybe she's a closet supporter of busting public budgets so we can buy NASA-grade cameras for every drop box in our 104,000-square-mile state?

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      2. If we let the past be our guide, most people committing voter fraud in Colorado were  Republicans. ( like 5 over the last 5 years).So put the monitors on drop boxes in heavily Republican areas, and let them monitor their own. Problem solved-  you're welcome.

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4. "Trump & Musk: Who owns Whom?" No Mister Nice Blog

   Trump always needs money, but Musk needs ongoing government largesse, which he thinks might be withheld in a Harris administration. (I hope!) Like every billionaire, Musk wants the lightest possible regulations. And he might genuinely be as stupid as Ted Nugent, who incorrectly predicted that he'd "either be dead or in jail" if Barack Obama won reelection in 2012.

   There's no question that Musk will get what he wants from Trump if Trump is president. But when Mary Trump tells us that "if Donald is elected, he’ll do anything Musk wants him to do," it's not exactly servility on Donald Trump's part. Being president means he can dispense favors. That's a perk of the job, in his view. Who gets those favors? People who give him lots of money. As he sees it, he's not bending the knee. They are.

   And the Republican Incompetence Machine:

   While I'm on the subject of how bribeable Trump is, let me make a prediction about his immigrant crackdown. Trump says that if he wins, he'll deport every immigrant in America who's here illegally. I think he'll struggle to do that — as I've said elsewhere, the Project 2025 plan to stock the federal government with zealots seems likely to be a rerun of the Bush administration's personnel approach to governing Iraq after the fall of Saddam Huseein, with applicants being asked more about right-wing ideological purity than actual job skills. I think Trump won't have capable personnel, infrastructure, and logistics in place to make mass deportation happen, because he's a Republican and so is everyone who'll be charge of this, and Republicans don't do that kind of advance planning. (Again, see post-Saddam Iraq.) He'll certainly deport some immigrants, in as brutal and showy a manner as possible, and that will satisfy his bloodthirsty racist base, but he'll actually deport only a small portion of the immigrants he wants to deport.

   But the crackdown will gradually ramp up. When it does, owners of large corporations that depend on immigrant labor will start to see that their ox could be gored soon.

   At that point, these rich guys — agribusiness moguls, meatpacking moguls — will have talks with Donald Trump. What he'll tell them is this: I'm going to start raiding workplaces in your industry soon. If you don't want that to happen, you know what to do.

   And they'll do what he wants. They'll give him money.

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5. It is critical, I suggest , that Democrats everywhere join in dispelling the revisionist history myths currently spread amongst the MAGA faithful. 

   No falsehood is too incredible for the Trump campaign to proffer. They are trying to convince voters that we had a "peaceful transition of power" in 2020. That is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE ( sorry for shouting). We had an insurrection by Donald Trump and his supporters…a very violent attempt stop the transition of power.

   Misinformation is the big tool in Trumps' tool belt at present. Time for everyone to speak the truth.

   I hope those who did not see NBCs' "Meet the Press" this morning get a chance to contrast the opposing interviews of Mike, the talking Johnson, and Liz Cheney. He is quite a toad.

    

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6. Duke, I did check out MTP this morning. Mike Johnson's weasel-worded refusal to say whether he would certify the election if Trump lost is horrifying.

   Liz Cheney as usual was blunt and truthful: " No, we did not have a peaceful transfer of power in 2021."

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7. Margaret Sullivan on Substack:

   In parting, I’ll share with you a post from historian and author Kevin Kruse about Trump. 

   Historians: He’s a fascist. Political scientists: He’s a fascist. His own aides: He’s a fascist. The NYT: He shows a wistful longing for a bygone era of global politics.

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