June 4, 2019: Witch Hunt? A Witch Gets Shot off a Broom

 

6/4/19: The Mueller “Witch Hunt” continues. George Nader, a Lebanese American businessman is the latest witch to be shot down while riding a broom. Nader was arrested on June 3, after landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. His arrest, under sealed indictment, stems from the Russia investigation. That means he spends today consulting with lawyers. 

Nader with the president.

 

Questioned about suspicious contacts with Russians. 

Nadar, an occasional Trump adviser, was first stopped by F.B.I. agents at a D.C. airport on January 17, 2018. He was pulled into a side room and questioned about suspicious contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign. At the time, Nader was headed for Mar-a-Lago, to celebrate Trump’s first year at the helm. 

Nader had also been part of the Trump transition team, headed up by that paragon of Christian virtue, Vice President Jesus. 

Now, agents wielding a warrant confiscated his electronic devices (Nader’s, not the vice president’s). A subsequent search revealed evidence of possible child pornography. A new warrant resulted. A dozen sexually explicit videos were recovered. That led to a sealed indictment. But yesterday was the first chance authorities had to arrest Nader, who works overseas. 

If convicted, Nader – who was convicted on child pornography charges in the Czech Republic in 1991 – faces at least fifteen years in prison.

 

Nader is exactly the type of sleazebag who routinely floats to the top in stories involving Mr. Trump. He first came to the attention of federal investigators when they got wind of a secret meeting in January 2017, in The Seychelles. Admit it: you have no idea where these islands are. 

Neither did this blogger. 

This explains why they were perfect for a secret meeting. Nadar was one participant. Kirill Dmitriev, representing Vladimir Putin, was a second. Third was Erik Prince, brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Once the secret meeting was revealed, Prince claimed it was all a matter of chance. He just happened to be vacationing in The Seychelles. And he just happened to run into the Russian guy in a bar. And they just happened to decide to have a friendly chat, of no consequence. 

The Mueller Report proves otherwise. Nader set it all up. Mueller has emails and phone records.

 

That wasn’t the first time Nader was involved in a suspicious secret meeting. In May 2018, the “Fake News” New York Times broke the story of another secret conclave. This one, in August 2016, had involved Nader, Donald Trump Jr., and representatives of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. 

Plus: Erik Prince! 

Plus: Joel Zamel, representing an Israeli tech company. Zamel pitched a plan to “to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation and to gather intelligence to help defeat Hillary Clinton.” 

Participants in that meeting disagree about what happened next, with almost everyone conveniently denying any such work was ever performed (which would surely have been illegal). 

Oddly enough, Mueller’s team turned up evidence that Nader sent Zamel $2,000,000 after the election.

 

To spice up the story, let’s toss another felon into the stew. After Trump won the election, Nader helped arrange a defense consulting deal between the United Arab Emirates and Elliott Broidy. That deal was worth as much as $600 million. It was an odd choice, for sure, since Broidy wasn’t the type you’d trust with a contract of that magnitude, or any other contract. He was convicted in 2009 of paying a cool million dollars in bribes to New York State officials. In return, he had scored a deal to invest $250 million in New York State pension funds. 

Broidy is also the guy who agreed to pay a $1.6 million hush money payment to a Playboy Bunny he impregnated. 

That deal was worked out by a third felon, Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer. 

The Bunny had an abortion.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (August 2019): We were in error, above. Broidy is not a felon. He plead guilty to a felony, but was later allowed to plead to a misdemeanor after he agreed to cooperate with investigators in the bribery scandal.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE #2 (October 2020): Okay, Broidy is now a felon again. This time he plead guilty to one charge of influence-peddling on behalf of foreign countries, while also having President Trump’s ear. 

In one case, “Foreign National A” handed Broidy what an ordinary person might refer to as a $9 million bribe.

November 25, 2020: President Trump Pardons Felonious Pal

11/25/20: In a strange twist of political fate, Republicans in Georgia are suddenly calling on voters to cast supposedly fraud-prone mail-in ballots in the U.S. Senate runoff elections in January. 

Republicans are going to try to turn out the graveyard vote, since the president has been complaining that Biden won the state on the ghostly votes of untold numbers of deceased Georgians. 

(Maybe Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon, namesake of one of those military bases whose names Trump doesn’t want to change, will vote this time around.)

Gordon was wounded eight times, fighting against the U.S. government.

He was also a Grand Cyclops, or Grand Doodad in the K.K.K.

 

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IN WHITE HOUSE NEWS, we learn that President Trump is bogged down in the initial stages of grief, following his defeat. Those stages are:

Denial

Tweeting

Anger

Golfing

Bargaining

Lying

Depression

More Lying

Acceptance

 

For now, tweeting bolsters “denial.” Since the election, The New York Times notes, Loser Don has rarely appeared in public and has not taken a single question from any member of the free press. He has, however, fired off 550 tweets, including more than 400 which attack the legitimacy of the election. Trump was up late last night, railing against the Fates, on into Wednesday morning, insisting that he was the rightful winner. 

Not only was the president in denial he was thrilled to announce that most of his supporters were too. (See: 12/15/20, 12/16/20 and 1/22/21.)

 

* 

SPEAKING OF DENIAL, we know the president came out of hiding long enough yesterday to brag about how great the stock market was doing. No doubt his aides made sure not to tell him – and his supporters would be astonished to find out if they ever followed the news – the harsh truth. 

At this point in his first term, President Barack Obama had seen the Dow Jones rise by 62.8%. 

The Dow is up – even after a healthy post-election bump – under Trump by only 51.4%.

 

* 

STILL, one American had a great day before Thanksgiving. A few hundred others didn’t live to see the sun rise again. Lame Duck Don, in one of the least surprising moves of his presidency, pardoned Gen. Michael T. Flynn. 

The day before, CDC reported, we had another 165,282 cases of COVID-19 and 1,989 Americans died. 

That brings the toll, so far, to

 

259,005 dead.

  

POSTSCRIPT: If the Dow Jones hit the “sacred number” of 30,000 yesterday, it didn’t remain at that “sacred” level for long. Wednesday, weak economic numbers caused the Dow to retreat to 29,872. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its report early, since tomorrow is Thanksgiving. What the weekly numbers show: Seasonally adjusted, 778,000 Americans filed for unemployment in the last seven-day period. That was up for the second week, and up from levels that remain startlingly high. 

Including Americans receiving benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, and other federal and state programs, 20,452,223 men and women will carve the turkey and pass the cranberry sauce tomorrow, knowing they have no job to go to on Monday. That marks an increase of 135,297 Americans out of work, compared to the last weekly reporting period. 

And don’t expect President Trump to notice. He’s busy tweeting, golfing, and pardoning felons. 

 

FUN FACT: The premier gun rights organization, N.R.A., admits in a tax filing that it “became aware during 2019 of a significant diversion of its assets.” 

Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre and five others are alleged to have raided the coffers of the allegedly non-profit organization to pay for personal perks. LaPierre has reportedly paid back $300,000 he charged for travel expenses. In a five-year period (2015-2019)! In other words: guy loves to travel. 

And if you’re going to travel, you want to look your best. LaPierre is also alleged to have charged $540,000 in clothing expenditures to the N.R.A. Sadly, he still looks like a ghoul in a suit:

Dapper dressing Wayne.

 

FIND PICTURE OF LAPIERRE.

April 15, 2021: The Anglo-Saxon Way - Racism by Another Name

 

4/15/21: In Conservative Fantasyland, government regulations are always a curb on honest businessfolk trying to make capitalism function efficiently. And if we leave the business types alone? 

We all gain! 

This fantasy gets punctured daily, when we read about various forms of crookery by the Captains of Industry. The latest example comes from Denmark, where the CEO of Danske Bank has had to step down after being named in an investigation into money laundering at ABM Amro, the lender where he used to work. 

Chris Vogelzang left Amro in 2017, and took over Danske in 2019, after they had been accused of laundering $239 billion through a branch operation in Estonia. As for Amro, they have agreed to pay a penalty of $574 million for their own money-laundering escapades. 

Thinking of George Floyd, on whose neck a police officer felt compelled to kneel because he passed a counterfeit $20, you wonder how these bankers don’t end up behind bars, or face down in the street with cops on their backs. (See also: 4/7/21.)

 

* 

A felon cheating on his taxes? 

ALSO, we have another Roger Stone sighting. The Department of Justice has filed civil suit against him and his wife, Nydia, accusing them of failure to pay almost $2 million in income taxes. 

As Axios explains, Mr. and Mrs. Stone used Drake Ventures, a commercial entity, to “shield personal income from enforced collection and fund a lavish lifestyle despite owing nearly $2 million in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties.” In addition, “They used Drake Ventures to receive payments that are payable to Roger Stone personally, pay their personal expenses, shield their assets, and avoid reporting taxable income to the IRS,” DOJ officials allege. 

Again, a liberal blogger is quick to say, “Innocent until proven a tax chiseler,” but is there any wonder that Stone and Rejected-President Trump liked to pal around? Since these charges are new, Mr. Stone’s pardon for other felonies, granted last Christmas Eve, will not provide legal cover.

 

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A HANDFUL of right-wing members of Congress are working to set up an “America First Caucus,” which will devote itself to protecting and fostering “Anglo-Saxon political traditions.” 

As an American with Irish ancestors, I wonder: Will someone come and take my land away and leave me and my family to starve on potatoes? That’s what the Anglo-Saxons did to my ancestors. Also worried: Italian Americans, Slavic Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese-Americans, African Americans, Cuban Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, etc. 

Best of all, if you’re a humorist, Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene will be involved. (So add Jewish Americans to the list of worried.) 

Louis Gohmert is also going to join forces! 

Reportedly, Rep. Paul Gosar is involved. You could call it the “Clown Car Caucus” just as easily. As NBC explains: 

A seven-page organizing document that includes the group's name and a logo, first reported by Punchbowl News, says: “America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”

 

It adds that “societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country, particularly without institutional support for assimilation and an expansive welfare state to bail them out should they fail to contribute positively to the country.”

 

The document also backs infrastructure projects — a topic currently being debated in Congress — as long as they befit “the progeny of European architecture, whereby public infrastructure must be utilitarian as well as stunningly, classically beautiful, befitting a world power and source of freedom.”

 

Not everyone was happy that news of this caucus aborning leaked. Nick Dyer, Rep. Greene’s spokesman, confirmed that a platform was being written but complained about “dirty backstabbing swamp creatures” who leaked the document. Dyer would not confirm or deny its authenticity. 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This sounds a lot like the platform of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, when the Klan decided immigrants, African Americans, Jews, and Catholics were threats to the purity of the…Anglo-Saxon race…and the Anglo-Saxon way. 

In fact, this blogger is not the only one who thinks this caucus might end up as a blot on our nation’s history. 

Even Republicans are alarmed. “America is built on the idea that we are all created equal and success is earned through honest, hard work,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded late Friday. “It isn’t built on identity, race, or religion. The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln & the party of more opportunity for all Americans – not nativist dog whistles.” 

Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who still has a soul, and tries not to forget it, tweets: “Racism, nativism, and anti-Semitism are evil. History teaches we all have an obligation to confront & reject such malicious hate.” 

Rep. Tony Gonzales, a member of the party, but with Hispanic genes, tweets a “what the f---” meme.