Octopus Overlords

Shrug. The things we know about drumpf should be enough to get him kicked out of office. Hell, not divesting himself of his business interests should be enough. At this point I really think he could murder a few people and Rip would be all like "the Clintons did it first".

Just gotta wait it out. Mueller will come through, or 2020, or 2024. Or he'll die. A little zen and some patience.

I don't think recovery will be as tough as some people think. Assuming the American people want to recover, I guess.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:10 pm

Rip wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 9:07 pmThe revolting thing if anything is it is no different than they did for Obama, Clinton, Bush, Reagan and so on. No one cared until now. Wonder why?

I must be ignorant, but if you could help a guy out and get me a link to a single comparable story I'd appreciate learning something new. Anything where an AT&T or Norvartis was paying money into a slush fund for Obaman, Clinton, Bush or Reagan to use. It doesn't even need to be a slush fund that was used to pay off a mistress. I'm reasonable.

Can't. There was never a special prosecutor raiding the offices of the lawyers and bagmen involved. Back then they handed out immunity deals like candy to even get the perpetrators to sit down and talk.

There is no reasonable explanation to explain how the LLC that paid off Stormy ended up getting paid by Russians, ATT, and Novartis. And Novartis essentially threw out a PR saying that it was authorized by the previous CEO. In effect, yeah this was shady and that guy isn't around anymore. Go talk to him to figure it out. That is not a good look.

The sorta amazing thing is that spinning up an illicit LLC isn't all that hard yet he decided to re-use it because he is goddamn incompetent and lazy. That gives me hope because I can't help but think he was the type of idiot who kept evidence lying around and all this gives a clue to why a judge signed off on the raid of his office.

Kurth wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 8:46 pm These payments and the companies making them (AT&T, Novartis, probably others) suck. What legitimate purpose could those payments possibly serve other than buying influence? Not to get all pollyanna here, but I didn't think this level of corruption was so . . . blatant. At least pay some legitimate lobbyists in some fancy lobbying firms. Don't pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to Michael Fucking Cohen for "insights into understanding the new administration."

There's simply not a big enough vomiting smilie for this.

Maybe they're paying Cohen to spy on Trump? So leak Trump's discussion with Cohen. That'll be more effective than paying some legitimate lobbyists if the goal is to "understand the new administration" = "Know Trump's plan".

Rip wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 9:07 pm

Kurth wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 8:46 pm These payments and the companies making them (AT&T, Novartis, probably others) suck. What legitimate purpose could those payments possibly serve other than buying influence? Not to get all pollyanna here, but I didn't think this level of corruption was so . . . blatant. At least pay some legitimate lobbyists in some fancy lobbying firms. Don't pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to Michael Fucking Cohen for "insights into understanding the new administration."

There's simply not a big enough vomiting smilie for this.

The revolting thing if anything is it is no different than they did for Obama, Clinton, Bush, Reagan and so on. No one cared until now. Wonder why?

Wait. Hold on a minute . . . AT&T and Novartis and others also paid money to Michael Fucking Cohen when he was working as the personal lawyer and self-described “fixer” for Obama, Clinton, Bush and Reagan??? Sources please!

Rip wrote:

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:10 pm

Rip wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 9:07 pmThe revolting thing if anything is it is no different than they did for Obama, Clinton, Bush, Reagan and so on. No one cared until now. Wonder why?

I must be ignorant, but if you could help a guy out and get me a link to a single comparable story I'd appreciate learning something new. Anything where an AT&T or Norvartis was paying money into a slush fund for Obaman, Clinton, Bush or Reagan to use. It doesn't even need to be a slush fund that was used to pay off a mistress. I'm reasonable.

Can't. There was never a special prosecutor raiding the offices of the lawyers and bagmen involved. Back then they handed out immunity deals like candy to even get the perpetrators to sit down and talk.

We were learning about this stuff via leaks long before the raids. Trump was a known quantity before he was ever POTUS, and silly you thought that the never-trumpers were just in it cause they were swamp creatures ROLF. They were trying to save a lot of embarrassment for their party and country.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

This is all very amusing, and I'm sure Mueller is taking notes and checking files - if he doesn't already have it.

Sidenote, Guliani should step back away from the spotlight. Trump does not like people stealing his thunder. He doesn't even like people encroaching on the noise he makes when he farts. Getting on TV and being quoted a lot is the quickest way to being fired.

Paingod wrote: ↑Wed May 09, 2018 8:23 am This is all very amusing, and I'm sure Mueller is taking notes and checking files - if he doesn't already have it.

The word on the street is that Avenatti's information is sourced from one or more Suspicious Activity Reports generated by a financial instutition that handled transactions involving Cohen's LLC. If that is true, that means that Mueller's team almost certainly would have known about it well before this all blew up in public.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:25 pm Shrug. The things we know about drumpf should be enough to get him kicked out of office. Hell, not divesting himself of his business interests should be enough. At this point I really think he could murder a few people and Rip would be all like "the Clintons did it first".

Just gotta wait it out. Mueller will come through, or 2020, or 2024. Or he'll die. A little zen and some patience.

I don't think recovery will be as tough as some people think. Assuming the American people want to recover, I guess.

I don't think so. I'm relying (or hoping?) the things we know about Trump after Mueller finishes will be enough to get him kicked out of office. OtOH, the things we know about him and knew about him then should have been enough to keep him from winning the presidency. Our nation collective has behaved not just more shamefully but flat out more dangerously, existentially, than we have at any other time in my life.

Also if Trump didn't personally murder someone in front of with video evidence and him bragging about it while in office, Rip would just say Vince Foster.

I can't see how recovery won't be supremely difficult. 200 years of faith is gone. And putting protections in place to restore the faith, will work against what we've had. What we've literally been boasting how special we are over about for nearly 100 years.

We have some seriously shameful and shady shit in the closet of our country but this is an exposure of how easy it can be for us. If Putin's goal was to show his own people the US isn't that much different and better than the Russian Mafia they call government. He's demonstrated exactly how easy it is make his statement true. I hope you're right and a recovery isn't tough but I'm blind to the path easy path at the moment.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:12 pm

Zarathud wrote:It's not like Cohen was practicing law.

Kind of like Giuliani? (who also needs to brush up on alt-facts, it appears)

FIFY.

Rip wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 11:03 pm

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:10 pm

Rip wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 9:07 pmThe revolting thing if anything is it is no different than they did for Obama, Clinton, Bush, Reagan and so on. No one cared until now. Wonder why?

I must be ignorant, but if you could help a guy out and get me a link to a single comparable story I'd appreciate learning something new. Anything where an AT&T or Norvartis was paying money into a slush fund for Obaman, Clinton, Bush or Reagan to use. It doesn't even need to be a slush fund that was used to pay off a mistress. I'm reasonable.

Can't. There was never a special prosecutor raiding the offices of the lawyers and bagmen involved. Back then they handed out immunity deals like candy to even get the perpetrators to sit down and talk.

Signed, Ken Starr and Lawrence Welsh.

LordMortis wrote:Also if Trump didn't personally murder someone in front of with video evidence and him bragging about it while in office, Rip would just say Vince Foster.

Fake News. Videos can be altered, and they've already demonstrated that tech that allows people to appear to be saying something they never said. Vast left-wing conspiracy. Try again, snowflake!

Rachel Crooks, who accused Trump of sexual misconduct, seals Ohio legislature nomination

A woman who came forward with an accusation during the 2016 campaign that President Trump forcibily kissed her in 2006 is a step closer in her bid for a seat in Ohio's House of Representatives.

Democrat Rachel Crooks, of Tiffin, Ohio, won an uncontested primary Tuesday. The 35-year-old university administrator will face Republican state Rep. Bill Reineke in November.

She says she’s running for the seat southeast of Toledo in part because Trump has escaped consequences for the harassment alleged by her and many other women.

Crooks says she was 22 and working as a receptionist at Trump Tower in 2006 when Trump kissed her without her consent after she introduced herself outside one of the elevators.

DJ was reporting that AT&T actually paid $600K to Cohen for "consulting services."

In other news, AT&T announced that they donated $2.4M to The Human Fund.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed May 09, 2018 3:32 pm DJ was reporting that AT&T actually paid $600K to Cohen for "consulting services."

Source.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed May 09, 2018 3:32 pm In other news, AT&T announced that they donated $2.4M to The Human Fund.

I'd like to air my grievances. Where's ILB?

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed May 09, 2018 3:53 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed May 09, 2018 3:32 pm In other news, AT&T announced that they donated $2.4M to The Human Fund.

I'd like to air my grievances. Where's ILB?

Avoiding this particular discussion out of a fondness for my paycheck.

I might have missed it here but "Essential Consultants" was explicitly a one person Real Estate Investment Consulting company?

So Trump had a Real Estate Consulting Company on retainer to pay off Stormy Dainels for something he didn't do, even though Cohen is not his lawyer and Trump companies are known to be involved in 1000s of suits at a time in his name (which is actually a reasonable claim) so they just take care of things and Trump did not, oh wait DID, DID, did know, uh, authorize payment for celebrity real estate consulting purposes we can't comprehend, concurrent with Cohen's independent real estate consulting work with ATT, Columbus Nova, Novartis, and Korean Aerospace Industries. To the tune of over $2 Million dollars for this one man show.

History does seem to bear this story out.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politic ... 01541.html

Donald Trump’s long time business lawyer Michael Cohen may be best known for his aggressive campaign television defenses of the real estate mogul, his role in an abortive effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and allegations that he attended a meeting last summer with Russians in Europe.

But while serving as a top executive at the Trump Organization for a decade, Cohen himself was a sometime New York real estate wheeler dealer whose companies appear to have netted as much as $20 million in profit by flipping properties to mysterious buyers.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation- ... 33596.html

WASHINGTON

Donald Trump’s personal attorney said Thursday there’s no mystery to his cash sale of four New York apartment buildings: The buyers were a family fund that put the proceeds from an earlier real estate transaction into his properties to defer paying taxes, as permitted by federal law.

That information was not available in public land records.

"The buyer of all four properties is a New York real estate family fund that has been around for almost a century,” Cohen told McClatchy. “And yes, they are American."

He did not identify the buyer, who was represented by New York real estate lawyer Herbert Chaves.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rosecutors

But the plan proved lucrative. In late 2014, Cohen’s companies doubled their initial investment when they sold the buildings to companies affiliated with the descendants of Clarence Seid, a Brooklyn-born lawyer and ham-radio enthusiast. The family, including Herbert Chaves, who married Seid’s daughter Jane, was looking to reinvest its gains from the $38 million sale of a Brooklyn development site to a partnership of SL Green and Kushner Cos., then run by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

The Seid-Chaves family partnered with Cohen again a few months later, to purchase an Upper East Side apartment building for $58 million, taking out a $17 million mortgage to do so. Cohen’s companies control 38 percent of the property, public records show.

In October of last year, Cohen sold his unit in Trump World Tower for $3.3 million. His in-laws still have units there.

Also point to rip. That's not slush fund at all. I'm guessing the slush was just convenience. This was simply money laundering turned into graft.

Novartis

The top lawyer at Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis stepped down on Wednesday following revelations that the company made payments to President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Novartis (NVS) said its general counsel, Felix Ehrat, had decided to retire from his position in the "context of discussions" surrounding the payments to Cohen.
...
"Although the contract was legally in order, it was an error," Ehrat said in a statement. "As a co-signatory with our former CEO, I take personal responsibility to bring the public debate on this matter to an end."
...
Novartis said its representatives met with Cohen in March 2017. After that meeting, the company determined he wouldn't be useful and decided not to engage with him further.

However, Novartis also said it continued to pay Cohen $100,000 a month until February 2018. It said the payments continued because the contract could not have been terminated.

Are you implying Novartis was indirectly paying for Trump's problems with women?

Just following precedent.

Trying to keep all the Trump-adjacent threads in different topics is like trying to wrestle a barrel full of greased snakes.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-p ... story.html

The law firm of Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti was hit with a $10-million judgment Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court after he broke his promise to pay $2 million to a former colleague.

Judge Catherine Bauer of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana ordered the Eagan Avenatti law firm to pay the $10 million to Jason Frank, a lawyer who used to work at the Newport Beach firm.

At the hearing, the U.S. Justice Department revealed that Avenatti's firm has also defaulted on back taxes that it promised to pay the Internal Revenue Service under another bankruptcy settlement.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Najah Shariff told the judge that the federal government would soon file a motion demanding payment of the back taxes.

Under the Jan. 30 bankruptcy settlement, Avenatti personally agreed to pay the IRS $2.4 million in back taxes, penalties and interest, court records show.

Nearly $1.3 million of that was for payroll taxes that his law firm withheld from employees but did not turn over to the government.

Avenatti has paid at least $1.5 million of what was due, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. But he and his firm missed an installment that was due last week, Shariff told the court.

At least he's not defaulting on everything and giving the shaft to his lenders/contractors, like our current POTUS did in his "businessman" days.

As our current wise leader says, doesn't that just make him smart?

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 4:41 pm At least he's not defaulting on everything and giving the shaft to his lenders/contractors, like our current POTUS did in his "businessman" days.

Whataboutism!

The fact that his law firm is juggling taxes, payments, and wages around doesn't mean his client is lying and has nothing to do with Stormy and Trump. It just means he's a lawyer. I'm honestly surprised it didn't take longer to come out into the open.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed May 09, 2018 9:17 am I can't see how recovery won't be supremely difficult. 200 years of faith is gone.

If it's any consolation to you, on the other side faith has been restored. We won't take the democrat yoke again so easily. Now that we've seen the deep state weaponized our eyes are more open than ever.

Man, did Stormy get thick. I'm not sure I'd even do her, unless it was at a swingers event for free, so I'm having a hard time believing Trump paid for that.

You won’t have to worry about it too much longer. Once we push you folks out the door of Obama’s wall into Mexico, you’ll just have to develop pizzagates about each other.

VIVA LA DEEP STATE!

em2nought wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 12:10 am

Man, did Stormy get thick. I'm not sure I'd even do her, unless it was at a swingers event for free, so I'm having a hard time believing Trump paid for that.

What amuses me about comments like this is that men who post it seem to have some view of themselves as some studly specimen of manhood that all women would want to do even as they get older themselves, a la George Clooney or Richard Gere or Sting instead of the reality of being a middle aged, paunch in the belly, hand in the Doritos bag kind of guy.

$iljanus wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 8:43 am

em2nought wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 12:10 am

Man, did Stormy get thick. I'm not sure I'd even do her, unless it was at a swingers event for free, so I'm having a hard time believing Trump paid for that.

What amuses me about comments like this is that men who post it seem to have some view of themselves as some studly specimen of manhood that all women would want to do even as they get older themselves, a la George Clooney or Richard Gere or Sting instead of the reality of being a middle aged, paunch in the belly, hand on their own junk kind of guy.

FTFY

I don't think it's completely unfair to judge a woman's physical attractiveness, despite being crudely done here, if that woman's career is based on and dependent on that attractiveness.

With that said, Stormy's relevance and presence in R&P has little to do with her career.

em2nought wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 12:10 am
Man, did Stormy get thick. I'm not sure I'd even do her, unless it was at a swingers event for free, so I'm having a hard time believing Trump paid for that.

I don’t see how anyone would touch Trump without being paid.

em2nought wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 12:10 am

Man, did Stormy get thick. I'm not sure I'd even do her, unless it was at a swingers event for free, so I'm having a hard time believing Trump paid for that.

It's pretty much undisputed that he "paid for that.". The only question is which bucket the funds came from and why.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 9:27 amThe only question is which bucket the funds came from and why.

Petty cash.

Remus West wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 8:44 am

$iljanus wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 8:43 am... instead of the reality of being a middle aged, paunch in the belly, Doritos-stained hand on their own junk kind of guy.

FTFY

FT-FTFY

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 11:18 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 9:27 amThe only question is which bucket the funds came from and why.

Petty cash.

Remus West wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 8:44 am

$iljanus wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 8:43 am... instead of the reality of being a middle aged, paunch in the belly, Doritos-stained hand on their own junk kind of guy.

FTFY

FT-FTFY

When did we change over to Doritos? I still have a quarter case of the Cheetos flavored lotion.

$iljanus wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 8:43 am

em2nought wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 12:10 am

Man, did Stormy get thick. I'm not sure I'd even do her, unless it was at a swingers event for free, so I'm having a hard time believing Trump paid for that.

What amuses me about comments like this is that men who post it seem to have some view of themselves as some studly specimen of manhood that all women would want to do even as they get older themselves, a la George Clooney or Richard Gere or Sting instead of the reality of being a middle aged, paunch in the belly, hand in the Doritos bag kind of guy.

You can rest assured that I have no view of myself as studly whatsoever. LMAO Closest thing to me would be a shorter, fatter, near sighted version of Rick from Pawn Stars. He could be my richer, better looking brother. My hand would also more likely be in a party size bag of M&M peanuts instead of Doritos.

It's pretty much undisputed that he "paid for that.".

No, you pay for that to go away. It looks like he paid for it to go away twice, and the second time he got outbid.

Doing her best Izzy Stradlin impersonation, Melania hasn't been seen in public for 18 days (15, as of the publication of linked story):

Questions around Melania Trump’s reported hospitalization for kidney surgery have intensified as it’s been noted by White House reporters and on social medial that the first lady hasn’t been seen in public for at least 15 days.

According to the Washington Post, the length of Mrs. Trump’s absence is long even for a woman who’s not known to crave the spotlight.

I'm sort of working backwards based on the crazy Tweets from this weekend, but this one is definitely a head scratcher:

The president just confused matters more by pointing to a window in the White House residence and saying, “She’s doing great. She’s looking at us right there.”

But when reporters turned to look at the window he indicated, there was no sign of the first lady, according to a pool report.

Everything is fine!

I'm pretty sure this is a pic from that event:

Some time ago I happened upon a fun conspiracy theory stating that Melania was replaced by a double shortly after the election. Those believers must be having a field day with this.