Coolest visualization you'll see this week: the Mercer-Bannon-Trump web 'o money, via @zubakskees/@publici https://t.co/KggQ5MN0fs pic.twitter.com/T57k2TllyT
— Dave Levinthal (@davelevinthal) April 4, 2017
From the Center for Public Integrity:
On Friday night, the White House began releasing financial disclosures for scores of key employees — including familiar names such as Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway and Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon.
Reporters from dozens of news organizations, including the Associated Press, the New York Times, ProPublica and the Washington Post, then compiled and reported on the documents, which the White House released one-by-one.
The Center for Public Integrity compiled data from those disclosures into a searchable, sortable database, which provide a window into the wealth, assets and business interests of many of the people closest to President Donald Trump. The Center for Public Integrity’s news developer, Chris Zubak-Skees, extracted these details from more than 90 reports, released in PDF format, using a software tool he created…
No doubt all kinds of interesting details might be extracted; Bannon has a dozen lines on the database, but Jared Kushner has no fewer than 265…
unmute pls pic.twitter.com/srbVPvkzEn
— (=^???^=) (@kirayusa) March 29, 2017
kindness
I wonder how much they all earn off the books. You know it happens.
Baud
Get to work, AL.
jl
I have no comment. I am still staggering around completely stunned that the GOP House Nobamacare repeal and replace negotiations fell apart again. But they promised, they promised us a health care pony unicorn with cheap premiums, no deductables, and painless wonder care for all once that that bad black man could have given us, but didn’t because he is just so damned mean.
Gravenstone
Bannon apparently threatened the quit the White House after getting turfed off the NSC. My first through was that one of the Mercer’s basically told him to suck it up because they put him in Trump’s orbit for a reason. This chart tends to reinforce that belief that he’s still their useful idiot to influence the other useful idiot in the Oval Office.
germy
The Jane Mayer article made it clear there’s a whole bunch of businesses sharing the same address.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gravenstone: annon apparently threatened the quit the White House after getting turfed off the NSC.
Rachel Maddow pretty much laughed in the face of the Bloomberg reporter (Eli Lake’s colleague) who was giving an incredibly credulous (I’m judging her tone) review of the quasi-official story that Bannon was just there to keep an eye on Flynn, who he and Reince didn’t trust, but Trump did.
So the story Reince (and Kellyanne, I’d bet a kidney) want out there isn’t just that Flynn needed a baby sitter, but that they couldn’t trust their fucking president to be in a room with Flynn. That’s the best spin they could come up with.
Major Major Major Major
A database to analyze, you say?
Kropadope
@jl:
It’s like Boehner said, Republicans haven’t ever agreed on healthcare policy for the duration of his tenure. I’d add that putting the monkeys in charge of the zoo certainly isn’t gonna make anything better.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: The chart is, however, incomplete. What we need to see are the links to the Mercers as well as the Mercers links to Bannon and Trump.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, I didn’t want to put you on the spot, if you hadn’t had a chance to finish your dinner…
lollipopguild
I Love the kitteh!
Gin & Tonic
Barely related to healthcare, I will get this motherfucking cast/splint/bandage off my arm tomorrow, even if only temporarily. I’ve literally dreamed about this for the last two days. Like literally literally.
efgoldman
@Gravenstone:
President Bannonazi’s stupidity, ignorance, incompetence and arrogance, times assistant Vermilion Vermin’s stupidity, ignorance, incompetence and arrogance, equals stupidity, ignorance, incompetence and arrogance squared.
Keep him right there until he’s indicted, thanks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and Conway only has one… I guess it would be hard to track the money to a polling firm from someone [ed: Rebekah Mercer, I mean] who can fund a super PAC with about as much thought as I would give to getting a $5 Starbucks.
Adam L Silverman
And we have another one. Down goes Frazier!
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: This isn’t the guy who died in the bathtub earlier today, right?
efgoldman
@Gin & Tonic:
Has it at least kept the pain down?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: My Russian is basically non existent so I’m not sure.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: I haven’t followed it as carefully, but was Frazier implicated in the Trumpocalypse?
dmsilev
@jl: Until they figure out how to deal with the central paradox of GOP healthcare ‘policy’, they’re stuck. That paradox is that if the bill is harsh enough to appeal to the Freedom Caucus crowd, it will scare away the Reps from swing districts who don’t want to have to campaign on ‘brought back pre-existing condition denials’ and similar, but assuaging the concerns of the swingers will cause the loons to shriek ‘Obamacare Lite! No Want!’.
lollipopguild
So after the Mercers and the Kochs and Murdoch take our country back to say the 1920’s what do they do then? Once they do this they are going to have to encase the country in amber to prevent “the perfect society” from changing. One big reason communism in Russia died was that the commies wanted any change to be minimal because any real change was a threat to communist party control.
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: the important thing to discern is the line of inquiry, deriving the mechanics is surprisingly simple. So what’s the question?
EDIT: or I could just make a graph.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gravenstone: @efgoldman:
What’s gonna happen when Alec Baldwin shows up on SNL this weekend?
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev:
Wouldn’t simply throwing a key party take care of that?
Adam L Silverman
@MisterForkbeard: No. Just in the Thrila in Manila.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: What was the middle part again?
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: And it also has to pass muster with the home state governors and/or legislatures. The states with GOP governors and/or legislators that have taken the Medicaid expansion are unhappy with what has been going on. And I’m sure they have let the members of their Congressional delegations know.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Far better would be social network analysis. How proficient are you with Y-ed Graph?
ArchTeryx
@Adam L Silverman: I know I did. *Again*. The hard-right is just determined to kill me and everyone like me off, and they won’t rest until they’re masturbating on our gravestones.
Fortunately for me, they are NOT the majority they think they are, even in the House. Gerrymandered safe ultra-right districts do not a *voting* majority make.
(Why yes, I read the Rude Pundit. Why do you ask?)
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: It says he fell off a spiral staircase and hit his head on the floor. Many of those “saunas” are known for providing gentlemen with companionship.
The article also says the authorities removed the entire surveillance system, not just the recordings.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Hard to say. At this point I’d classify it as mostly discomfort as opposed to pain. The important thing from the surgeon’s point of view was immobilizing everything.
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx:
Gerrymandering works the other way. It tends to create a lot of districts in which the ruling party has a small majority and some districts where the minority party has monster majorities. It makes for a situation where a wave election can have a huge effect.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic:
Of course they did.
Any idea if this is the same guy that was killed by his bathtub or another one? My impression from the translation you’ve provided is its another one.
And thanks.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: I was thinking more along the lines of orangutans and tossing in a few bunches of bananas.
Gravenstone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I flipped back to MLB Network once the reporter started parroting the WH lies about Bannon’s reason for being on the NSC. Talk about clueless…
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: This is not the guy who “fell” out of his window while hoisting the Jacuzzi.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I got that. But yesterday there was a member of the Russian legislature who “slipped in the bath, hit his head, and died”.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic:
It pays to be thorough.
ArchTeryx
@Omnes Omnibus: If the gerrymandering is good enough it can resist all but the biggest waves. 2012 wasn’t really a *wave* election, but IIRC the House vote that year was pretty lopsided in the D’s favor but they barely gained any seats in the House.
2006 was possible in part because the gerrymanders of the time were not computer-perfect and in part because of changing demographics. Example: I was in a district that was heavily gerrymandered for the R, OH-15. Deborah Pryce, the R incumbent, kept her seat despite the wave that year, but it was so close she retired in 2008, leading to Mary Jo Kilroy, a D, winning the district for the first time since its creation.
She got to keep it all of 2 years.
When the R crew drew the maps in 2010, they undid the “cracking” of Columbus (into several districts) and replaced it with “packing”. Now the city elects a D by 80-90%, and EVERY surrounding district votes hard right, because the rurals are all that are left in them. That’s a gerrymander no D wave will touch.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: I think that’s the same guy.
You need a goddamned scorecard with this.
Lizzy L
@Gin & Tonic: A spiral staircase in a sauna? Um, okay. (As most of the population of Finland falls off its chairs in uncontrollable laughter.)
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: So many hygiene related deaths.
Lyrebird
@Major Major Major Major: I think that little kitten is named Major.
Gin & Tonic
@Lizzy L: In fairness, “sauna” is used there not just to mean the tiny wood-paneled room you think of, but the whole bathhouse complex, which will have multiple rooms with varying degrees of privacy.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: well, not at all, alas.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Yep. There are several, but I couldn’t find one that’s been updated this week…
Anne Laurie
@Gravenstone:
Maybe that’s why Bannon looks so scruffy — a guy can’t be too careful!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, Roger Stone is involved.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Says Senator Tyulpanov, if that helps.
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx: I spent 15 years in Columbus. So let’s use it. C-bus is naturally Gerrymandered. The blue goes from Merion and German Villages up High St. to (arguably) Worthington – then east towards Bexley along Broad St. Liberals in C-bus self-gerrymandered. Lots of places aren’t like that.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: @zhena gogolia: Same one then. I had posted the link to the article about it yesterday. The initial reports were he’d slipped in the tub and hit his head.
http://russia.liveuamap.com/en/2017/4-april-interfax-russian-senator-vadim-tulpanov-died-supposedly
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: He knows how they work….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
huh, “my Kellyanne” is missing again
Jim, Foolish Literalist
randy khan
@jl:
My response to the re-negotiations breaking down was “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s like the worst game of Clue ever.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman: Here’s what it says at the link: “According to preliminary information, Senator Vadim Tyulpanov died as a result of falling from a spiral staircase in the athletic-health center ‘Oasis’ in Ogorodnyi Lane. The law-enforcement employees who arrived at the scene saw a man lying on the floor. The apparent cause of death was head trauma. According to preliminary information the senator died before the ambulance came. According to a source among law-enforcement organs, Tyulpanov was climbing a spiral staircase, slipped, and fell.” A commenter says, “Ha, it’s a bordello known in the entire neighborhood.”
rikyrah
@dmsilev:
There are 23 GOP Reps from districts that Hillary won. That’s enough to flip the House. And, the DNC should already be flooding their districts with ads, mailings against them, and going door to door finding every Few voter that they can.
ArchTeryx
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep, but that doesn’t make it that different then a lot of cities. You pack the central city areas, the black districts, and the “collegetown” type districts, and you put the surburbs and rurals together in all the surrounding districts. The city elects a guaranteed D, all the surrounding districts elect a virtually guaranteed R. Do it well enough, and you can beat demographics on a nearly permanent basis.
Admittedly I left the city in 2008 after I graduated from Ohio State. I wasn’t there to see Mary Jo Kilroy actually get elected, and that made me really sad – I’d worked for her campaign a couple of times as a volunteer. Sadder still, she didn’t get elected to the new Columbus district – apparently her years in the Columbus city council left her enough enemies she couldn’t even win the D primary any more.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: So slipped in the bath and hit his head is a euphemism for fell off a staircase in a brothel and hit his head.
Lizzy L
@Gin & Tonic: I think I would, in fairness, call that a spa. Or possibly, a ranch, as in the Mustang Ranch.
Bill E Pilgrim
Carpe per diem
sukabi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: pretty sure Cummings wouldn’t and didn’t say that. He may have said “There’s never been a president like you” or “You’re breaking ALL kinds of records” neither of which means what Drumpf thought he heard…
rikyrah
The Russian dude Slipped?
Really????
Bill E Pilgrim
@sukabi: “Your presidency going down will be great”
Presumably predicting either total approval ratings tank or impeachment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sukabi: unless it was prefaced with something like “if you were to follow through on all of your contradictory– hell, delusional– campaign promises…”
MomSense
@sukabi:
More like Cummings said “You’re going down” and 45s narcissistic, delusional mind imagined the rest.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think he got Sheriff Clarke mixed up with Rep Cummings. After all, they all look alike.
Adam L Silverman
@GrandJury:
I’m pretty sure he’s trying to hide his tax records. I’m probably racking out early this evening, so if there’s anything else I can help with, please let me know before midnight EDT.
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx: Cities aren’t the focus of gerrymandering. Usually it is old school suburbs. Mix the liberals moderates, and conservatives in the right way and you get a majority. Piss off the the libs and the mods and you lose it. It is how gerrymandering works.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Or “suicide by self inflicted automatic weapons fire to his back”
sukabi
@Villago Delenda Est: winner winner chicken dinner
Omnes Omnibus
@GrandJury: Just as a matter of record, since you have admitted to not being an American, where are you from, troll?
Major Major Major Major
Aw man, this is non-trivial to put into a real database. Boo-urns.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Worst case of suicide I’ve seen in my 30 years in law enforcement…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t they usually reside under bridges?
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Some may have gone hipster and moved to Brooklyn. .
Howard Beale IV
A shout out to the our fellow travelers at Little Green Footballs for this insightful bit of analysis….
And also, for hilarity….
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/849824526187855873
Quinerly
Brian Williams’s show is quite good tonight. Great guests. A lot of defense of Susan Rice. Yes, I know…Brian Williams…but his show is usually spot on, straight forward…informative. He has a hard time hiding his disdain for Trump.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: There is a bridge nearby.
amk
since roberts & co(horts) made all this blatant corruption legal, isn’t this all a moot point?
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: I still have trouble seeing LGF as a fellow traveler. I know this blog’s history, but LGF tolerated so much awfulness. Cole never did.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Aside from being arch, do you have something to say?
ArchTeryx
@Omnes Omnibus: Shit does change, though. Giving LGF something of a gimlet eye doesn’t mean not welcoming them outwardly to the fold. We need all the friends we can get these days, because in the national political scene, we have precious few of them any more.
Howard Beale IV
I think I’m gonna start a new political party, named the Howard Beale Party. Here’s my Financial Reform Plan:
• Dodd-Frank Will be repealed – but the Consumer Finance Protection Board will be kept.
• The Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 will be repealed.
• The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 will be repealed.
• The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 will be repealed.
• The Glass-Stegal Act of 1932 will be reinstated.
• Federal Student Debt will be allowed to be discharged in any form of Federal Bankruptcy Petition.
• Mandatory binding arbitration clauses in financial services contracts will be declared illegal and be rendered null and void.
• For those who are un-banked, or cannot use a commercial bank, reinstate the Postal Savings System as a Federally-charted bank, using the US Postal Service as branch offices to accept cast and check deposits, and issue ATM debit cards. These accounts would allow people to receive their Federal benefit checks electronically (Social Security, SSI)) Each Post office would deploy ATM machines to accept deposits and dispense cash. The infrastructure would be wholly run and managed by US Postal Service employees. In addition, these ATM Debit cards will allow citizens to withdraw cash surcharge-free from any ATM (Note that this not a co-branded debit card (i.e., Visa/Mastercard)
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx: Do you see him as an advocate for you?
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: Good luck.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est:
danielx
@Kropadope:
Quite true, but the shit they fling at the walls does make some interesting patterns.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: Then you need a re-calibraton.
Adam L Silverman
@GrandJury: Exactly when have I ever cited Infowars for anything? Are you delusional as well as obnoxious? And it’s spelled maskirovka.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: Dude, if i were president and had 70/30 majorities, Boom!
Given the current world, now what?
danielx
@Howard Beale IV:
While you’re at it, reinstate the deductibility of credit card interest.
Yes, children, once upon a time….
amk
@Adam L Silverman:
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s the most re-sold bridge in the country, innit? Also plenty of space underneath for trolls.
danielx
@GrandJury:
Troll much, there?
As far as I can tell, Adam has been pretty much correct in every particular. If you haven’t noticed, InfoWars is not exactly prone to publishing stuff that makes Trump and his minions look….questionable.
Adam L Silverman
@GrandJury: Newsweek, Washington Post, the Daily Beast, CNN, Time, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg. Yep, definitely all on the fringe.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I see shomi has switched back into troll mode. Oh well, it was a good run.
@GrandJury: Go fuck yourself! ?
ETA: @GrandJury: his right what?
danielx
@danielx:
Sigh…and why am I in moderation?
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: Show me the apology.
Adam L Silverman
@GrandJury: And it’s you’re.
I know I make typos all the time, but at least make an effort.
efgoldman
@Howard Beale IV:
Makes much much way too much sense. Never happen.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: You’re free.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: And the usury laws.
Villago Delenda Est
@danielx: Because FUWP, that’s why!
hitchhiker
Anybody read the transcript in the NYT from DT’s sit down with Maggie and Glenn today?
I am 64 yrs old. If I stayed up for 48 hours straight and drank 2 beers I would sound like the president* in that conversation. There’s something the matter with him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I think you’ve sold it a few times, or maybe just offered it for sale?
amk
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam Adam Adam
All that education
All those degrees
All that experience
And you can’t tell right away that the only source that matters…
… is between Grand Jury’s ears?
Major Major Major Major
Wow, Kushner has between $115,000 and $300,000 in credit card debt.
danielx
@Villago Delenda Est:
Of course. I forgot.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@hitchhiker: Even people that have known him over the years say more than a few screws have come loose.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: That’s a lot of swag to keep Ivanka happy.
Mike J
@Howard Beale IV:
‘
Let the “Judeao-Christian”[sic] country declare jubilee every seven years and declare all debts void.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
http://www.loctiteproducts.com/
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Damn, that’s alot.
Major Major Major Major
@Villago Delenda Est: Isn’t he supposed to be rich?
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: That’s sabbatical every seven years. Jubilee is the fiftieth year, following the 7th of the cycle, and it returns all property – as in land, buildings, things like that – to it’s original owners.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: If it were only that easy, Adam.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: Pray tell, what does Charles F. Johnson have to apologize for/about? If you can’t forgive and forgert, well, I guess that’s you’re problem, not ours. If you want to act like some Purity Patty and everyone must meet your standards, well, prepare to be dissapointed in Mr. Johnson’s case while the Lizards over in LGF land are putting up a fight to defeat the fascist talking yam.
Christ on a pony……
Quinerly
@hitchhiker:
I read it. Frightening. I’ll go back to what I have been saying…there is so much each day, I fear we will become numb. I thought he mostly was incoherent today at that presser…especially when he threw in the stuff towards the end about Iran, which by the way basically has been ignored by the press. He’s clueless. Tillerson, too. It’s so obvious.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: That’s crazy. Why would he have that much credit card debt? I thought they were rich. Can’t they pay it off? Maybe they have no liquidity. Interesting….
Mike J
Fun article in Physics Today for fans of retro thermonuclear bombs.
http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.3524
Howard Beale IV
@efgoldman: Yeah, I thought it would make too much sense. I think I might rewrite the whole Tobin Tax section to this:
“Conduct an exhaustive SWOT analysis of a potential Tobin Tax on certain classes of securities that are traded at higher that normal volumes to determine their impact on the overall financial markets.”
danielx
@efgoldman:
OT, but I looked it up….I couldn’t find the authorized strength of the 2nd Infantry Division in 1950, but it was still in a WWII divisional structure at the time – three regiments plus attached units (tank battalion, FA battalions, medical battalion and so forth). So let’s say 15,000, give or take 10%. Over the period 1950 to 1953, the division and attached units as a whole suffered 24,939 combat casualties, including 4,938 KIA and 16,166 WIA. So while it certainly wasn’t wiped out out as a unit, it was…recycled at a rate of roughly 160%.
As a matter of interest, could be worse. There’s a website for a French WWI regiment (www.151ril.com), 151e Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne….
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Howard Beale IV: I’d even go for a SWAT action.
Yarrow
@Quinerly: I don’t think we’ll become numb. I think the problem is that there is just so much disastrous stuff happening with this administration it’s impossible to keep up. Treason with Russia involving most of the inner circle, a lot of the cabinet and including family, grifting and looting of the Treasury, inexperienced and unqualified appointees, nepotism, threatening war up to and including use of nuclear weapons against North Korea, possible war with Iran, insulting allies, gutting of environmental regulations and elimination of the EPA, war on science…. I’m sure I’ve left off a ton, but just those are enough to make anyone’s head spin. You focus on this thing over here and then ten other things are as bad or worse need your attention. It’s overwhelming. i’m not numb though. I’m angry and motivated to fight back. Every win is energizing. Every set back motivates me more.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: @Villago Delenda Est:
I never watch it, but looks like Rep Cummings will be on Morning Joe in the AM. Let’s hope Trump’s bizarre statement in the interview is discussed.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: The ones with credit card debt are
Augustine, Rene I
Clark, Justin
Cordish, Reed
Kushner, Jared
Liddell, Chris
Munisteri, Stephen P
Short, Marc
Simms, Cindy
Spicer, Sean
Kushner has by far the most.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: I haven’t heard of half those people. Are some of them lower level staffers? I still don’t understand why Jared Kushner would have credit card debt. That just seems crazy.
danielx
@efgoldman:
OT, but in regard to last evening’s thread – I did look it up. I couldn’t find the authorized strength of the 2nd Infantry Division in 1950, but it was still in WWII configuration: three regiments plus attached units, tank battalion, FA battalions, medical battalion and so forth. It was considerably under strength in 1950 when the “police action” started, but let’s say at full strength it was at 15,000 give or take 10%. Over the period 1950-1953, the division (plus attached/subordinate units) suffered 24,939 combat casualties, including 4,938 killed and 16,166 wounded. So yeah, the division wasn’t destroyed, but it was…recycled by about 160%.
As a matter of interest, could be worse:
One of the reasons why that line about “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” has always pissed me off, another being that the French lost roughly 25% as many casualties KIA in six weeks in 1940(~100,000) as the US lost in four years of war (~400,000). Judge not, lest ye be judged…
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: I haven’t either, beats me.
And yeah, it’s weird, right? I’ll just assume he’s laundering Nazi gold or something.
Steeplejack (phone)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
You can do both in DUMBO.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: I’m going to assume that “credit card debt” doesn’t mean something you just charged this month but will pay off in full. If that’s the case, and he’s charged hundreds of thousands of dollars in a month, that’s just insane. But I would assume that “credit card debt” means the kind you carry across months. If not, then it would seem that everyone on the list would have “credit card debt.” Don’t most people use credit cards?
GregB
I have said before, so laughable that these plutocrats snowed so many rubes into thinking they were voting against the elites.
As far as I can tell these fucking crum bums are the top of the elitists diamond encrusted shit pile and Bannon is chief fascist propagandist. Head IllumiNazi if you will.
Eric U.
at what point are the Russians going to start knocking off Americans? I haven’t really figured out why they are murdering Russians, but there have to be Trumpistas that know things that would make them targets, I assume.
efgoldman
@danielx: Huh? I don’t remember typing anything about that. But we were up all night with the wet basement, I could have forgotten….
Yarrow
@Eric U.: So far the Russians have kept to murdering Russians. I’d guess they’d probably start with someone closer to home if they branched out to killing non-Russians. I have to think that Carter Page is thinking twice before accepting a beverage from anyone, though.
Steeplejack (phone)
@danielx, @efgoldman:
It was raven.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: It says it was incurred in 2008 and it’s at 13.74% “revolving”.
danielx
@efgoldman:
Was a comment about telling the spousal unit that the last time the US Army really and truly got its ass handed to it was during the Korean War.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Wow. That is insane. They must not have much liquidity if they’re going to choose to carry that much credit card debt.
Calouste
@danielx: France had about 5.5 million combat deaths and wounded in World War One, on a population of 39 million. That comes down to roughly half of all the men of military age. (The US had 250,000).
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Or they’re laundering Nazi gold.
ETA: Hey, people are saying. I don’t know if it’s true but it’s something you hear.
Millard Filmore
@Yarrow:
My guess is that killing American citizens would advance this particular adventure over a bright red line into the status of a warm war.
(hi TenguPhule)
Major Major Major Major
Slate has collected some of the lowlights from the Times interview transcript, if you feel like reading them.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: Do you know what he’s yammering about wrt airplane routing systems? Can you explain it to me?
This is the first I’ve heard of this.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: Nope.
ArchTeryx
@Omnes Omnibus: Depending on who ‘he’ is, no, I don’t see LGF as my enemy. As far as I’m concerned “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is how I survive.
TenguPhule
@Millard Filmore: No chance unless they are literally caught red handed. The Republicans will block ANYTHING even remotely looking like something serious against Russia. Even McBullshit McCain. We’re that deep down the rabbit hole.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow: Swiss bank accounts and blood diamonds.
Hey, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
TenguPhule
@ArchTeryx: “The enemy of my enemy can be used to redirect incoming fire.”
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
That would be correct. Granted, its not a good idea as you pay interest on that debt to the Credit Card Companies at insane rates. But many stupid people still do so anyway. Some of them are rich enough to afford it…most of them aren’t.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow: And the current worry is that we won’t have a working government system by the end of the month when the GOP blow the debt ceiling and mandatory funding bills.
Because both of those require one of two things happening.
1) Freedumb Caucus willing to compromise
2) Trump and Ryan working with Pelosi
Which one is more likely to happen?
Major Major Major Major
Seriously, though, six figures of credit card debt? What the fuck?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Sounds like a cash flow problem to me
@TenguPhule: We’ll hit a government shutdown first before the debt limit, they can’t blame it on the Near Sheriff this time.
Chet Murthy
@Major Major Major Major: We read everywhere that Kushner is also up to his eyeballs in debt, right? So it makes sense that he has no “readies” on hand …. ever. That to finance his daily living expenses (and to pay the credit card monthly) he borrows on cards. It’s like in some 19th century novel, e.g. Trollope’s _The Way We Live Now_ or Thackeray’s _Vanity Fair_.
DissidentFish
@opiejeanne: So Trump may be talking about ADS-B.
There’s a reason only the most technically advanced companies work on air traffic control systems. They are unbelievably complicated, have a huge financial impact on the entire economy, and have zero margin for error. Trump being responsible for final decisions on this is not reassuring.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@DissidentFish:
Unfortunately, it is what it is.
Major Major Major Major
@DissidentFish: @?BillinGlendaleCA: trump being responsible for decisions is not reassuring.
ArchTeryx
@TenguPhule: I use that bit in World of Tanks all the time!
opiejeanne
@DissidentFish: But is it a failure as Lumpy says?
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Those aren’t his ears ….
mai naem mobile
@Major Major Major Major: I have an electricin friend who’s been working with a house flipper who had $500K in credit card debt fron buying a small apartment complex and fixing it. The debt servicing was killing him until he sold the apartments for a nice little profit and has moved onto two ultra luxury homes (11K sf ft homes.) This guy has a lot of money,not Kushner kind of money,but wealthy.
My dad was involved in RE for years. What I observed was some people have regular jobs,make decent money in RE as a side investment and then there’s people who make decent money,don’t have a regular job for their own regular expenses so they don’t pay their bills and leave a string of unpaid contractors. The Trumps come across as the latter even though they should be making enough money for their expenses from their regular jobs (the golf resorts and licensing crap.) They’re completely overleveraged.
Anne Laurie
@opiejeanne:
I’m assuming it has to do with his (the Freedumb Caucus’) desire to fire all the air traffic controllers and start over with an “efficient” privatized flight-tracking system. Because look at how the original iteration benefited St. Ronnie!
mai naem mobile
@Anne Laurie: I vaguely remember them talking about air traffic controllers before and part of it was to outsource traffic controllers to decrease costs. Not quite sure how that works.
Anne Laurie
@mai naem mobile:
IIRC, the major airlines publicly wet themselves in terror at the very thought.
Keeping all those fragile metal shells full of meatsacks safely coming up & down on a not-infinity of runways… it doesn’t look like it should be so hard, if you’re a Congresscritter whose only mathematical talent is remembering which ‘constituent’ wrote you the biggest checks…
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Trump being responsible for anything is just not happening. It will always be someone else to blame.
DissidentFish
@opiejeanne: Is ADS-B a failure? No. But as a part of the NexGen airspace system, which will completely replace the prior ATC system by 2025, it has a myriad of problems. But even those are not particularly close to what Trump said. They must have had some bs report on Fox about it, and the guy who runs the Executive Branch believed it — even though the entire FAA would be happy to present him the real story.
It’s not as simple as just Republicans wanting to privatize NexGen development or all of ATC. NexGen is being developed by industry already; no matter who is running ATC, the need for a system will be there.
More on NexGen from Wikipedia.
Lurking Canadian
@mai naem mobile: During the Romney campaign I remember hearing something to the effect that the truly rich live entirely on credit, as a tax avoidance measure.
I never really understood it, but I can make a guess. Suppose you have a billion dollars in assets, so you are earning…40 million a year in interest/capital gains, whatever. If you take the 40 million as income, Uncle Sam is going to make you pay 6 million in taxes. (15% is a scandalously low tax rate but to them, this feels like the Nazi invasion of Poland).
So instead, you run your entire year’s expenses on your line of credit. Instead of paying tax on the money you spend, you pay interest at a much lower rate than Uncle Sam would charge.
At that point, I’m not exactly sure how the scam works. Maybe you keep rolling the debt over until you die and your heirs can use it to reduce their share of the estate tax, or maybe you can play some game in year 2 where you count the debt as negative net worth and cancel part of the principle.
Anyway, rich people having short term debt might not mean the same thing as regular people having short term debt.
Uncle Cosmo
@GrandJury: FOADIAF. That’s all the electrons I’m wasting on you.