Donald Trump Is a Crook

A piece in New York Magazine cuts to the chase and addresses what his racist, white supremacist, knuckle dragging supporters - and the Vichy Republicans - simply want to ignore: the man is a crook and has been for years.  Indeed, Trump is a profiteer who is openly abusing his office to enrich himself and his family much in the style of third world despots and Vladimir Putin if on a much lesser scale.  The fact that none of Trump's profiteering bothers the Congressional Republicans underscores just how morally bankrupt the GOP has become. Stealing from the poor to give the very rich now stands side by side with turning a blind eye to Trump's violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution and business practices that only a few years ago would have driven a president from office.  Here are column highlights:

On November 17, 1973, President Richard Nixon delivered a speech that became famous for his self-defeating boast, “I am not a crook.” The windup to the infamous phrase consisted of Nixon defending his aggressive, but legal, tax-avoidance strategies. “I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service — I have earned every cent,” he insisted. (This was perhaps half-true.) “And in all of my years of public life,” he continued, “I have never obstructed justice.” (This was not true — the year before, Nixon had tried to get the CIA to quash the FBI investigation into Watergate.)

Like Nixon, Donald Trump denies having engaged in obstruction of justice, even though he plainly has (both by asking intelligence agencies to push back against the FBI, according to reports, and by firing the FBI director over the Russia investigation, by Trump’s own admission). Unlike Nixon, Trump does not deny profiting from public service. He does it brazenly and flamboyantly.

If he were a normal president, rather than one who produced calamities at an unprecedented pace, Trump’s open profiteering would receive five-alarm media coverage and threats of impeachment. The Washington Post recently reported that Trump’s budget slashes funding for a wide array of low-income housing programs, the one notable exception being a program that his own firm benefits from. The story connects this shady decision to an even shadier one: Trump’s appointment of Lynne Patton — a wedding planner close to the Trump family who possesses zero relevant experience and who has falsified her résumé — to oversee the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s programs in New York City. That is, Trump is using his budget to suspiciously single out for favoritism a program from which his firm benefits, and then installing a wildly unqualified personal loyalist in a position where she could protect his funding stream. This scandal alone could shake a non-Trump presidency to its foundations.

That it has caused barely a ripple helps to explain why Trump feels emboldened to locate the first fundraiser for his reelection campaign at his hotel in Washington. Trump’s Washington hotel has already raked in cash from lobbyists and government officials, foreign and domestic, seeking to curry favor with the First Family. Trump has gotten away with it because his party has evinced zero interest in restraining him. The GOP Congress has quashed investigations of his profiteering or demands that he produce his tax returns. Now the party elite will literally be suborned at an event conjoining his public duties and the fattening of his own wallet.

History has mostly forgotten what Nixon said after his famous line: “I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.” The premise of that statement was that a president who enriches himself through office is a crook. So, what does that make Donald Trump?

Are These Pictures of the Same Man?

I generally check out Bob Felton's blog, Civil Commotion every day. Bob's an amazing source on some of the idiocy and hypocrisy of the Christianists and similar religious nutcases and frequently makes me look religion friendly. One thing that I have noted is that supposed Christian groups seem to attract a lot of crooks and con men who either gravitate to religion while in prison - convicted Watergate felon Chuck Colson is a good example - so that they can have a lucrative lifestyle while fleecing the simple and ignorant. Others see the monetary opportunity from the get go and prey upon those who ought to know better by wrapping themselves in religion. In this area, disbarred attorney and recently convicted on 39 counts Troy Titus is a prime example. Bob has found this interesting issue in respect to the Baptist missionary kidnapper story coming out of Haiti:
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The man on the left is Torres Orellana, sought by Interpol for child trafficking. The man on the right is Jorge Puello, who has represented the Baptist missionaries arrested in Haiti on allegations of kidnapping and child trafficking. Puello claims to be a lawyer, licensed in the Dominican Republic, but that country has no record of him.
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The Americans’ families say that the missionaries knew nothing of Puello’s possibly illicit background, that he appeared to them to be no more than a Good Samaritan trying to help:
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Jorge Puello was not known to the missionaries’ church group before their arrest for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti, and members failed to check his background, Sean Lankford, the relative who dealt most closely with him, said Saturday.
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Somehow I doubt that Orellana-Puello will be the last crook to resort to helping "good religious people" after reinventing themselves to hide a criminal past.

Snake Oil Evangelists Intend to Defy Congressional Probe

In yet another example of how it is in reality the Christianists and their "ministries" that seek "special rights" as opposed to the LGBT community, attorneys for two "evangelists" have indicated that their clients will not cooperate with a Congressional investigation to determine whether or not their "ministries" have been operated within the requirements of Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code which governs tax-exempt and charitable organization status. One of the requirements of holding tax-exempt status is that none of the proceeds of the organization inure to the benefit of private individuals not in line with the organization's charitable purpose.

In the case of these "ministries," under investigation, the ministry leaders are living like multi-millionaires, in some cases driving Rolls Royces, etc. Hence, Congress has every reason to be reviewing the non-profit/charitable purpose of the alleged ministries. In my opinion, these "evangelists" are crooks who shake down the ignorant and unwary and reap incredible personal financial benefits. There are times I think that I should form a "ministry' and get on the gravy train. The problem is, I am too honest to fleece people the way these preachers do. Here are some highlights (http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=27749&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0403):

Lawyers for "prosperity gospel" televangelists Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar have told U.S. senators that they will not comply with a probe into their ministries because it threatens religious freedom rights.Letters on behalf of Copeland and Dollar were sent March 31 to inform members of the Senate Finance Committee of the noncompliance, contending that the probe was based in part on the targeting of teachers from the "word of faith" movement. The lawyers said Copeland and Dollar not only objected to the investigation's potential infringement of the First Amendment but also the senators' failure to operate through the current process provided by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The other targeted televangelists –- Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, and Randy and Paula White -– provided the requested documents by March 31 or pledged to do so.

Grassley has said his questions of the televangelists were based on accounts of abuses from watchdog organizations and whistleblowers, as well as investigative news reports. Accusations of contributions being used to support lavish lifestyles have been leveled against at least some of the televangelists.

Grassley's inquiry called for the televangelists to provide such documents as credit card statements, expenses for their secondary residences, gifts given by the ministries and lists of private automobiles. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) has encouraged cooperation by the televangelists, but the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) has expressed concerns about the probe's implications for ministries.

The names of the televangelists and their ministries, plus the locations of their headquarters, are: Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Newark, Texas; Creflo Dollar, World Changers Church International, College Park, Ga.; Eddie Long, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Lithonia, Ga.; Joyce Meyer, Joyce Meyer Ministries, Fenton, Mo.; Benny Hinn, Benny Hinn Ministries, Grapevine, Texas; and Randy and Paula White, Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries, Tampa, Fla.