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Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Kevin McCarthy’s Jan. 6th Coverup is Underway
Kevin McCarthy’s Jan. 6th Coverup is Underway
The man who wants to be
speaker of the House refuses to cooperate with the Jan. 6th investigation.
MAY
31, 2022 4:46 AM
Conditioned to accept
the idea that most Republican officials are zombified “ultra MAGA” automatons for former President Trump, House
Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy seems to be getting a pass for stonewalling
the January 6th Committee.
He shouldn’t.
Politically convenient subservience to Trump isn’t enough of an excuse for
McCarthy anymore.
More than 1,000 people
have cooperated with the Jan. 6th Committee. Yet, McCarthy, one of the few
people who spoke with Trump as the attack was underway, refuses to be one of
them. Why is this seen as acceptable?
The GOP House leader
made his position plain on Friday, when he signaled his intention to defy a
subpoena from the committee. In doing so, he has transformed from a powerful
party loyalist who could claim he was merely doing the former president’s
bidding into an active participant in the coverup.
Recall that in the
waning days of Trump’s presidency, McCarthy said that Trump “bears
responsibility” for the attack. Shortly after making that statement, McCarthy
changed his mind.
Within days he traveled
to Mar-a-Lago to talk with Trump about winning the House majority in 2022.
McCarthy issued a statement saying, “President Trump’s popularity has
never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than
perhaps any endorsement at any time.”
What’s more, McCarthy
said he had no regrets about tanking an independent, 9/11-style, bipartisan commission of the
attack. After Speaker Nancy Pelosi then moved to create the House Jan. 6th
Committee, McCarthy withdrew his all picks when Pelosi rejected his selections of Reps.
Jim Jordan and Jim Banks to serve as two of the five GOP members. (Note:
Jordan has been subpoenaed by the committee as well. Choosing someone
to serve on the committee who was also a target of the committee was an
understandable non-starter for any worthy investigation. Additionally, Banks has since engaged in questionable behavior which proves why Pelosi was wise to nix
him, too.) McCarthy has, nevertheless, blasted Pelosi for structuring the
committee to “satisfy her political objectives.”
McCarthy’s opposition to
the committee led to the entire Republican caucus voting against establishing
it, with the exceptions of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Kinzinger’s Illinois district was eliminated by Democrats. McCarthy then
targeted Cheney, endorsing her primary opponent after he greenlit her removal from GOP leadership and then
installed Trump apologist Elise Stefanik in her place.
So why the change of
heart? The Jan. 6th Committee wants to know; McCarthy won’t tell.
On January 12, 2022, the committee sent
McCarthy a letter asking for his voluntary cooperation
regarding his communications with Trump before, during, and after the attack.
It said:
Despite the many substantial concerns you
voiced about President Trump’s responsibility for the January 6th attack, you
nevertheless visited President Trump in Mar-a-Lago on January 28th (the
impeachment trial began on February 9, 2021). While there, you reportedly
discussed campaign planning and fundraising to retake the House majority in
2022. The Select Committee has no intention of asking you about electoral
politics or campaign-related issues, but does wish to discuss any
communications you had with President Trump at that time regarding your account
of what actually happened on January 6th. Your public statements regarding
January 6th have changed markedly since you met with Trump. At that meeting, or
at any other time, did President Trump or his representatives discuss or
suggest what you should say publicly, during the impeachment trial (if called
as a witness), or in any later investigation about your conversations with him
on January 6th?
McCarthy declined a
voluntary interview. The committee sent McCarthy and four other Republican
members of Congress subpoenas on May 12. In response, McCarthy’s lawyer sent the
committee an 11-page letter on Friday, questioning the committee’s legality and
constitutionality and making other arguments previously rejected by the courts.
Although the committee
has stated many times that “our investigation will inform our specific
legislative recommendations, and ensure that we can take action to prevent
another January 6th from ever happening again,” McCarthy’s lawyer, Elliot S.
Berke, rejected the idea the committee had any legislative purpose.
“Its only objective
appears to be to attempt to score political points or damage its political
opponents—acting like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee one day
and the Department of Justice the next,” Berke wrote.
Berke closed his letter
with a request: that the committee give McCarthy a list of all topics and
subjects it would like to discuss, as well as copies of “all documents” the
committee would like to ask about, along with the “constitutional and legal
rationale” for each of those requests.
Which is lots of
lawyer-speak for people who bill by fractions of the hour.
What this request really
meant was that McCarthy has absolutely no intention of acting as a cooperative
witness. He wants information from the committee; he doesn’t
want to give them any.
McCarthy, by his own account, pleaded with Trump to call off the rioters as the attack was underway. Despite
McCarthy’s request, the attack (inexplicably) went on for more than three hours.
McCarthy can speak to
what Trump’s state of mind was during that pivotal time; he may have knowledge
about why the Capitol was not quickly secured. What did Trump say when McCarthy
begged him for help? Why is that being kept a secret? How could any official
sit on this information—let alone a man who could very soon be speaker of the
House?
Also, how in the world
did McCarthy go from blaming Trump for the attack to championing him
for the midterms? No one in Washington with McCarthy’s level of power has
flipped harder and faster on such an important question than McCarthy did in
those short days. It stands to reason that if McCarthy had an honorable explanation,
he would be proud to give it. So what is he hiding?
These questions, and
more, need to be answered. Hopefully, some of them have already been answered
by the hundreds of people who have spoken to investigators.
For now, one conclusion
can be safely made in light of House Republican Leader McCarthy’s explicit
refusal to talk. The GOP’s Jan. 6th coverup is still happening,
even now.
Whether the coverup has
succeeded or not will soon be revealed. The Jan. 6th Committee will be holding
hearings during primetime beginning on June 9.
Monday, May 30, 2022
NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN
Peloton Has to Get Off the Bike
A star
of the pandemic, the company now has to realize that selling hardware is like
swimming with bike chains around its neck. Like many companies, it waited too
long to transform. Don't make that same mistake.
BY HOWARD
TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS@TULLMAN
Peloton’s new CEO
Barry McCarthy, who’s trying to turn a great big bulky barge around with pep
talks and a puny paddle, is in a whole lot of hurt right now. He’s short on
cash and trying to borrow a bundle from big banks with their own problems and
he’s stuck with a ton of excess inventory and a treadmill that’s still seen as
a threat to toddlers. Even worse, the world is returning to health clubs and to
office buildings newly stuffed with workout spaces and other amenities offered
by desperate landlords trying to pull tenants back to their properties. (Even
if they buy some Pelotons, people will share them, not own them.) But honestly,
those concerns aren’t even his biggest problem. He’s on the cusp of becoming
just another dinosaur in a digital world. Just like the folks hawking physical point of sale credit card readers.
Barry needs to bite
the biggest bullet bearing down on him and bag the manufacturing part of his
business before it drags the whole enterprise down with it. The rule per Rahm Emanuel is very simple: “if you have
to eat a shit sandwich, don’t nibble.” These days, no one here really wants to be in the hardware business.
Because hardware is hard. Hardware is a dirty and already over-regulated
segment, as well as fiercely competitive with few barriers to fast followers
and cheap knockoffs. And the next generation or two of consumers could really
care less about owning “stuff.” We’re moving rapidly to a digital future where
everything is about utility and easy access rather than possession and
ownership. Kids already see Pelotons as their parents’ clothing racks. If
they’re riding at all, it’s for the shared online experience of taking classes
with their friends. As soon as those social connections are again available in
real life, no kid I know is gonna be sitting all by themselves on a sweaty bike
in their basement.
But for the moment, if
there’s a short-term, silver lining for Peloton, it’s the high-value, clearly
affluent subscriber base of around three million adults (estimated at its pandemic
height). These are active customers albeit at varying price points and
accessing Peloton services through various channels that don’t necessarily
require owning a bike - much less one made by the company. McCarthy talks about
growing the subscriber base to 100 million, which sounds laughable for a
company without the cash reserves to attract and acquire new customers in an
increasingly noisy, costly, and competitive market.
As his market cap
continues to shrink, the best bet for the business and the smart money says
that he should dump the durables and get as virtual as possible as soon as
possible and then sell his subscribers in bulk to a better-financed and bigger
buyer such as Apple, whose watches are likely already strapped on most of the
Peloton subscribers’ wrists. Every day McCarthy waits to sell his wasting asset
means less money for his shareholders on the inevitable day that the business
is bought. Smart businesses get sold when the time is right; broken businesses
get bought when their moment has passed.
The even broader
message for many other companies who are slow to pull the trigger because
they’re not taking a tough enough look at where their core business is ultimately
headed, or because the current profits are just too good to give up, is that
it’s never smart to be so greedy that you stay too long at the fair. Or take
too long to react to serious changes, shifts in consumer behavior or
preferences, and new competitive offerings in your marketplace. You never want
to try to take the very last dollar off the table or to precisely time the
market.
That said, timing is everything.
And if you aren’t willing to make the hard choices, kill even a golden goose
occasionally, and cannibalize yourself when necessary (before someone else does
it to you), you’re going to be left behind. You need to know when to go - even
if it’s not abundantly clear at the moment you decide - because 100% certain is
almost always too late. You need to change before you have to or have no
choice. A year from now, you’ll wish you made the necessary changes today.
Change is always
expensive. It’s just a matter of when, what, and how much you pay: you can pay
early to make the required changes or pay later-- and typically a lot more--
for not having made them. Making even costly changes at the right time is
infinitely preferable to being forced to make them at a time that’s
inconvenient, abrupt, and even embarrassing. Netflix waited way too long to ‘fess up to
the millions of its users who weren’t paying for subscriptions and continues to
pay every day.
The fat cat national
automobile insurers soaked their low-mileage, limited-use consumers for decades
by charging them the same standardized premium rates as they charged heavy,
daily users and regular commuters. They continued this practice through much of
the pandemic even as their insureds woke up to the obvious fact that they
weren’t doing any driving or getting into accidents with their cars sitting
unused in their garages.
Companies like Mile
Auto, which charges its customers on a per-mile used basis, stepped
up and seized the opportunity to offer a better, fairer and less costly alternative.
Now the big guys are not only playing catch-up, but they’re also crushing their
own existing books of business as each current insured they convert from a full
pay prior policy to their new pay-by-the-mile services costs them serious
premium dollars.
Waiting for the exact
right time to move rarely works today. It may bolster short term results, but
in the long run, the more likely result is lost opportunities, customers, and
market share. Someone’s always waiting just around the corner to eat your
lunch. If you’re smart, you’ll be the first in line for a bite.
In Flanders Fields by John McCrea
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved,
And now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”
Sunday, May 29, 2022
A lengthy list of Trump’s disastrous business deals
Column: A lengthy list of Trump’s disastrous business deals — compiled by his newest business partners
Donald Trump, business genius?
(Associated Press)
BY MICHAEL
HILTZIK BUSINESS COLUMNIST
MAY 18, 2022 3:54 PM PT
Donald Trump’s business
history has been so filled with disastrous ventures that it’s been hard to keep
track of them all.
No longer. Digital World Acquisition Corp.,
which is the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, taking Trump’s
“Truth Social” media platform public, has conveniently listed them in a document it is required to file
publicly before selling stock. DWAC is aiming to raise at least
$875 million.
Some followers of Trumpworld may find that the
S-4 registration statement filed Monday in anticipation of the Trump-SPAC
merger makes hilarious reading. It’s certainly thorough, though there’s always
the chance that a business failure here or there escaped its drafters’ notice.
President Trump is
involved in numerous lawsuits and other matters that could damage his
reputation, cause him to be distracted from the business or could force him to
resign from TMTG’s board of directors.
— Digital World
Acquisition Corp. Form 2-4
The litany appears in a section of the S-4
headed “Risk Factors,” specifically “Risks Related to our Chairman President
Donald J. Trump.”
Because the success of the merged company
depends in part on “the reputation and popularity of its Chairman, President
Donald J. Trump,” his background is obviously pertinent.
The document also lists other more typical
risks, including regulatory and competitive issues and “fires, floods,
earthquakes, power losses, telecommunications failures, break-ins, and similar
events,” but never mind them now.
Let’s delve instead into the Trump-related
risks.
“A number of companies that were associated with
President Trump have filed for bankruptcy,” the document states. “There can be
no assurances that TMTG [that is, Trump Media & Technology Group] will not
also become bankrupt.”
Let’s start with Trump’s casinos in Atlantic
City:
“The Trump Taj Mahal, which was built and owned
by President Trump, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991. The Trump Plaza,
the Trump Castle, and the Plaza Hotel, all owned by President Trump at the
time, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992. THCR, which was founded by
President Trump in 1995, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004. Trump
Entertainment Resorts Inc., the new name given to Trump Hotels & Casino
Resorts after its 2004 bankruptcy, declared bankruptcy in 2009.”
Then there’s the list of “companies that had
license agreements with President Trump [that] have failed”:
“Trump Shuttle Inc., launched by President Trump
in 1989, defaulted on its loans in 1990 and ceased to exist by 1992. Trump
University, founded by President Trump in 2005, ceased operations in 2011 amid
lawsuits and investigations regarding the company’s business practices. Trump
Vodka, a brand of vodka produced by Drinks Americas under license from the
Trump Organization, was introduced in 2005 and discontinued in 2011.”
Also, “Trump Mortgage, LLC, a financial services
company founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased operations in 2007.
GoTrump.com, a travel site founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased
operations in 2007. Trump Steaks, a brand of steak and other meats founded by
President Trump in 2007, discontinued sales two months after its launch.”
The S-4 also observes that “President Trump is
involved in numerous lawsuits and other matters that could damage his
reputation, cause him to be distracted from the business or could force him to
resign from TMTG’s board of directors.”
Among them, the document specifies that “a
congressional committee is investigating President Trump’s role, if any, in
violence at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Two groups of U.S.
Capitol Police officers, in two separate lawsuits, have sued President Trump
for allegedly inciting riots on that date.”
Further, the S-4 mentions other “ongoing
litigation involving President Trump related to the 2020 election,” including a
lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, and a criminal
investigation launched by “the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney’s office
... into President Trump’s alleged interference in the presidential election.”
Also, “the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Reform is investigating President Trump’s alleged
destruction and removal of classified documents and White House records, as
well as potential inaccurate financial statements filed by the Trump
Organization in relation to the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. "
Separate investigations have been launched by
“the New York County (Manhattan) district attorney, the New York attorney
general, and the Westchester County district attorney to determine if the Trump
Organization made false valuations of property to avoid tax liability and for
other financial benefits.”
The document continues, “On April 25, 2022, a
New York state court judge held President Trump in civil contempt for failing
to comply with a subpoena for documents related to the New York attorney
general’s investigation of the Trump Organization. President Trump, along with
his three eldest children (including Donald Trump Jr., a TMTG board member),
are defendants in a class-action lawsuit accusing them and the Trump Corp. of
defrauding investors in exchange for secret payments from multiple companies.”
Also, “The Trump Organization recently paid
$750,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia accusing the
organization of misusing nonprofit funds from the 58th Presidential
Inaugural Committee.”
On top of that, “President Trump is the
defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed against him by E. Jean Carroll who
claims that President Trump defamed her when he denied her allegations of
sexual assault against him. In the past, President Trump has been involved in
multiple lawsuits and settlements — and the subject of numerous accusations
that did not result in legal action — related to sexual conduct and alleged
misconduct.”
For investors, the scariest line in the entire
document may be this: “The foregoing does not purport to be an exhaustive
list.”
The S-4 cites a USA Today article from 2016
finding that “over the previous three decades President Trump and his
businesses had been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal and state
courts. ... In the 1,300 cases where the record establishes the outcome,
President Trump settled 175 times, lost 38, won 450, and had another 137 cases
end with some other outcome. In the other 500 cases, judges dismissed
plaintiffs’ claims against President Trump.”
So if you’re inclined to invest with Donald
Trump, don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik
writes a daily blog appearing
on latimes.com. His seventh book, “Iron Empires: Robber
Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America,” has just been published
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/hiltzikm and
on Facebook at facebook.com/hiltzik.
BECAUSE THE REPUBLICANS ARE A BUNCH OF MONEY WHORES OWNED BY THE NRA
Why
do we let children buy firearms?
By Ruth Marcus
Deputy editorial page editor|
May 27, 2022 at 9:32 a.m. EDT
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Why do we let children buy guns? They can’t purchase alcohol or cigarettes in this country until age 21. But deadly weapons? Under federal law, you need to wait until 21 to get a handgun, although there are easy ways around that restriction. If you’re 18 and want a semiautomatic assault rifle? No problem, except for a handful of states with stricter rules — and those are being challenged in court as unconstitutional.
The back-to-back massacres of the past two weeks underscore the insanity of this approach. In Uvalde, Tex., Salvador Ramos bought two assault rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition just after turning 18 earlier this month. On Tuesday, he opened fire at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 students and two teachers.
Ten days earlier, Payton Gendron, also 18, allegedly killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket with a legally purchased Bushmaster semiautomatic.
Their young ages are sadly typical. In 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, murdered 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. In 2012, Adam Lanza, 20, killed his mother, then headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where he fatally shot 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018. Dylann Roof was barely 21 when he murdered nine people during a Bible study meeting at a Charleston, S.C., church.
Raising the minimum age for gun purchases wouldn’t solve the problem — not in a country with more guns than citizens. In the Sandy Hook shooting, Lanza used guns his mother had bought legally. Harris and Klebold persuaded an older friend to purchase some of the guns they used at Columbine. But in Uvalde, Buffalo and Parkland, the killings were carried out with guns that were legally purchased by the shooters themselves. What rational society allows that?
And although not all mass killers are young — the average age is 33, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government — the tragic fact is that the perpetrators of school shootings tend to be young, current or former students. A Post database of all school shootings found that the median age of the shooters is 16.
As President Biden put it in his remarks to the nation after Tuesday’s massacre, “The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong.” Indeed, even President Donald Trump, in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, called for raising the minimum purchase age to 21. “Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue — I hope!” he tweeted after meeting with Parkland students.
Basic neuroscience supports the notion of limiting the sale of lethal weapons to the young. Prefrontal cortexes, responsible for impulse control, don’t finish developing until the mid-20s. In the meantime, young people are more susceptible to acting on anger and aggression. Crime statistics bear that out. According to the Giffords Law Center, 18-to-20-year-olds account for 4 percent of the U.S. population but 17 percent of known homicide offenders.
There ought to be a law — specifically a federal law. The current system is riddled with loopholes. The rule restricting handgun purchases to those 21 or older applies only to federally licensed dealers. Private sales — remember the gun show loophole? — aren’t covered.
The 18-year-old minimum age for purchases of long guns also applies only to sales by licensed dealers, meaning that buyers even younger can get such weapons in the 17 states that do not set a minimum age for buying long guns.
Senate Democrats — Cory Booker (N.J.), Robert Menendez (N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) — have proposed a broader federal licensing bill that would impose a minimum age of 21 for all firearms purchases. Don’t hold your breath.
In the aftermath of the Parkland shootings, Florida adopted such a rule. But only five other states — California, Hawaii, Illinois, Vermont and Washington — require that buyers of some or all long guns, including assault weapons, be at least 21.
And those laws, as my colleague Charles Lane recently observed, are under assault in the federal courts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit heard oral arguments in March in the National Rifle Association’s challenge to the Florida law.
Just two weeks ago, a divided panel of the 9th Circuit struck down California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic rifles to anyone under 21.
The opinion, by Trump appointee Ryan D. Nelson, opened with a paean to Colonial-era youths. “America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army,” he wrote, joined by fellow Trump appointee Kenneth Lee. “Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.”
Seriously?
Tell that to the parents of the dead fourth-graders in Uvalde. This isn’t about
who could carry muskets back then. It’s about who has access to deadly weaponry
today, guns more lethal than the authors of the Second Amendment could ever
have imagined.
Saturday, May 28, 2022
THIS FILTHY REPUBLICAN ATTENTION WHORE IS UNFIT TO BE A HUMAN MUCH LESS A MOTHER
PEOPLE IN COLORADO MUST BE EVEN STUPIDIER THAN THE IDIOTS IN GEORGIA SUPPORTING MTG
LAUREN BOEBERT SHOULD BE IN JAIL NOT CONGRESS
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