The Republicans' Tone-Deaf Dumpster Fire "Convention"

 

A grifting, pay-to-play Republican shitshow to keep the Malignant Fascist's needy ego inflated right before the solemn 9/11 anniversary and the mid-term disaster they're facing -- how on-brand:

The Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention is quickly becoming a Trump-style grift.

Puck reports that the National Republican Campaign Committee, which is hosting the September event, is asking for House members to pay a minimum of $25,000 to attend the two-day event in Dallas with a guest, with higher packages costing as much as $100,000. On top of that, the event is taking corporate sponsorship dollars, which are going to a nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors.

All this is for a convention that doesn’t include any actual party business, since no candidates are being nominated like in presidential election years. The whole thing appears to have been planned haphazardly, with invitations only going out in the last few weeks to Republican leaders and lawmakers, many of whom have other commitments. [Ed.: they have commitments to keeping their jobs by distancing from the tanking MF.]

“It’s yet another opportunity to shake down corporate America,” one Republican strategist told Puck, adding that it has turned into a “shit show.”

“Nobody understands why we’re doing a midterm convention. It’s just another show that Trump is going to put on to remind the voters that he is sitting there, and maybe they don’t want to be reminded of that,” the strategist added.

The convention is also taking place on September 9 and 10, right before the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The images out of the event are going to be of the wealthy Republican elite partying right before commemorating one of the biggest tragedies in American history.

That’s a bit on the nose for President Trump’s second term, which has seen him focus on lavish, unnecessary projects and celebrations rather than the Americans struggling due to his unnecessary war in Iran and mismanagement of the economy. This convention, much like his Freedom 250 celebrations this summer, will most likely end up being an expensive, sparsely attended dumpster fire benefiting only himself and his wealthy allies.  (our emphasis)

Like the big Malignant Fascist- funded ad buys the Republicans are planning that purportedly will be only talking about the MF's "achievements" (Ed.: like the Iran quagmire, $4+ gas, $5.60 diesel, rampant corruption, measles and cyclosporiasis outbreaks, etc.), the "convention" was clearly ginned up as an opportunity for the MF to feel adored and relevant in front of a select audience.  Transparently operating as an adjunct to the Trump crime organization now, the shakedowns, graft, and Gilded Age displays we hope will only fortify public revulsion toward this collection of corrupt fascist bootlickers.  Hope.

The Trump Crime Family's Grift Bank

 

If you haven't read about this latest Trump Crime Family get-rich-quick grift, Christopher Bates at Electoral-vote.com has a brief summary of the "World Liberty Bank":

"The griftwatch is eternal with this president. We could easily write an item about grifty behavior from him and/or his kids every single day, and not run out of things to cover. The only reason we don't is that it quickly moves into beating-a-dead-horse territory. Everyone should know he's on the take, at this point, and that the powers that might hold him accountable (outside the court system, sometimes) are not currently doing so.

"This story is sleazy enough, however, that we just could not let it pass. World Liberty Financial (WLF) is, of course, the Trump family's crypto business. However, it cannot legally issue its own stablecoins (bitcoins tied to reserves of some commodity, commonly U.S. dollars) because it is not a bank. Instead, it has to rely on a middleman and, of course, the middleman ends up with some of the profits and a lot of the power.

"The owners of WLF (including the Trumps, who hold 38% of the company in their own names) do not want to give up their profits or power. So, they have come up with a solution: World Liberty Bank. WLF applied for a charter with the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and yesterday federal officials who work for Donald Trump gave preliminary approval to Donald Trump to open his own bank.

"It is not a done deal yet. There are still hoops to be jumped through, and maybe the Trumps won't be able to jump through them all. Or maybe it will take long enough that by the time final approvals roll around, the Department of Treasury will no longer be under the control of Trump, and will say "no." These are possibilities, though we are not at all confident in them.

"If the Trumps do get to run their own bank, particularly if Trump is still president (and Todd Blanche is still AG), the possibilities for grift are endless. Trump was already bandying about ideas for a third Trump-branded cryptocurrency. Imagine how many different coins they might issue, and how much they might fleece the rubes the base for, especially if the wolf is guarding the henhouse. Trump also has a habit of ordering his businesses to transfer funds to his personal accounts, and then having the businesses declare bankruptcy. This is what happened with his casinos and it could happen here. Perhaps most obviously, a Trump-run bank would allow for money laundering on an industrial scale. The first 50 accountholders would all be Russian oligarchs.

"It is clear, at this point, that Trump does not give a damn about hiding his corruption. He was more subtle during Trump v1.0, but now all bets are off. Maybe this is a variant of his usual strategy of muddying the waters with so much crap, it's hard to focus on any one bad act. Or maybe he's just gotten more desperate, since his time as president (and maybe his time on Earth) will soon run out. The Democrats are going to try hard to make this stick to the President and his Party in 2026. We do not know if they will be successful, but we do know that Trump has given them an embarrassment of (purloined) riches to work with."

We see the primary business for this "bank" would be to launder money for oligarchs and criminal organizations around the world, with the Trump Crime Family getting their beak wet at every transaction.  The voiding of this charter needs to be among the first acts of a new Democratic administration (if we get there and elect a junkyard dog Democrat as President).  Hoping for prison for some or all of the participants in this outrageous, unprecedented scheme may be too much to hope for, but it's sure goddamn deserving.

(Image:  Alexandra Citrin-Safadi/WSJ)

 

Trump's "Public Nervous Breakdown" Continues -- The Grifting Golden Calf

 

Shameless is as shameless does:

"My faith," derived from "Two Corinthians" no doubt --

"Now, we interrupt this campaign for some more grifting" --

Where are all those dollars from all those cult sheeple ending up?  The Malignant Loser's legal fees, his businesses, his pocket (?).  Is he building a nest egg for exile in Russia or Venezuela?  Just askin'!

BONUS:  More grifting!

Grifters, Tramps, And Thieves

What's the big deal about having your bank account drained if it means overturning a free and fair election and installing a megalomaniac fascist as president- for- life?

Amanda Wick, an investigative counsel in the House Select Committee, reported that the Trump campaign raised an eye-popping $250 million from his claims, sending millions of emails -- millions -- between Election Day and January 6, maintaining that the money was for the "official election defense fund." That fund did not exist.

 

Instead, Trump poured the cash into his Save America PAC, where he could use it with few restrictions. Some of the funds went to the Trump Hotel Collection, and a nonprofit created and run by his chief of staff, Mark Meadows. [snip]

The Trump campaign's alleged grift was well underway long before Election Day. He showed no compunction about tricking his supporters. In one of the most shameless scams, the Trump campaign extracted tens of millions of dollars by setting up the donations page on the campaign website that by default turned every donation into a recurring payment, according to reporting last year by the New York Times.

 

The scam snagged huge amounts of money. Among those who got caught up in it were Trump supporters -- including a cancer patient -- who saw their bank accounts drained. Complaints about the scheme overwhelmed fraud lines at credit card companies, according to the Times report. Despite issuing more than $122 million in refunds, campaign spokesman Jason Miller downplayed the controversy, arguing campaign records showed only a small percentage of complaints.

 

Not content with that shakedown, the campaign added another default setting, a so-called "money bomb" that doubled the donation of Trump supporters they took for suckers.

And the dumbass suckers were, and continue to be, more than happy to be grifted.

But wait, there's more!

Shamelessly grifting your credulous supporters of course has a long history in the Republican/ Seditionist/ White Christofascist Party.  The Washington Post's Greg Sargent recently interviewed historian Rick Perlstein, offering this brief intro/ overview:

Historian Rick Perlstein, who has written many books about the American right, is uniquely suited to place this story in the larger context of the modern conservative movement’s predilection for such grift.

At least since the 1960s, Perlstein argues, conservative elites have seen extremist tendencies on the right as a ripe target for manipulation, for the purposes of mobilizing mass political movements. That has often shaded into money-raising schemes that smack of outright grift.

Perlstein has traced this pattern from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Republican presidential campaign through conservative activist Richard Viguerie’s self-serving direct mail fundraising in the 1970s. It runs through Ronald Reagan’s 1966 bid for governor of California, his 1980 presidential race and even his hawking of miracle cancer cures.

It goes through Newt Gingrich’s 1994 House takeover and then through the tea party. Now, it runs right down to Trump’s monumental stolen-election scam.

The interview is must- read.

But, we repeat, the dumbass suckers were, and continue to be, more than happy to be grifted, whether it's horse de- wormer cures, caravans at the border, or funding "election fraud" litigation that never happened.

And the collateral damage to truth, domestic tranquillity, institutional legitimacy, and democracy is a price these grifters, tramps, and thieves are more than happy to sustain in their pursuit of power for power's sake.