Emoluments Alert! Trump To Host G-7 At Doral Dump

This emoluments violation is an article of impeachment no- brainer:

President Trump has awarded the 2020 Group of Seven summit of world leaders to his private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort in Florida, the White House announced Thursday.

That decision is without precedent in modern American history: The president used his public office to direct a huge contract to himself.

Trump’s Doral resort — set among office parks near Miami International Airport — has been in sharp decline in recent years, according to the Trump Organization’s own records. Its net operating income fell 69 percent from 2015 to 2017; a Trump Organization representative testified last year that the reason was Trump’s damaged brand.

Now, the G-7 summit will draw hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel to the resort during one of its slowest months of the year, when Miami is hot and the hotel is often less than 40 percent full. It will also provide a worldwide spotlight for the club. (our emphasis)

As with all of Trump's behavior, the corrupt self- dealing in this case is jaw- dropping. Once again, to the extent Trump is sentient at all, he seems to be begging for impeachment, daring Democrats to call him on his brazen lawlessness.  (Mark Joseph Stern has a good read about how this decision by itself is worthy of impeachment.)  Democrats must call that bluff.

Of course, there's a reason this golf "resort" is in sharp decline, beyond the toxic Trump brand:  it has a long history of health inspection violations, including roaches and dirty appliances in the main kitchen, improper food storage in the club's grill, and "food debris and a mold- like substance" in an ice machine and beer nozzle at the bar.  Oh, and there's the lawsuit over...  bedbugs:

In 2016, Doral was sued by a former guest, Eric Linder, who said he had been bitten multiple times by bed bugs while staying in the luxe Jack Nicklaus Villa at Trump’s property. His complaint alleged that he awoke to discover “welts, lumps and marks over much of his face, neck, arms and torso.”

Linder alleged that the villa had “a history of severe bed bug infestation.” 

The Trump Organization denied the allegation, without going into detail. It settled the case in 2017, shortly after Trump’s inauguration. 

A resort that perfectly mirrors the seedy, crazy- as- a- bed- bug owner!

BONUS:  From the former White House ethics chief --

In case it's not clear from my freaking out, this G-7 thing is an escalation. It may look from the outside like it's been corruption all along—because it has been—but participating in a contract award to yourself is different by orders of magnitude. This is a red line crossed.

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) October 17, 2019

Tweets Of The Day -- Spineless Sycophant Edition

While in Ireland, VP Pence is staying in Trump's golf resort. Which is in Doonbeg (red pin).

His official duties are in Dublin, which is literally the opposite side of the country.

Apart from enriching the President, what is the purpose of running up taxpayer costs like this? pic.twitter.com/30QyxI5WXb

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) September 3, 2019

Trump suggested that Mike Pence stay at his Irish golf club on an official trip funded by taxpayer dollars, Pence's chief of staff told reporters. https://t.co/h57V5UZESu

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 3, 2019

In the mafia there’s a concept known as “kicking up” or “paying tribute” to the Boss - lining the Boss’s pockets to keep him happy. The Boss doesn’t have to explicitly ask; it’s understood.

Now we’ve got both @VP Pence and AG Barr spending thousands patronizing Trump hotels. https://t.co/8XKgnco8lt

— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) September 3, 2019

BONUS:  And, btw, they want you to know there's proof Pence isn't a homophobe!

Republican Judges Continue To Protect Trump

The latest evidence that our Republican- packed courts (thanks, Mitch McConnell!) are upholding existential threat Donald "Rump" Trump and not the rule of law or Constitution:

A federal appeals court Wednesday sided with President Trump, dismissing a lawsuit claiming the president is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his luxury hotel in downtown Washington.

The unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a victory for the president in a novel case brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia involving anti-corruption provisions in the emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel said the attorneys general lacked legal standing to bring the lawsuit alleging the president is violating the Constitution when his business accepts payments from state and foreign governments. The decision — from Judges Paul V. Niemeyer, Dennis W. Shedd and A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. — also stops dozens of subpoenas to federal government agencies and Trump’s private business entities for financial records related to the D.C. hotel.

Niemeyer was appointed by George H.W. Bush, Shedd by Dumbya Bush and Quattlebaum by Trump. That's a stacked deck if we ever saw one.

Justice... not so blind after all.

BONUS:  At the same time, Steve Benen reminds us that there's another Trump emoluments case in process, and that this isn't the end of the story yet.  Maybe that one won't be adjudicated by a panel of Republican hacks.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

If you take time to read nothing else today, read Jane Meyer's deep dive into the incestuous, deep and continuing relationship between Russian asset Donald "Rump" Trump and Fox "News."  Here's one example concerning the Stormy Daniels episode, which broke just before the election, and Fox's catch and kill:

After the Journal story broke, Oliver Darcy, a senior media reporter for CNN, published a piece revealing that Fox had killed a Stormy Daniels story. [Fox executive Ken] LaCorte, who by then had left Fox but was still being paid by the company, told Mediaite that he’d made the call without talking to superiors. The story simply hadn’t “passed muster,” he claimed, adding, “I didn’t do it to protect Donald Trump.” Nik Richie, a blogger who had broken the first story about Daniels, tweeted, “This is complete bullshit. Ken you are such a LIAR. This story got killed by @FoxNews at the highest level. I know, because I was one of your sources.”

Richie told me, “Fox News was culpable. I voted for Trump, and I like Fox, but they did their own ‘catch and kill’ on the story to protect him.” He said that he’d worked closely with [Fox reporter Diana] Falzone on the article, and that “she did her homework—she had it.” He says he warned her that Fox would never run it, but “when they killed it she was devastated.” Richie believes that the story “would have swayed the election.”

That's just a tiny morsel;  Meyers has the receipts on how this loathsome excuse for a "news" network became a mouthpiece for Rump and the ugly pathologies of the Republican Party.

The Booman discusses the Stupid Party (but has cautions for "too smart" Democrats):

The Republicans are losing the suburbs because they’ve become the stupid party.

If you think about this for two seconds, it makes sense. The Democrats appealed to working folks because they supported labor unions and stood up for worker’s rights. They defended people against predatory employers and exploitative industries that prey on people facing economic hardship. The Republicans don’t defend working folks at all, so the appeal has to be based on feeling. It’s values-based, but the values are populist primarily in an anti-intellectual, anti-elite sense. It’s no longer about class resentment related to poor pay, poor housing and poor working conditions. It’s about cultural resentment against people who think they’re better because they’re smarter, better-educated, more cosmopolitan, more “enlightened.”

Republicans can’t remain with one foot rooted in Wall Street and the other foot rooted in the coal and oil fields and still be a worker’s party unless they work overtime to fuel and exploit this resentment. The difficulty is that this makes suburbanites want to Clorox their cerebral cortex whenever they see an Oklahoma senator take a snowball onto the Senate floor to explain that climate change is a myth.

Add another count/ article:

President Trump sent out a predawn tweet Saturday boasting about Trump International Golf Links, constructed near Aberdeen, Scotland, among the high, wind-raked dunes along the North Sea.

“Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. Also, furthers U.K. relationship!” Trump tweeted.

The comment sparked immediate consternation from critics of the president, who suggested he was using his powerful office to advance his financial interests. The U.S. Constitution has two clauses designed to prevent a national leader from using power in such a manner.

“There it is. The president is using an official statement as an ad for his business and making sure everyone knows he ties his business to US relationships with foreign countries,” tweeted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is suing the president over these issues.

Paul Krugman looks at the consequences of Rump's trade wars.  It's not a pretty picture.

Say this for Donald Trump: He’s provided us with many iconic quotations, which will surely be repeated in histories and textbooks for decades if not generations to come.

Unfortunately, they’ll be repeated because they are extremely clear examples of bad ideas.

In economics, the line you hear most is Trump’s declaration that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” Coming in second is his assertion that “I am a Tariff Man,” coupled with the claim that foreigners pay the tariffs he has been imposing.

Now, that last claim is something you can test. Over the course of 2018 Trump imposed tariffs on about 12 percent of total U.S. imports, and many of those tariffs have been in effect long enough that we can get a first read on their consequences.

Finally, Infidel 753 is back with another heapin' helpin' of interesting links from around the internet. Always enjoyable to take some time and browse.

Trump Businesses Sue To Avoid Local Taxes

Unstable demagogue and grifter Donald "Rump" Trump boasts about his wealth every chance he gets. His puffed up claim to be worth $10 billion, though, is false, with experts putting his actual wealth at $3.1 billion. Indeed, what may have provoked his manic attacks on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was the Forbes annual list of billionaires released last month that had Bezos ranked #1 with $112 billion, while Rump fell 222 places to #766. If you don't think Rump pays careful attention to Forbes' rankings, then President Spanky is here to tell you otherwise.

But Rump is nothing if not a cheat and deadbeat. ProPublica has a report on how Rump's organization systematically sues local governments over their tax assessments to get them lowered. Ironically, his organization's standard approach is to claim the local governments over value his properties, from golf courses to high rises. The net effect is that, when Rump's succeeds, local governments' tax bases shrink, locals pay more out of their own pockets or local services have to be reduced. Rump is not unusual among real estate developers who fight local governments for reduced taxes. He is, however, in a position as President to menace them:

"'No president in modern times has owned a business involved in legal battles with local governments. The idea that the president would have these interests and then those companies would sue localities is really a dangerous precedent,' says Larry Noble, of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. The dynamic between local and federal governments is impossible to ignore in these cases, says Noble. Municipalities 'rely on resources from the federal government and the federal government can make your life easier or much more difficult.' The concern arises because the president did not fully separate from his businesses, he says." (emphasis added)

The whole emoluments issue is wrapped up in this, not only from the money that's received by his businesses, but the implicit threat of retaliation if he's unhappy with local governments in their assessments. We've seen his petty vindictiveness in settling scores, and it's not hard to imagine someone is keeping score for him on this matter, too.

(photo: Making America Grift Again)

Tweet Of The Day - "Pay Trump Bribes Here"

Genius.

Being projected on Trump Hotel in DC right now. #resist pic.twitter.com/RJEAqOnGgp

— Tim Hogan (@timjhogan) May 16, 2017

The artist in question is Robin Bell, who projected the image from a van parked across the street from the hotel/ bribe repository.

(h/t Mock Paper Scissors)

Sunday Reading

Whether you're stuck inside or not today, there's a lot of good reading to dive into.

-- Infidel 753 has assembled another eclectic link round-up.  This is the best place to start if you want a broad set of topics of interest to sample.

-- Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker has a great read about why pearl- clutching about the left having a "Trump Derangement Syndrome" completely misses the point:

... The problem is that it refuses to see, or to entirely register, the actual nature of Trump and his actions. Our problem is not Trump Derangement Syndrome; our problem is Deranged Trump Self-Delusion. This is the habit of willfully substituting, as a motive for Trump’s latest action, a conventional political or geostrategic ambition, rather than recognizing the action as the daily spasm of narcissistic gratification and episodic vanity that it truly is.

Recent broad examples of this have come from "things that go boom make Trump presidential" Fareed Zakaria (who was Gopnik's likely target because of this inane piece) and click- bait concern trollers like Caitlin Flanagan (who blames meanies like Samantha Bee for Trump's rise -- really).

-- Showing nascent signs that they may have heard the calls to "do your job," the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is asking for proof that Trump isn't violating the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution:

On Friday, the Oversight Committee sent a letter to Sheri Dillon — the lawyer who detailed how Trump planned to avoid conflicts of interest during a January 11 news conference — asking her to detail how that plan is being implemented by no later than May 12. [snip]

The Oversight Committee specifically asks Dillon for documents detailing how payments from foreign governments are identified, how they’re calculated, the manner in which they’re donated to the Treasury, how those donations are tracked and reported, whether Trump or his business plan to claim them as a gift for tax deduction purposes, and which entities within the Trump Organization will be responsible for making sure all that happens.

We're certain this caused great butthurt to Trump loyalist/ coverup co- conspirator and Committee chair Rep. Jason "Clouseau" Chaffetz, who's decided to bail out of Congress to avoid any further pain that comes from doing his job.

-- Finally, Prof. Jacquelyn Gill writes about yesterday's March for Science, and why science is intertwined with politics, especially in this age of reactionary denialism:

When science is for everyone, it is transparent, accessible and broadly communicated. It has direct benefits to public health and our economy, contributes to a culture of innovation and discovery, and supports education and engagement at all stages of life. The intersections between science and politics may feel new, but they’re not. The outcomes of scientific research have always extended well beyond the lab and the boardroom. Our work has implications for our environment, public health, civil rights, economics, education and national defense. This means science has always been political. And I believe that this is a feature, not a bug.

Tweet Of The Day - Trump's Chinese Trademark Grift

Trademarks for spas, massage parlors, bars, and private bodyguard and escort services?  Very presidentialhttps://t.co/abzSeHUqYY

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) March 8, 2017

Trump- branded Chinese massage parlors and escort services? ("Trump's Tiny Hands Massage Parlor"?  "P*ssy Grabber's Tremendous Escorts"?)

Check out the embedded story. If this is the quid, what's the pro quo?

If President Trump receives any special treatment in securing trademark rights, it would violate the U.S. Constitution, which bans public servants from accepting anything of value from foreign governments unless approved by Congress, ethics lawyers from across the political spectrum say. Concerns about potential conflicts of interest are particularly sharp in China, where the courts and bureaucracy are designed to reflect the will of the ruling Communist Party. 

Dan Plane, a director at Simone IP Services, a Hong Kong intellectual property consultancy, said he had never seen so many applications approved so quickly. "For all these marks to sail through so quickly and cleanly, with no similar marks, no identical marks, no issues with specifications - boy, it's weird," he said. (our emphasis)

 Golly, what a weird, amazing coincidence.