While I don’t doubt that, one of the things that Richardson’s coverage does is ground my heavy pessimism: Despite Trump’s corruption, his fascist network still must operate within the bounds of the American government and voting public’s opinion, just like the early Nazi party and other elected fascist movements.
The trove of evidence is hopefully still protected by standards of federal record keeping that can reveal tampering and based on what has already been released, the regime’s ability to control that evidence seems lacking. They will no doubt play up the parts that look bad for the opposition, but if there’s a big photo of Donald J. Trump blowing Bill Fucking Clinton with the travel and financial records to put them in the same place for a weekend, how are they gonna redact that?
And from all accounts, it’s sounding like whatever is in there is Chernobyl level heat.
From a historian’s perspective, she seems to think that Trump’s sudden reversal after fighting tooth and nail to avoid this release is because he realizes he’s lost control of the House republicans on this issue as their voters are also frothing at the mouth to get these files released. And, that if he’s so afraid of what’s in the FBI’s complete set after the horror of what has already been released, what the hell is actually in there? She also seems to think that if the bill gets to his desk, he’ll all but have to release them, but personally I don’t see him ever caving to that. He could release them by executive order today if he actually wanted the files released.
Here’s my take: I find it pretty incredible that people don’t seem to understand the depths of Trumps depravity when he extorted our allies, sicked a hillbilly mob on the capital, used The Office of the President to hawk merch, and openly mocked American democracy, but grooming underage girls is where we all collectively draw the line. The mountains of evidence of his extreme criminality, his appointment of white and Christian nationalists, and his alliances with America’s sworn enemies melting down our government? Water off a duck’s back apparently.
I’m all for whatever it takes to dismantle the Trump regime, but I seriously doubt undoctored evidence ever sees the light of day. And if it does, he will be dead long before he ever sees justice for it. But, if it FINALLY sours voters enough to not vote for him in the next election, I’ll take it.
Trust me, this guy’s life is over. He will probably never fly again, or be hired to do anything else as a convicted felon except scrub toilets or sell timeshares. He owes $60,000 in restitution just to the airline, not counting the cost of lawyers. He was technically sentenced to 50 days, which has been served during the court process. The federal prosecutor being as strict as they come, only wanted a year in prison.
He’ll live as a recovering alcoholic who will forever carry the shame and weight of this mistake for the rest of his life, fully known to his friends, family, his entire former workplace, and most of the general public. And his best friend is dead.
Rest assured, I think he’s been punished quite severely.
To power the magnetic coils that provide plasma containment for an experimental fusion reactor, in order to research how to create a self-sustaining fusion reaction.
Such an achievement would be a watershed moment in human history, and most likely would usher in a new technological age of energy production.
If a software monopoly that is too large and important to society to be dismantled or avoided, and it uses that power to abuse its users and defy regulation, shouldn’t that company be nationalized?
To add to that, billionaires avoid taxes by borrowing against their astronomical securities and stock assets. This is one of the reasons interest rates are of such concern to the rich.
They can then use dividends and other liquid income to perpetually pay for the interest. If shit hits the fan, or they want to pay off the loan, then they would have to pay taxes on the income from the sale of assets.
But if you have a trillion fucking dollars in stock, paying tax on several billion dollars isn’t comparably bad, especially when you can purchase influence by manipulating society with your own social media company and inducing corruption by getting Trump elected.
The world’s richest man, ladies and gentlemen.