Trump family tried to vote absentee in the NYC mayoral election:
- MELANIA: Didn't follow directions to sign envelope so her vote didn't count
- IVANKA: Sent it on election day, too late
- JARED: Never sent ballot
- DONALD: Got his own b-day wrong by a month
Honestly, voting by absentee is relatively easy to do. Just don't do any mistakes done by the Trump family.
"Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly subpoenaed Trump family financial records from the German financial giant Deutsche Bank, a move that could signal a major new direction for his inquiry."
"Deutsche Bank has so far not accommodated or discussed American requests for information about the Trumps' accounts. The German business newspaper Handelsblatt, which first reported the subpoena, quoted a spokesman saying that the bank cooperates with official investigators but would not discuss individual cases."
"In one of the most horrendous blows to press freedom since the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Justice has forced the news broadcaster RT America to file under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)."
"The assault on RT America, on which I host the show “On Contact,” has nothing to do with the dissemination of Russian propaganda. It is driven by RT America’s decision to provide a platform to critics of American capitalism and imperialism, critics who lambast a system of government that can no longer be called democratic. And it is accompanied by the installation of algorithms by Google, Facebook and Twitter that divert readers away from left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, including Truthdig. The World Socialist Web Site has seen its search traffic from Google fall by 74 percent since April. Google, in a further blow, this month removed RT from its list of “preferred” channels on YouTube. Twitter has blocked all advertising by the channel."
"Put the censorship campaigns together and the message is clear: Left-wing critics, already marginalized by the state, must be silenced."
"But the controversy over "rigging" has obscured a deeper and more fundamental issue with the party: its problems with money. From top to bottom, the party is being eaten alive by graft, and the political consequences are profound."
"Bribery is when you take direct quid pro quo payments in return for political favors. I give my congressman a sack full of cash, he agrees to vote against a plan to make me stop pouring carcinogens into the local river. However, this has the disadvantages of being illegal, relatively easy to discover, and not actually that profitable for the politician. Even a pretty big sack, after all, can only hold a few tens of thousands of dollars."
"So bribery doesn't pay nearly so well as, say, a consulting contract. Suppose I have a nice lunch with my congressman, and casually let it slip that when he's done honorably serving the public, and he's looking for another step in life, of course my firm (Coal Ash Solutions) would be very interested in hiring someone with his considerable expertise. I don't even hint at the fact that 100 percent of the people working for my company are in favor of pouring carcinogens into the river, because I don't have to."
"That's the way graft is conducted in the modern age. No explicit favor trading, nothing illegal, just above-board influence peddling — in which many, many times the value of that sack full of cash changes hands."
"This is why Republicans have been pursuing union-busting policy with a furious intensity since the 1930s. It might help profits here and there. But it's mainly about keeping labor politically quiescent — frightened of unemployment, and willing to quietly submit to whatever terms — or abuse — the boss feels like dishing out. As Michal Kalecki wrote about why businessmen always, always hate full employment policy, despite the fact that it generally means greater profits: "'[D]iscipline in the factories' and 'political stability' are more appreciated than profits by business leaders."
"That holds doubly for someone like Ricketts, who already made his gigantic fortune. Taking a hit to the tune of a few million bucks to stick it to some workers who won't take dictation is well worth it for the fear it will instill. It's basically just another campaign contribution. But it also sets another example — why unions are needed, now more than ever."