By Will Durst
10. PROPOSAL TO GIVE TEACHERS GUNS. Brilliant idea. And the cure for concussions is hammers. It admittedly would add an interesting element to the faculty lounge. Might help parent teacher conferences resolve a little earlier. Of course then all the school employees would want them. And the librarians would demand silencers on theirs.
9. KIM KARDASHIAN MEETS WITH TRUMP. In May, the two broke the old record for largest assemblage of White House ass, set in 1978 when Jimmy Carter welcomed the Upper Michigan Donkey Basketball Champions. Five months later her husband Kanye West set the bar even higher. Or lower.
8. KIM JONG UN & THE SINGAPORE SUMMIT. A win- win. Trump got a great photo op and Kim Jong Un got to leave North Korea and eat real food.
7. BOOKS ON TRUMP. 4 major publications and every one calls him nuttier than the hospitality suite at a squirrel convention. Stormy Daniels said his male member looks like a mushroom prompting a protest from the American Mushroom Institute. Apparently, every twenty years America needs to know the shape of the leader of the leader of the free world.
6. VLADIMIR PUTIN & THE HELSINKI SUMMIT. The president made Neville Chamberlain look like a mixed martial arts champ. He sucked up so hard he probably left hickeys.
5. UN LAUGHS AT TRUMP. After he claimed to be the best president EVER, they laughed. And because of translation delays, it was a slow ripple of laughter punctuated by the occasional guffaw.
4. WHITE HOUSE CORRUPTION. His malfeasance is so large it can be seen from space. Rick Gates testified under oath he stole money from Paul Manafort who stole money from Donald Trump who stole money from everybody. These guys are the Russian nesting dolls of crime.
3. THE KAVANAUGH HEARINGS. Women outraged for being disenfranchised and white men outraged for… having their entitlements challenged.
2. THE BLUE WAVE. Against all odds, the Democrats actually exhibited a pulse. The midterms were less of an election and more of an intervention.
1. DONALD JOHN TRUMP. Refuses to release his DNA to prove he’s a carbon- based life- form. The president calls his administration a finely tuned machine, which certainly sounds better than out- of- control dumpster fire but might be a little less apt.
Will Durst is an award- winning, nationally acclaimed comedian, and columnist. For past columns, commentaries and a calendar of personal appearances, visit willdurst.com.
will, good wrap-up. what more for us to look forward to in the new year?
raw story getting us ready for today’s change of plea:
Maria Butina’s Republican boyfriend claimed he used NRA as a ‘conduit’ between Trump and Russia
[…]
Butina, a 30-year-old Russian gun rights activist, worked for years to cultivate relationships within Republican and NRA circles. She was charged with working as an agent of the Russian government earlier this year and on Monday agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges and cooperate with prosecutors.
In her plea deal, Butina admitted that she and “US Person 1,” who is longtime Republican operative Paul Erickson, “agreed and conspired, with a Russian government official,” whose description matches Russian banker and close Putin ally Alexander Torshin, for Butina to “act in the United States under the direction of Russian Official without prior notification to the Attorney General,” ABC News reported.
[continues]
faulty headline. am sure he meant to say “grifter”
Donald Trump Jr calls his father a Christmas ‘regifter’
yeah Will Durst!
Just saw something funny on FB… MAGA now stands for… Mueller Ain’t Going Away.
daily beast:
Sen. James Inhofe Bought Defense Stock Days After Pushing for Record Pentagon Spending—Then Dumped It When Asked About It
Just days after signaling his support for unprecedented levels of U.S. defense spending, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, reported purchasing tens of thousands of dollars of stock in one of the nation’s top defense contractors.
After The Daily Beast asked about the purchase, Inhofe’s office said the senator had contacted his financial adviser to cancel the transaction and instructed him to avoid defense and aerospace purchases going forward.
Inhofe, who took over the top spot on Armed Services after the death of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in August, has repeatedly pressed President Donald Trump to dramatically scale up the Pentagon’s annual budget, which currently stands at $717 billion. Last week, after Trump hinted he would like to scale back parts of that budget, Inhofe met with the president and Defense Secretary James Mattis, after which it was announced that the administration would seek even more defense funding: a record $750 billion in spending for fiscal year 2020.
News of that budget request broke on Sunday. On Tuesday, Inhofe’s financial adviser bought him between $50,000 and $100,000 in stock in defense contractor Raytheon, according to documents filed with Senate ethics officials.
Federal lawmakers are prohibited from trading stock based on non-public information. But since news of Trump’s massive Pentagon budget request was already public when Inhofe purchased the stock, it likely would not have run afoul of congressional insider trading laws even if Inhofe himself were behind the transaction.
But the Raytheon stock purchase still raised a flag for government ethicists, who said it underscored the moral hazard of lawmakers owning assets in areas of industry affected by legislation they are in positions to author and shepherd into law. No federal rule or regulation would prohibit Inhofe’s investment adviser, or any other, from trading stocks based on the actions of their congressional clients, even without direct input from those clients. Nor is Inhofe prevented from seeing what stocks are in his portfolio. The latest stock purchases were posted publicly on a Senate database.
[continues]
from msn:
President Donald Trump’s White House reportedly will not host a holiday party for members of the press this month.
Trump himself canceled the annual shindig, making “the decades-old tradition a victim of his increasingly contentious relationship with major news organizations,” Fox News reported Thursday morning.
[…]
The Washington Post last week speculated over the future of the holiday party, noting that the “White House hasn’t said the event is off — but it hasn’t scheduled it, either.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
love the one-antlered pence
Sounds as if Inhofe was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. A period of several days should shield him from criticism provided his portfolio of defense-related shares is an open book.
What about our Democratic farmer friend. Should he be prohibited from entering the futures markets for the crops he sows? I think not as hedging must be a tool in every farmer’s shed.
These deals done by honorable people will pass the smell test–otherwise…
Durst is just brilliant. If I had an ass (I’ve been accused both of being one and not having one – you figure it out) I’s be laughing it off.
Flatus, if our Dem farmer friend purchased soybean futures based on nonpublic info on soybean subsidies, that would probably run afoul of the rules. If he planted more soybeans to take advantage of the strengthened market, that would probably not. the ethics rules are so porous that it probably wouldn’t make a difference anyway. I mean it’s congressional ethics we’re supposedly talking about – and really, are there any?
All i want for Xmas is more Trump self-incriminating tweets…
wapo on butina:
A Russian gun rights activist pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring with a senior Russian official to infiltrate the conservative movement in the United States as an agent for the Kremlin from 2015 until her arrest in July.
Maria Butina, 30, became the first Russian national convicted of seeking to influence U.S. policy in the run-up and through the 2016 election as a foreign agent, agreeing to cooperate in a plea deal with U.S. investigators in exchange for less prison time.
Butina admitted to working with an American political operative and under the direction of a former Russian senator and deputy governor of Russia’s central bank to forge bonds with officials at the National Rifle Association, conservative leaders, and 2016 U.S. presidential candidates, including Donald Trump, whose rise to the Oval Office she presciently predicted to her Russian contact.
“Guilty,” Butina said with a light accent in entering her plea with U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan at a hearing Thursday morning in federal court in Washington.
As part of her plea, Butina admitted seeking to establish and use “unofficial lines of communication with Americans having influence over U.S. politics” for the benefit of the Russian government, through a person fitting the description of sanctioned Russian central banker Alexander Torshin, prosecutor Erik Kenerson said.
Court documents indicate that Butina worked closely in her efforts to advance Russia’s interests with a Republican Party consultant with whom she had a romantic relationship after they met while he visited Moscow in 2013.
[…]
Butina’s case is a vivid “part of larger mosaic of Russian influence operations” laid out in part by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference, said David Laufman, former chief from of the Justice Department’s National Security Division’s counterintelligence section from 2014 until earlier this year.
“This case shines important light on the nature and aggressiveness of Russian influence operations targeting the United States, a threat that we need an unequivocal U.S. government commitment to counter, including the president of the United States, and both houses of Congress,” he said.
In plea documents read by prosecutors in court Thursday, Butina admitted undertaking a multiyear influence campaign coordinated through Torshin, a top Russian official, that she proposed in March 2015 as multiyear “Diplomacy Project.”
[…]
In plea papers, prosecutors agreed to drop a second count against Butina of violating a law that requires foreigners working for their government to register with the U.S. Justice Department. There is no suggestion in the documents that Butina was employed by the Russian intelligence services, but violations of the law are considered more serious than a separate law that requires registration by paid lobbyists for foreign entities.
Under her deal, Butina agreed to cooperate “completely and forthrightly” with American law enforcement about “any and all” matters deemed relevant by the U.S. government, including participating in interviews and debriefings outside the presence of her lawyers, testifying and providing sworn, written statements.
Butina faces a possible maximum prison sentence of five years followed by deportation. Under the deal, her defense agreed that she could face a recommended zero to six months in prison under federal guidelines, and could seek a lower sentence. Prosecutors did not agree on any guidelines range, but agreed to request leniency if she provides “substantial assistance.”
[…]
In the “Diplomacy Project,” Butina suggested using unofficial channels to influence U.S. foreign policy.
Butina had served as an interpreter for Torshin, an NRA member, as he attended its annual conventions, and her profile as a self-made gun activist in Putin’s restrictive Russia charmed American associates.
Butina and Torshin invited NRA leaders to Moscow in December 2015, a delegation that includedDavid Keene, a former NRA president and past head of the powerful American Conservative Union. Documents reviewed previously by The Washington Post show the group met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
After the meeting ended, Butina sent Torshin a message: “We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later.”
courier journal:
GE Appliances actually applies for ‘Big Boy’ trademark after ‘SNL’ skit
this is what inspired the above
A commercial advertises GE’s new line of home appliances made for men.
Breakthrough in the US v donald j. trump Obstruction Case
NEW: Donald Trump was the third person in the room in August 2015 when Michael Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker discussed ways Pecker could help counter negative stories about Trump’s relationships with women, NBC News has confirmed.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-was-room-during-hush-money-discussions-nbc-news-confirms-n947536 …
At the scene of the crime. Alleluia !
HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY !
‘TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY,
WALLA WALLA, WASH AND KALAMAZOO !
How great my joy,
joy, Joy, JOY !
Finding the Butina case interesting. Putin asks “who is she?” another coffee girl situation no doubt. What is interesting is she is spilling the beans, doing time and then being deported. Her attorney is not that good, it should be talk, time and new identity.
Right now all sorts of things are breaking news about SFB. Nothing like Christmas to get people in the giving spirit.
Al$o, the roughly $50,000,000$ mi$$ing from the inauguration fe$tivitie$ fund. Were these monie$ given a$ part of quid pro quo agreement$ ? Did the trump gang pocket the booty ? Did trump him$elf pocket the loot, him$elf ?
Everything is just another opportunity to launder money