What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[CountDeMoney]

I draw the line on my microwave spying on me

Fuck 'em.  They want to fill entire data centers with me bitching about the crisper sleeves for my Hot Pockets, they can knock themselves out.

[Fate]

I don't like news organizations publishing someone's tax return without their permission. What did we learn that was worth violating Trump's privacy? How is this newsworthy?

Really? The point where you draw the line on privacy is tax returns?

Given that these tax returns are totally normal, yeah, he should get to maintain his privacy. What public interest is served by the publication? If journalists could use these tax returns to corroborate a story on Russian influence then I'd totally support their actions. MSNBC seems to just be going after short term ratings/viewership.

Right now all we've learned is that Trump has tons of deductions relative to his income so he was forced to pay the AMT. He doesn't like the AMT and wants to get rid of it. Probably like most people forced to pay the AMT...

[The Minsky Moment]

The return is not very useful without the supporting statements and schedules.
A few things that seemed interesting:
+ Nearly 10M in taxable interest. Not sure what this would be.  It's pretty common for wealthy types to have big bond portfolio - but usually tax exempt (both Ross Perot and Mitt did that).  It may be that Trump set up his RE holdings in a way to give rise to taxable interest payments.  But why?
+ What is the 40+M in business income? (as distinct from the larger amount in RE vehicle income and cap gains).
+ To what extent is the 100+M loss related to the 916M loss recognized back in 95 as reported in the NYT story?
+ He seems to have paid over 150k in interest and penalties.  Probably for late payment of estimated tax.

The AMT angle has been covered.  Otto also pointed out the fact that this was the year the big West Side project was sold - this was likely a flattering year.  It does look like a plant of some sort - and someone really motivated by exposure would have included the schedules.

[Fate]

Crazy. I guess when you're that rich a 150k fine is meaningless compared to the cost of making accurate and timely quarterly payments. :O

[jimmy olsen]

Lol, can't wait for Trump to unload on Twitter against Snoop.

https://www.cnet.com/news/snoops-trump-clown-youtube-music-video-outrage-rubio-toy-gun-lavender/

Right on cue!

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump  4h4 hours ago
More
Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!

Nothing seems to have happened to Ted Nugent.

[The Minsky Moment]

Crazy. I guess when you're that rich a 150k fine is meaningless compared to the cost of making accurate and timely quarterly payments. :O

He paid in 22M with his extension request.  150K is less than 1 percent of that.  Judging from the interest income he got that year, he probably did OK.

[celedhring]

From WaPo:

Federal judge freezes Trump's new travel ban hours before it was to take effect

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I actually think the law is on Trump's side, but judges tend toward procedural conservatism and a TRO is pretty easy to get. A TRO is somewhat of a conservative approach because it basically freezes things until they're litigated further. I think Trump and his Justice Department need to resolve themselves to having to litigate this out if he really wants to pursue it.

[jimmy olsen]

Just as expected

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2017/03/the_powerlessness_of_mattis_mcmaster_and_tillerson.html

The Grown-Ups Are Locked Out

Trump is depriving Tillerson, Mattis, and McMaster of any real influence or support.

By Fred Kaplan

The few grown-ups in Trump's Cabinet are getting sidelined, their expertise goes ignored, and the pledge that they could choose their own teams—an assurance they were given upon taking their jobs—lies in tatters. With each passing day, it seems clearer that this wreckage stems not from President Trump's administrative sloppiness but from a deliberate strategy to concentrate power among his circle of confidants—and to strip power from all other quarters of the federal government.

Trump's critics cheered when he named Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, one of the U.S. Army's smartest and most insistent officers, as his national security adviser after Michael Flynn was forced out in scandal. Trump assured McMaster that he could clean house at the National Security Council—a promise that many assumed meant the imminent ouster of K.T. McFarland, a Fox News commentator that Trump had made deputy national security adviser, and the dismantlement of a parallel NSC structure set up by White House political strategist Steve Bannon. But three weeks after McMaster's installment, there are no signs that either of these things is happening. And just last Friday, McMaster tried to remove Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a 30-year-old Flynn acolyte, from the post of NSC intelligence director—and was overruled by Bannon and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.

Across the Potomac, in the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense James Mattis had to withdraw his choice for undersecretary for policy after meeting disapproval from the same duo. (The official story was that a few senators would have opposed her nomination, but their concerns could easily have been overcome.) Mattis has been fuming since the inauguration over White House attempts to stack his deck with political hacks—and over repeated rejections of his own choices.

Remarkably, Trump has not nominated a single second- or third-tier official in the Defense Department. Obama's deputy secretary of defense, Robert Work, agreed to stay on until a replacement was found. But all of the under- and assistant secretaries left on Inauguration Day—some by choice, others at the insistence of the White House—and the people sitting in their chairs in an "acting" capacity are very junior with no authority to speak for the Trump administration.

The State Department is an even more hollow shell. As with the Pentagon, Trump hasn't nominated a single deputy, under-, or assistant secretary. Rex Tillerson's choice for deputy, Elliott Abrams, a former Bush White House official, was rejected by Trump after he learned that Abrams had criticized him during the election. And so Tillerson roams the globe alone, accompanied neither by the press corps nor by a Trump-approved entourage, assuring allies that the United States is still committed to their security. Meanwhile, Trump meets with foreign leaders in the White House or at his Florida resort accompanied by Bannon, Kushner, and sometimes a few others, but not by Tillerson or anyone else from Foggy Bottom (a nickname that has never been more apt).

What can the grown-ups do about this? Not much. Mattis has exerted his leverage on at least two occasions. The first came early on, when he avidly opposed a draft executive order that would have resumed CIA operations at "black" detention sites and reopened the debate over torture. (Mattis learned of the draft from newspaper reports.) Trump backed down, saying that he disagreed with Mattis, but would defer to him, on torture policy.

The second incident occurred more recently when Mattis delivered an ultimatum concerning Mira Ricardel, a Trump defense adviser, now at the Office of Presidential Personnel, who has been blocking Mattis' picks. Either she goes or I go, Mattis told the White House, according to Wednesday's issue of Defense News. The White House backed down, moving Ricardel to another position—for now.

Mattis figures he has considerable leverage. The Senate confirmed him, even though recently retired generals are barred by law from becoming secretary of defense unless both houses of Congress pass a waiver, precisely because he was viewed as a counterweight to Flynn and, ultimately, Trump. If Mattis were to resign, national security experts on Capitol Hill, in the think-tank world, and among U.S. allies would panic. However, someone in this position can threaten to resign only so often, and his leverage diminishes—he's viewed as less and less of a team player—each time he puts his fate on the line.

McMaster is in a more awkward spot still. He gained fame 20 years ago as the author of a dissertation-turned-book that criticized the Joint Chiefs of Staff for failing to give their honest military advice to President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War. McMaster was a mere major when he wrote that; it could have ended his career except that Gen. Hugh Shelton, the JCS chairman at the time of publication, liked the book and championed its author. McMaster built a solid warrior's record in the decades since in both Iraq wars, but his wider reputation is based on his insistence that subordinates speak truth to power.

Yet, unlike some other generals who have taken the national security adviser job, McMaster held on to his stars: He is an active-duty three-star and so must view the president not only as the object of his advice but also as his commander-in-chief. As a result, he can only go so far—not as far as Mattis, who hung up his uniform three years ago—in challenging the president, much less in posing demands or ultimatums. (It was precisely for this reason that Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft retired from the military after President George H.W. Bush named him national security adviser: Scowcroft wanted to avoid the potential conflicting perspectives.)

Now, in a sense, Mattis and McMaster are trapped. Looking around, they've probably sensed that Team Trump is even more unhinged than they'd expected. On the one hand, their sense of integrity, combined with the betrayals and the chaos, might tempt them to resign. On the other hand, their sense of patriotism might compel them to stay: When some international crisis does occur, better that someone with a clear head is close to power.

Both Mattis and McMaster are in tight spots for another reason: Smart and skilled as they are, neither of them has ever held a powerful job in Washington. (Except for a brief spot on an informal "colonels' council" to "think out of the box" on the Iraq war, McMaster has never worked in Washington at all.) They don't know the ways of high-level bureaucratic politics. Outside of the Middle East, where they have spent most of their time in command positions, they've had little experience dealing with global politics or foreign policy. They need a strong second-tier of deputies and staff to help shape their positions on the issues and protect their flanks on the homefront. Right now, they have neither—and much of this is Trump's deliberate doing.

When I wrote on Feb. 9, three weeks into his presidency, that Trump hadn't yet nominated any officials below Cabinet secretaries, his inaction could be pegged to inexperience. Now, five weeks later, that's no longer a plausible excuse. Trump has spent his entire life in a family business which he came to control, and he views his current job the same way: as a position of unbridled power, with that power to be delegated only to loyal friends and relatives. (A Tuesday New York Times story reveals just how deep this tendency goes. Trump's point-man on Israeli–Palestinian talks, for instance, is his company's longtime lawyer, whose only qualification for the job is that he vacations in Israel.)

Mattis, McMaster, and Tillerson don't fit into this picture. Trump might have thought they did when he picked them. He'd heard that Mattis' nickname, from his time in the Marines, was "Mad Dog." Who knew that he carried around a copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in his rucksack during battles; that he owned a library of 6,000 volumes and regularly consulted them for lessons; and that he opposed torture, once telling Trump that he could get more out of a detainee with a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers? Trump had heard that Tillerson was a great deal-maker at ExxonMobil. Who knew that he'd be so wedded to multilateral organizations like NATO?

We all hoped that Mattis, McMaster, and to some degree Tillerson would add a dash of sane, worldly wisdom to Trump's unsteady narcissism. And maybe they still will. But Trump is a shrewd player of tight-knit power games. He seems to be rolling them more than they're containing him.

[jimmy olsen]

Lol 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/03/15/angela_chen_trump_park_avenue_buyer_has_chinese_intelligence_ties.html

Woman Who Paid Trump $16 Million Cash for Apartment Has Ties to Chinese Military Intelligence

By Ben Mathis-Lilley

In late February, Mother Jones broke the news that Donald Trump had sold a $16 million Park Avenue penthouse to a woman named Angela Chen who runs a consulting firm that connects foreign clients with influential people in China. It's a shady transaction—the president, who sets America's policy toward China, getting paid millions in cash by a Chinese power broker—and it looks even shadier now that MoJo has documented Chen's work with, and personal ties to, a Chinese intelligence front group. Here's the gist:

•Angela Chen, in addition to her work as a consultant/broker, chairs the United States wing of a nonprofit cultural-exchange group called the China Arts Foundation.
•The China Arts Foundation was founded by a woman named Deng Rong. Deng Rong's father, Deng Xiaoping, was a contemporary of Mao's who succeeded him as the leader of China. Deng Rong is also a vice president of an outreach group called the China Association for International Friendly Contacts, or CAIFC, that has co-hosted events with the China Arts Foundation.
•The China Association for International Friendly Contacts is widely considered to be a propaganda/intelligence wing of the Chinese army. In fact, individuals in both the Republican National Committee and the State Department have raised concerns about the group's financial overtures to former U.S. officials—the latter under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when Bill Clinton was considering giving a paid speech at an event co-sponsored by the CAIFC and Angela Chen's China Arts Foundation. (He apparently decided not to make the speech.)

So, Donald Trump just took $16 million cash from a woman with close ties to a foreign intelligence group that both Republicans and Democrats have suggested is involved in the inappropriate purchase of U.S. influence.

[Jacob]

I expect it's going to be a mutually beneficial relationship - both Trump and his associates, as well as the Red Prince oligarchs that Chen are well positioned to help one another profit from their official positions, as well a hiding that profit from the public eye.

[CountDeMoney]

Der Furor is in Nashville right now, ginning up the crackers over the Not-as-Islamic-as-the-last-one travel ban.  Unpresidented judicial overreach!

[CountDeMoney]

"We're going to keep our citizens safe and regardless, we're going to keep our citizens safe, believe me."  Our borders have been "weakened and endangered, leaving our people defenseless."

Mentioned Hillary, got everybody to chant "Lock Her Up,", and after frothing about the Muslims, now it's all repealing and replacing "horrible, disastrous Obamacare."  "Victims so horribly hurt by horrible Obamacare."  If only people could buy the insurance they wanted.   

The media are "bad people, folks, bad people."

[Syt]

A news tracker: https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/

[FunkMonk]

Journo Twitter is fun and illuminating sometimes:

@GlennThrush: Senior aide to Hill GOP leadership on Trump/budget: 'its a joke...we've learned not to listen to anything he says or does. We're on our own'