Trump, In New Hissy Fit, Wants to Fire Wilbur Ross

Commerce Secretary Wilber Ross, official portrait.

President Trump, apparently thinking he is still on his NBC reality TV show, wants to fire Commerce Secretary and noted grifter Wilbur Ross for not successfully defending his indefensible politicization of the 2020 Census. Previously, the president had unsuccessfully sought to fire his Justice Department lawyers for the same reason.

Per ZeroHedge:

“Ross would be the 10th Senate-confirmed member of the Cabinet to leave the administration, in addition to dozens of senior officials, including five communications directors, two chiefs of staff, two national security advisers, two press secretaries, the Federal Bureau of Investigations director, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the National Economic Council director, the Small Business Administrator and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.”

More:

“Trump weighs ousting Commerce chief Wilbur Ross after census defeat,” Hans Nichols, Kayla Tausche, CNBC and Hallie Jackson, NBC News

“Trump Musing Again That 81-Year-Old Commerce Secretary Who Sleeps In Meetings And Mumbles On TV Might Not Be At Top Of His Game,” Thornton McEnery, Dealbreaker

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Image (“Wilbur Ross Official Portrait”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Rule of Law? That’s Just for Little People.

The Mnuchin family sees $1 bills for the first time.

Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Plutocrat Steven Mnuchin, in defiance of federal law, has refused to send President Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee for oversight review. He’s clearly going to go to the slammer in an attempt to shield Mr. Trump’s long-time business chicanery from law enforcement. Although it won’t be as comfy as his 9-bedroom house in DC or his Bel Air estate, perhaps Mr. Mnuchin can bunk with fellow Trump fixer Michael Cohen at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution.

More:

“Here’s the Law That Requires Mnuchin to Turn Over Trump’s Taxes, or Lose His Office and Go to Prison,” David Cay Johnston, Daily Beast

“Bill Barr Is The Sideshow, Steven Mnuchin Is The One Who Needs To Lose His Job And Go To Jail,” Elie Mystal, Above the Law

“Turn over Trump’s tax returns? IRS has no excuses,” Brian Galle, The Hill

“Why Mnuchin Doesn’t Want You to See Trump’s Tax Returns,” Timothy L. O’Brien, Bloomberg

Related:

“Why rich convicts hire prison consultants,” Ritu Prasad, BBC News

Updates:

“House committee subpoenas Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig over Trump tax returns,” Jeff Stein, Washington Post

“House Ways and Means Chairman Subpoenas Trump Tax Returns,” Nicholas Fandos, New York Times

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Wilbur Ross Explains It All To You

Commerce Secretary and grifter Wilbur Ross (net worth: $440 million — or maybe $2.9 billion) expressed puzzlement over why unpaid federal workers need to go to food banks during the Trump government shutdown when they could get loans. Perhaps they can use their art collections as collateral. It’s true that the Commerce Department Credit Union offers loans to unpaid federal employees — at nearly 9 percent interest. What GS-4 wouldn’t jump at that?

Access to the President? Join the Club!

Membership has it’s privileges, especially for those who shelled out $300,000 to join the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey.

Back in November, President elect Donald J. Trump paraded his prospective cabinet officers into the clubhouse of his Bedminster golf club for job interviews. Now it turns out he invited random club members to sit in. Politico just got the audio, recorded by someone who was in the room. Here’s a transcript:

“We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow — generals, dictators, we have everything. You may wanna come around. It’ll be fun. We’re really working tomorrow. We have meetings every 15, 20 minutes with different people that will form our government.”

“We’re going to be interviewing everybody — Treasury, we’re going to be interviewing Secretary of State. We have everybody coming in — if you want to come around, it’s going to be unbelievable….so you might want to come along.”

The pattern continues now that Donald Trump is President and Golf-Cheat-In-Chief. While he was entertaining Japan’s Prime Minister Abe in the public dining room of his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida ($200,000 membership fee), aides alerted him about a North Korean ballistic missile test, and they discussed the US response in full view and earshot of the club’s members. One club member even got a selfie with the serviceman who carries the “nuclear football.” House Oversight Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz was not amused.

Mr. Trump believes that only the rich should play golf, so if you have the bucks to pay and play, you can chat with him about the nation’s business as well as your own.

More:

“Leaked Trump tape: ‘You are the special people,'” Darren Samuelsohn and Anne Karni, Politico

“Trump ran a campaign based on intelligence security. That’s not how he’s governing.” Philip Bump, Washington Post

“Sun, Sand and Influence: For Mar-a-Lago Members, Proximity Is Power,” Nicholas Confessore, Maggie Haberman, and Eric Lipton, New York Times

“Trump’s Presidency ‘Enhances’ a $200,000 Mar-a-Lago Membership,” Chas Danner, New York Magazine

“Democrats demand Mar-a-Lago list of members, visitors,” Matthew Nussbaum, Politico

“Shouldn’t We Know Who Else Is at the ‘Winter White House’?” George Zornick, The Nation

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Jeb Drops Out

John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, 3th Earl of Bush son of the 41st US president and brother of the 43rd, has suspended his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The Republican Party establishment faces a grim choice: Hold its nose and back Rubio, pretend John Kasich can win, or move even more of its personal wealth to Cayman Island banks.

More:

“Jeb Bush never really had a chance in the 2016 presidential race,” Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

“Unforced errors and miscalculations end Bush’s White House hopes,” Steve Holland, Reuters

“Jeb Bush: The big campaign that just couldn’t,” Janelle Ross, Washington Post

“Fall of the house of Bush: how Jeb fell victim to hype, hysteria … and himself,” Sabrina Siddiqui and Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian

“The overhyped rise and spectacular fall of Jeb Bush, in 19 devastating quotes,” Becca Stanek, The Week

“Bush’s Befuddled Goodbye and the Risks of Trump Denialism,” Amy Davidson, The New Yorker

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Congress Doesn’t Need Those Paychecks

With great fanfare, the do-nothing Congress passed the “No Budget, No Pay” bill, threatening to withhold congressmen’s paychecks if they don’t pass a budget. But Congress can’t really mess with its own pay. So what happens if a budget doesn’t pass? Paychecks get deposited in an escrow account and members of Congress get paid in full, all at once at the end of the current term.

“But a more significant problem is that most legislators probably couldn’t care less if their pay was withheld indefinitely. As of 2011, the average estimated wealth of members of Congress was $6.5 million in the House and $13.9 million in the Senate. And unlike many of their constituents, they haven’t exactly been struggling through lean times recently. While average American households saw their median net worth drop 39 percent from 2007 to 2010, lawmakers’ rose 5 percent during the same period.”

— “No Pay, No Problem: Why Congress Doesn’t Need Our Money,” Tim Price, Next New Deal

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Mitt Romney’s America

Ex-financier Willard Mitt Romney was whoopin’ it up at an intimate $50,000-a-plate dinner-for-150 at the palatial estate of kinky fellow plutocrat Marc Leder when some class traitor secretly recorded the GOP candidate’s run-down on the “Other Ranks.” 47% of Americans pay no Federal Income Tax, he confided, and it’s not because they’re compensated in capital gains or have elaborate off-shore bank accounts like real Americans. Our U.S. corporations simply pay them too little to cover their family upkeep, and those wretched, gummint-dependent ingrates won’t vote GOP in November anyway, so screw ’em.