I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or bad thing. Like most coastal states have concluded, there is nothing positive to be expected from the federal government until at least January.
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A president’s cabinet should be ‘‘all hands on deck’’ all the time.
This one’s been ‘smoke and mirrors’ while Trump siphons your taxes into his wallet and the GOP guts our democracy.
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Great article in the New Yorker on McConnell:
A must read. You’ll need a long shower and stiff drink after this long read you’ll be so disgusted.
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This fact is why it’s hard to “make this illegal”. And real estate is hardly homogeneous. What is one townhouse on Capitol Hill worth compared to some other one? Depends on how large it is, what shape it’s in, how close it is to the Metro station, etc. And being “tens of thousands more” when the property is worth $900k is not such a dramatic overpayment that law enforcement is going to be interested.
I mean, sure, it’s dirty. But thinking of a remedy isn’t as easy as one might think.
The Trump real estate deals with Russians buying apartments in Trump Tower include many more flagrant examples of money laundering/obvious bribery.
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What can I say – Thank You!
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That’s pretty dramatic. I think it holds up over the next 5 months.
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“The gift ban is one of the most basic legal frameworks for preventing corruption. Lobbyist gifts to lawmakers is akin to a bribe.”
And then we have the Supreme Court and its nod and wink to overt corruption in McDonnell v United States 792 F. 3d 478, vacated and remanded.
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The Russians and Mark Zuckerberg haven’t deployed the serious wetwork against Biden yet. Give it time.
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That ruling essentially said there is no such thing as bribing a public official.
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“Burr sold the small townhouse, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, for what, by some estimates, was an above market price — $900,000 — to a team led by lobbyist John Green.”
OK …
“If it was purchased for more than that, it would be considered a gift. Gifts of significant value from lobbyists are generally banned by Senate ethics rules, and those that aren’t are typically required to be publicly disclosed. Neither Burr nor Green disclosed any such gifts.”
OK, so was it sold above market value?
“Tax assessors valued the Washington, D.C., home for $796,720 in 2017, more than $100,000 less than Green and his business partner paid for it. But tax assessment values in the city often come in under market prices.”
So, that’s irrelevant. Was it sold above market value?
“The analysis found that comparable properties in the immediate vicinity sold in the year preceding for between $725,000 and $989,000, with an average sale price of about $855,000. But the analysis found that Burr’s home included a one-bedroom rental unit and is within walking distance of the House of Representatives, making it more attractive. The analysis found two similar homes, which sold for $898,000 and $989,000.”
No, it was not sold above market value. I hope he will go down on the stock sale, but he’s not going down on this.
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So here we have a senator who sells his townhouse to a lobbying firm at an exaggerated price at the same time he was lobbying other senators for the firm’s benefit. How is this not illegal?
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If a Senator does it that means it’s legal.
Felony stupid!
By [Paul Krugman]
Opinion Columnist
Trying to predict Trump administration actions really is like Kremlinology, updated for the age of social media. There’s clearly no formal policy process; Donald Trump acts on impulse and intuition, often shaped either by whoever he last met or what he last saw on Fox News, making no use of the vast expertise he could call on if he were willing to listen. Those of us on the outside, and from all accounts, even many people within the administration try to infer what’s coming next from tweets and statements by people presumed to be in favor at the moment.
So what does Trumplinology suggest right now? That Trump really, really wants to end the economy’s lockdown very soon. Early Monday Trump tweeted out an [assertion] that he has the power to overrule state governors who have imposed lockdown orders — which suggests that we may have a constitutional crisis brewing, because as far as anybody knows he has no such power. Meanwhile, in an interview with The New York Times, Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade czar, [argued] that a weak economy might kill more people than the virus.
The thing is, as far as I can tell epidemiologists are united in the belief that it’s far too soon to be considering any relaxation of social distancing. The lockdowns across America do seem to have flattened the curve, allowing us to avoid — just — completely overwhelming the health care system. New cases may have peaked. But you don’t want to let up until you’re in a position to do so without giving the pandemic a second wave. And we’re nowhere close to that point.
So where’s this coming from? I’ve seen some people portray it as a conflict between epidemiologists and economists, but that’s all wrong. Serious economists know what they don’t know — they recognize and respect experts from other disciplines. A survey of economists found almost [unanimous support for “tolerating a very large contraction in economic activity until the spread of infections has dropped significantly.”
No, this push to reopen is coming not from economists but from cranks and cronies. That is, it’s coming on one side from people who may describe themselves as economists but whom the professionals consider cranks — people like Navarro or [Stephen Moore], who Trump tried unsuccessfully to appoint to the Federal Reserve Board. And on the other, it’s coming from business types with close ties to Trump who suffer from billionaire’s disease — the tendency to assume that just because you’re rich you’re also smarter than anyone else, even in areas like epidemiology (or, dare I say it, macroeconomics) that require a great deal of technical expertise.
And Trump, of course, who was planning to run on the strength of the economy, desperately wants to wish the coronavirus away.
The reality is that we shouldn’t consider opening the economy until we have both reduced infections dramatically and vastly increased testing, so we can crack down quickly on any potential re-emergence.
The good news is that many governors seem to understand that, and that Trump probably can’t override their better judgment. The bad news is that America’s governors — who are turning out, on the whole, to be better than we deserve — are having to fight a two-front war. Not only are they having to fight a deadly disease, they’re having to fend off a national leader who is doing all he can to sabotage their efforts.
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Isn’t the problem here that the sale was off-market? Doesn’t a rational seller want competition for what he’s selling in order to get the highest price? And doesn’t a rational Republican always want to make buyers poorer and sellers richer?
In a short statement, Green said, “I have not lobbied the Senator or worked on an issue with his office personally since 2016.”
A classic non-denial denial if I’ve ever seen one. Everything about it hinges on ‘personally’.
How about ‘personally since 2016 or anyone representing me or my interests’. But that’s probably not the truth, is it?
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This house is in my neighborhood. Congressman Gianforte from Montana lives in it now. He’s renting the top two levels.
Houses around mine are going for ridiculous amounts of money to lobbyists and associations. $900,000 would actually be a reasonable price for an off-market sale for this house even in 2017. The problem Burr gets into here is his association with John Green.
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