TWIT: Merrick the Timid

credit: M. Luckovich

Now that his taxes for the last six years are public record, pundits have been diving into the details, and they are finding a lot of potential illegal tax evasion by Herr Trumpillini.  My goodness, what is it going to take to get an indictment of this white-collar criminal, who happens to be a former el presidente?  Perhaps the most blatant evasion is his repeated use of Schedule C to claim business losses for businesses that did not make a dollar of income.  He suffered a defeat in a 1984 New York administrative court battle for exactly this practice of offsetting taxables income with Schedule C losses from companies he owns (Trump Org is composed of over 500 taxable entities).  The judge in that case wrote a scathing opinion disallowing the deductions.  Trump filed 65 Schedule Cs of which 26 had zero revenue in the returns made public.  Quite a hobby!  David Cay Johnston explains Trumpillini's tax scheming in his book "Big Cheat".

Congresse's resident tax experts, the Joint Committee on Taxation have raised five red flags that merit further inquiry.  In just one example from 2016, Trump registered $30 million in earnings, but claimed $60 million in losses.  He paid just $750 in taxes that year; in 2020 he paid none.  Some of those losses may be personal expenses, which are not deductible.  In several instances the income reported exactly matched the losses reported.  For example the filing for DT Endeavor LLC showed income of $680,886.00 and the exact same amount in losses.  He deducted expenses of $342,182 for a rental property that did not generate a single dollar of income, raising the question of whether the property was for personal use.  He deducted what may be gifts to his children which he reported as loans to avoid the stiff gift tax rate of 40%.

Then there is the $21 million deduction for a land conservation easement on his New York Seven Springs estate in 2015 that is being litigated by New York's Attorney General.  She alleges that the property received inflated asset valuations to increase the size of the conservation deduction.  And he also took a $1.3 million credit for taxes paid to foreign countries in 2018 without providing a receipt.

If Merritt Garland gives this grifter/tax chet a pass he will destroy what is left of the DoJ's claim to fair and impartial law enforcement in this country.  His apparent unwillingness to prosecute a person who committed the greatest crime in the United States of this century--one that corrupted the very fundamental political process on which our Republic rests--is incomprehensible and unacceptable.  Passing legislation to plug the obvious lacuna in our federal election process is simply an inadequate response.  The man "who lit the fire" must answer for his crimes in federal court.

credit: B. Plante
BJ Idonwanna sez:  Repugnant? You bet'cha.

COTW: Europe Finds Alternative Gas

At the beginning of the war on Ukraine, the EU was dependent on Russian natural gas supplies.  Putin knew this, so began using natural gas as weapon against the west for its support of Ukraine's fight against aggression.  Northern European nations began searching for alternative supplies last summer to replace Russian cutbacks.  This chart of the benchmark Dutch natural gas futures, shows how they are performing:

From a spike in August,  futures are now trading at €82/MWh, down 77%.  The plunge in price is caused by two factors, a reduction in demand (conservation) and new sources of gas supply.  LNG imports from the US have surged. Norway has increased its production by 8% over last year to record levels.  The NATO nation supplies the most natural gas to Europe.  New infrastructure has also been constructed.  In an amazing engineering feat, Germany built an LGN terminal and 26 miles of pipeline in 5 months.  Storage facilities are close to capacity:  Germany, France, Belgium, and Denmark are all over 80% full.  Austria is at 90%.  Russia is loosing a lot of money in the face of European resolve.  It cannot sell its supply to other customers because the distribution network is fixed, and there are no LGN export facilities linked to the production sites.  

This is good news for Ukraine.  Europe is not feeling pressured to abandon its support because of a manufactured energy crisis.  Ukraine continues to win on the battlefields. Its forces on are on the verge of retaking another major Donbas town, Kreminna.  Observers say if the town is recaptured, the entire Russian front line could collapse since it offers a direct path to the industrial cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.  Ukraine's courageous soldiers continue to hold on to Bakhmut despite what both sides describe as a "meat-grinder" in the bitter cold.  President Zelinsky should be careful not to overplay his hand, however. Retaking the Crimea by force will be a Herculean task.  Putin indicated that he was ready to talk now that his army has suffered devastating losses in men and material.  Zelensky will do well to call his bluff.

 

Happy Holidaze from PNG!

Oswald and the CIA

US Person told you how Kennedy was actually killed when he started this blog in 2006.  He largely ignored the recent release of more government records concerning the assassination sixty years after the fact.  He considered the documents released to be inconsequential, or concerning information already in the public domain.  That assumption has proven accurate, but Intercept.com draws his attention to some interesting, previously unrevealed facts.

The relationship Oswald surely had with the CIA is one of the enduring mysteries of modern American history.  One of the intersections between Lee Harvey and the "company" occurred during his service at Atsugi Naval Air Station, Japan in 1957.  Stationed there as a young radar operator,  Oswald had access to top secret material.  The station was a starting point for secret U-2 spy plane missions over the Soviet Union.  It was also a location for the CIA's experimentation with LSD as an interrogation tool, and for doping agents to be sent overseas on dangerous missions.  Author David Talbot wrote in his Devil's Chessboard biography of spymaster Allen Dulles, that some investigators of Oswald's bizarre life think he was subject to this experimentation as a young Marine at Atsugi.

One of the documents released last week is a memo refuting the allegation that Oswald was recruited by the CIA at Atsugi. This claim was made by a former GS-4 finance clerk who served the agency in Tokyo in 1960-64.  James Walcott Jr. told the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 that the CIA hired Oswald.  Recall that this period of time was the height of the Cold War, yet nine days after his discharge from the Marines the broke Oswald sailed to England and hitched a ride on a military aircraft to Finland. He stayed two nights in expensive Helsinki hotels before boarding an overnight train to Moscow.  There Oswald requested asylum, and eventually renounced his American citizenship,  He was given a job in a radio factory and met his wife.  This sojourn is astonishing, but not as astonishing as his return to the US two and a half years later.  Could a recently discharge enlisted Marine with top secret knowledge of spy flights make such a trip without the cognizance or even the cooperation of the CIA?  US Person thinks that scenario very implausible, if not impossible.  It makes more sense that, indeed, Oswald was working for the agency.

Oswald may even have had a control by the name of George de Mohrenschildt, a sophisticated businessman, who became Oswald's unlikely friend in the months before the assassination.  That Mohrenschildt was a CIA asset is known, but two documents in the release show the CIA conducted searches of de Mohrenschildt as he traveled to the East Coast in the Spring of 1963. CIA's Domestic Operations Division covert arm was then run by E. Howard Hunt, who later went on to be head of Nixon's "plumbers" unit responsible for the Watergate break-in.  Later in his life, Hunt allegedly told his sons he knew of a high-level conspirarcy involved in  the Dallas ambush.  Hunt is  not a credible witness.  Nevertheless, a majority of Americans believe that Kennedy was the victim of a conspirarcy that went far beyond Lee Harvey Oswald.  He was at work in the Book Depository Building  on February 22nd, but he did not fire the killing shot.  Available forensic evidence suggests that shot came from the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza.  A third of Americans  think that the CIA or its personnel were involved. Even Oswald himself told Dallas police that he was only a "patsy" before being killed by mobster-affiliated Jack Ruby in the basement of police headquarters.  Dead men tell no tales, and the secrets are still being kept. 

COTW: Flat-lined

 See this chart from WolfStreet.com?

The flat green line along the X axis is 50% of the rest of us--meaning that our wealth is so small in comparison to the top 1% that it does not register on this chart of the growth in wealth per household! The bottom 50% (63.9 million households) have so little wealth in stocks or mutual funds that the Feds "wealth effect" has no effect.  This 'effect' is due to asset price inflation which it has encouraged with cheap money also known as QE.  QE ended in 2021 when it started QT or raising interest rates in an effort to curb inflation.  The wealthy 0.1% (127,000 households) have a lot of money invested in the markets--on average $53.9 million per household in this analysis--which are pumped-up by QE.   QT has the opposite effect, showing a slight drop in their accumulated wealth (red line above), but the disparities between rich and poor in the US have never been greater.  Average net worth for the bottom--$70,800; average net worth for the top--$132.4 million.  Buddy, can you spare a dime? 

UN Biodiversity Conference Reaches Agreement

A historic agreement to protect what remains of the planet's biodiversity was reached in Montreal, Canada on Monday after extended negotiations among 190 participating nations.  The COP-15 conference was chaired by China.  It remains for individual nations to implement the agreement.  It calls for 30% of land and water important for protecting biodiversity to be protected by 2030.  Currently only 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine habitats are protected. While conservationists are generally positive about the meeting's outcome, some fear it may not be enough and too late.  Current extinction rates exceed by a thousand times greater than expected. The agreement delays prevention of species extinction and preserving genetic diversity within populations until 2050. [photo credit: AP]

Still the agreement breaks new ground in the era of the Sixth Great Extinction, generally considered by scientists to be the product of man's development and exploitation of natural resources.  It provides for raising $200 billion by 2030, and another possible $500 billion by eliminating subsidies for Nature' protection.  $20 billion annually will go to poor countries, double what they receive now.  That figure will increase to $30 billion by 2030.  Indigenous peoples' rights were explicit recognized for the first time with provisions for insuring they have a voice in decision making.

TWIT: Justice NOT Denied

It took 18 months but the January 6th Committee did its job and defended the Constitution.  Today the Committee voted to refer four federal crimes committed by the insurrectionist in chief, Donald J. Trump to the Department of Justice.  It also recommended that four of his leading co-conspirators face prosecution for plotting the overthrow of the United States government including, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, and John Eastman. The Committee summed up its extensive findings with this statement,“Each of these actions by Donald Trump was taken in support of a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.” The four criminal actions referred are: inciting or abetting an insurrection,18 USC§1512(c); conspiracy to make false statements to the United States, 18 USC§§ 1001, 371; conspiracy to defraud the United States, 18 USC § 371; and obstructing an official proceeding 18 USC § 1512(c).  The charge of seditious conspiracy was not referred to DOJ since the members could not reach an agreement on it.  Of course if more evidence is developed by the Special Prosecutor from high- level insiders, evidence of the requisite specific intent may be found.  What is clear at this point is that Individual One intended to contest a loss of the election months before it occurred. 

It should be noted that while these recommendation are not binding on the Justice Department, the referrals put considerable pressure on the Department to bring indictments. The Committee's staff was stacked with former federal prosecutors, so their evaluation of the evidence against the Conspirator in Chief should be persuasive, if not authoritative. Failure to indict the former president would undermine what credibility the Department has for impartiality,  

This is the first time in American history that a former president has been referred by Congress for prosecution.  In addition to recommending he be indicted, the Committee referred four Congressmen who refused to comply with its subpoenas to the House Ethics Committee. They are: Scott Perry (R-PA) Jim Jordan (R-OH) Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).  Given that control of the House switches to Repugnants in January, it is unlikely they will face any consequences for their contempt.

One positive development in the aftermath of this unprecedented attempt to corruptly seize power is the anticipated passage of legislation reforming the 135 year-old Electoral Count Act, which the conspirators sought to manipulate, and thereby install their leader into the Oval Office.  Absent a Constitutional amendment eliminating the antiquated and undemocratic Electoral College, reform of these rules is absolutely necessary to prevent another coup attempt by a desperate sociopath in the future.

credit: M Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
MAGAMan sez:  All I want for Christmas is bail!