Did she have her coat on?
A good week:
It may be more profitable for Melania to stay married and living apart in luxury in New York, on his dime, while extracting as much moolah to salt away as possible, rather than go through all the hassle and expense of fighting out a divorce settlement. Plus I’m sure there’s a prenuptial agreement that’s likely to limit how much she’d get in a split.
Yes, although ISTR she renegotiated her prenup between Election Day and his inauguration.
True dat – but perhaps it made it more profitable for her to stay married than to go ahead with a divorce, since that would be better for Trump’s image. After all, there she was, suddenly thrust into a First Lady role she clearly didn’t want, wrenched away from her friends and lifestyle in New York and having to play political wife rather than just generic arm candy for a geriatric blowhard. If I were her I’d have made it pay off big to stay in the marriage.
Given current events, it’s worth a lot to Trump that the marriage continue, because that’s one fewer person who can testify against him.
They break up, she gets subpoenaed.
She probably has some interest in staying in the marriage also, to avoid all this hassle. And one may also wonder whether she has inside knowledge of the various schemes that puts her at risk of being pulled into conspiracy charges and gives her a Fifth Amendment claim to avoid testimony.
Even so, his interest in keeping her off the stand clearly dwarfs hers. I hope she made that clear and got the requisite payoff.
I hope for Barron’s sake she’s getting her consideration in cash and tangible assets solely in her name. Betting on shares of the family business, future inheritance, or position seem fraught with legal troubles internal to the family and external (so many lawsuits).
Again, I only have sympathy for Barron at this point, because he didn’t chose to be born into the family, and may or may not be as corrupt as the others as time goes by. I have no sympathy for Melania, she is an adult, and knows exactly what she wanted and was willing to do to get it.
Oh sure, I expressed the hope that she got paid not for the sake of her security and comfort but solely because I enjoy the thought of anyone, even her, getting one over on the miserable tight-fisted bastard she’s married to, and extracting blood from that notoriously ungenerous stone.
No problem or disagreement, I was just amplifying that I hope when they re-upped as it were, she locked it away in a format of real assets, rather than the more typical (as NY cases are proving) access or shares of assets whose value comes from a “gut feeling”.
This is super minor, but still enjoyable. Trump likes to come to Arizona and rile people up. As usual, he doesn’t like to pay for the venue.
His last venue is going broke.
Troubled Mesa sports facility Legacy Park headed for auction
Great, so now Trump can pick up another property cheap, inflate the value, and use it as collateral for something else.
A complete break down of just how screwed Rudy is. MeidasTouch (10:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lngXPf20Is0
Rudy Giuliani is getting older, and he may never have quite come to terms with some aspects of modern life and how computers and cell phones work. I wonder how much of Rudy’s discovery woes are willful, and how much are that he just doesn’t understand how this stuff works?
In other words, crook or moron? The eternal question.
Over-rated as mayor, lived on “911”, aided and abetted a smear campaigns and insurrection against the legitimate government of the United States. The smear and government attacks have been going on since at least 2015. He didn’t fall down and bump his head. He acted repeatedly, willfully and with knowledge of his actions. Rot in jail. I actually don’t expect him to live to see the cell. But I hope it’s Epstein’s.
More likely this… “Giuliani’s lawyers maintained this his searches were adequate and argued that it would cost more than $320,000 for him to access the database containing messages from before the seizure of his devices.”
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/giuliani-sanctioned-failing-produce-records-defamation-case-2023-06-23/
The thing is that that is absolutely ridiculous. There is no way it costs 300K to run a keyword search on a database. So the question is, has someone convinced Rudy that it does cost that, and he’s to stupid to understand he’s being bullshitted? Or is he trying to bullshit the court?
And as I learned by watching ‘Painkiller’ on Netflix, Rudy was part of the legal defense team for Purdue Pharma which negotiated a sweet plea deal which allowed them to avoid jail time and just pay a hefty fine.
It’s a funny thing you should bring this up but I’ve thought for a while someone could put together a musical review of sorts about Trump just using Randy Newman songs.
From Lonely at the Top
I’ve been around the world
Had my pick of any girl
You’d think I’d be happy
But I’m not
Ev’rybody knows my name
But it’s just a crazy game
Oh, it’s lonely at the top
Listen to the band, they’re playing just for me
Listen to the people paying just for me
All the applause-all the parades
And all the money I have made
Oh, it’s lonely at the top
Listen all you fools out there
Go on and love me-I don’t care
Oh, it’s lonely at the top
Oh, it’s lonely at the top
And from Political Science
No one likes us
I don’t know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around
Even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one
And see what happens
We give them money
But are they grateful
No, they’re spiteful
And they’re hateful
They don’t respect us
So let’s surprise them
We’ll drop the big one
And pulverize them
And there’s also a solo tune for Mike Pence about his experience at his first DC social event:
Mama Told Me Not To Come
Will you have whiskey with your water
Or sugar with your tea?
What are these crazy questions
That they’re asking of me?
This is the wildest party there ever could be
Oh, don’t turn on the light 'cause I don’t want to see
Mama told me not to come
Mama told me not to come
Mama said, “That ain’t no way to have fun”
Open up the window, let some air into this room
I think I’m almost choking on the smell of stale perfume
And that cigarette you’re smoking 'bout to scare me half to death
Open up the window, let me catch my breath
I could actually go on with other Newman songs that would work but I don’t want to over do quoting of lyrics or copywritten material.
I have unconfirmed reports that he did question it at one point saying “It used to be only 25 cents/gallon”
Here’s a fun 007 gag relating to IQ45.