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tobiotetsu · 10 months

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the beast’s beauty

fushiguro toji x f!reader

description: because of your father's mistake, the infamous toji zenin forced you into imprisonment in order to pay his debt. however, what you never expected was to fall in love with the monster he was.

genre: angst, historical au, 18+, mini series

warnings/tags: explicit smut(vaginal penetration, unprotected sex, ) violence, mentions of stockholm syndrome & misogyny, blackmail, character injury, blood, profanity, mdni, grammar mistakes

a/n: to welcome our fav dilf to the jjk screen, here's a little beauty and the best retelling for toji:) reblogs are truly appreciated <3 (taglist: open) (wc:1k)

general masterlist

part one ♕ part two ♕ part three ♕ part four ♕ part five

You never enjoyed the company your father kept. Drunks, assassins, mobsters, gamblers. You would always find yourself pulling him out of taverns in the early hours of 2 to 4 am. Usually, fear would course through women’s veins if they had to enter an establishment of this kind however, that wasn't your case. You were predisposed to bars, and whore houses since you were 10.

Now here, age 22 as you make your way through the liveliest bar in town. The air stank of beer and fresh cigarettes; a smell that you've grown more than used to. Your upbringing was merited to being the only daughter of a single father. Your mother died in childbirth and your father never chose to remarry. When you were younger you thought of it as romantic, but as time went on you saw it for what it really was.

He gained a free pass to hoard whores. Your house doors welcomed a new woman every week. The most motherly advice you gained was how to seduce a man and how to keep your tits perky.

The bar was more full than it usually was. Sweaty bodies stood, all facing the same direction. A poker game was at play. By the looks of the chips stacked in the center, it looked rather intense. Your feet began to move faster as a small anxious feeling nipped at your stomach. Shoving arms and legs, you squeeze into the front of the table.

Two men were sitting at opposite ends of the table. The left side of the table was far more crowded than the right. Women were draped over the man who was seated. A hand covered the majority of his face so all that was in view were his eyes. Dark green eyes shined brightly, even though the mess of dark hair was in front of it.

‘He looked focused’ you thought. He stared ahead, not giving any attention to the women around him. You could see why they were all interested in him. Physically, he was very attractive. His legs were spread out under the table, arms crossed and sat straight. His shirt fit on his body like a glove. His shoulders, chest, and even the muscles on his torso were visible through the cloth.

Before you could notice anything a familiar voice caught your attention. At the other end of the table, you see a familiar ratted navy coat. With a far lonelier crowd, your father was squinting at the four cards in his palm.

“All in” he shouted as he pushed all his chips closer to the dark-haired man.

“Dad!” you jumped to him, clasping your hand on his wrist. As you opened your mouth to protest, a deep voice intercepted.

“Sorry, cap.” was all the man said as he displayed his cards. The faces and noise around you felt dull. Muffled voices and blurry vision were all you had as you watched your father’s cards get trumped by a royal flush.

“How much money did you bet, Dad?” The urgency in your voice was a cover for the panic. He had no money. Whatever money he did earn at his sales job was put towards the tavern and prostitutes. Whatever was left was the sum you had earned at the library.

“Sweet pea, I-I messed up,” there was a shake in your father's voice. One that you had never heard before. “It wasn’t money. Gu- I need to get”

You couldn't understand the slurred speech your father spewed.

“Gu? What are you saying, Dad?” you held your father steady near the back entrance of the building.

“Guns” your body jumped at the sound of another voice joining your conversation. You spun around to be faced with familiar eyes. They look much darker at night. The only thing illuminating the scene was a candle hanging beside the door in between you two.

“He didn’t bet money. Your father owes me guns.”

Your eyebrows pinched together in confusion.

He must be confused with someone else.

In an effort to clear your father's name you turn to him for reassurance, but all you are met with is disappointment.

“Mmm sorry. I sold the guns and I didn’t have anything else to give” Your father's voice fell flat.

“Dad, What are you talking about? Why do you have guns? What are you in?” your hands grasp his arms and shake his drunk body hoping to shake the truth out of him.”

“Your father works for my business. And he fucked up and sold my guns for bitch money.” the man said. His head tilted to the right, allowing for his face to be seen. The first thing you saw was a scar that ran through the right corner of his mouth. He was taller than you assumed he was. As he inched towards you his size grew.

“What do you want?” your voice dripped in fear.

“Well, your father here, he bet me something to act as a placeholder, till I get my guns.” he fished in his pockets as he spoke those chilling words. He retrieved a small syringe from his pocket.

Your worried eyes turned to your father but before you could protest, rough hands brushed your lips, pressing your mouth shut. You felt your skin break as a cool needle was stuck in your neck. Tears welled up in your eyes as your fear was confirmed.

You felt your own body turning into mush, your muscles stopped protesting the man's actions and started to skin into him. Your back hit his chest and your head rolled onto his shoulder. With what little power you had you flailed your limbs, but all of your efforts were met with failure.

You couldn't hear anymore, couldn't distinguish voices. Couldn't yell and scream at your father for pimping you like a whore to a beast. You didn't know whose voice it was but you were hoping their word was true, as those were the last words that you heard before you blacked out.

“I'll take care of you, I promise.”

[ jjk gen taglist: @meepmoop12w @thepsychicartist ]

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soberscientistlife · 8 days

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If Trump cannot find real dollars to back his bond, he may go to jail for not making bond.🤣🤣🤣🤣

When all your friends are mobsters

#vote blue #vote democrat #vote biden

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tomorrowusa · 11 months

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Don't think that patiently explaining the legalities and details of the Trump indictment will change the minds of the MAGA crowd about it. Those folks, like Trump, simply don't believe in the rule of law.

There may be some Republicans who secretly believe the charges have merit but are scared shitless of what may happen if they say so in public.

A reasonably healthy party might give its indicted leader some benefit of the doubt, while calling for judgment to be withheld before he has his day in court. But Republicans correctly understand that their party will consider Trump an innocent martyr regardless. The sickness of the Republican Party as it is presently constituted is that there is no conceivable set of facts that would permit it to acknowledge Trump’s guilt. What has brought the party to this point is the convergence of its decades-long descent into paranoia with its idiosyncratic embrace of a career criminal.

Yep, the GOP has been drifting in this direction for a long time. Trump's emergence finally nudged them into being a full-blown paranoid cult.

The Republican Party’s internal culture has been shaped by what Richard Hofstadter famously described as “the paranoid style” in American politics. Hofstadter specifically attributed this description to the conservative movement, which, at the time, was a marginalized faction on the far right but has since completely taken control of the party and imposed its warped mentality on half of America. To its adherents, every incremental expansion of the welfare state is incipient communism, each new expansion of social liberalism the final death blow to family and church. Lurking behind these endless defeats, they discern a vast plot by shadowy elites. In recent years, the Republican Party’s long rightward march on policy has ground to a halt, and it has instead radicalized on a different dimension: ruthlessness. Attributing their political travails to weakness, Republicans converged on the belief that their only chance to pull back from the precipice of final defeat is to discard their scruples. A willingness to do or say anything to win was the essence of Trump’s appeal, an amorality some Republicans embraced gleefully and others reluctantly. Trump, by dint of his obsessive consumption of right-wing media, grasped where the party was going more quickly than its leaders did. This aspect of Trump’s rise was historically necessary. All Trump did was to hasten it along.

This is Trump's legal philosophy (if you want to call it that) in a nutshell...

Trump was not raised in a traditional conservative milieu. He came into a seedy, corrupt world in which politicians could be bought off and laws were suggestions. He worked with mobsters and absorbed their view of law enforcement: People who follow the law are suckers, and the worst thing in the world is a rat.

Trump is basically a petty mobster. That explains why he hates the FBI.

It is the interplay of the two forces, the paranoia of the right and the seamy criminality of the right’s current champion, that has brought the party to this point. Trump’s endlessly repeated “witch hunt” meme blends together the mobster’s hatred of the FBI with the conservative’s fear of the bureaucrat. His loyalists have been trained to either deny any evidence of misconduct by their side or rationalize it as a necessary countermeasure against their enemies. The concept of “crime” has been redefined in the conservative mind to mean activities by Democrats. They insist upon Trump’s innocence because they believe a Republican, axiomatically, cannot be a criminal.

That Manichean view fits in well with the radical Christian fundamentalist tendency in the GOP. Though instead of Jesus Christ, the credo of Republicans is to accept Donald Trump as their personal Lord and Savior. By that reasoning, Donald Trump is incapable of wrongdoing.

#donald trump #trump's indictment #trump's guilt #republicans #the gop #maga zombies #the far right #the paranoid style in american politics #conservatives #election 2024 #jonathan chait

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infestedguest · 10 months

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A favorite Benny Gecko headcanon of mine is that before House “civilized” the Chairmen/Boot Riders his name was literally just Gecko.

The name Benny is a double reference to both the most powerful trump card in the card game Euchre, and to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, the real life mobster who owned the Flamingo Hotel and Casino and who drove a lot of the development of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1940s. Benny’s entire brand is pretty clearly influenced by Bugsy Siegel, both out of universe by the devs as well as in universe by House and possibly Benny himself, especially considering the buffalo plaid suit. (Bugsy Siegel almost definitely also existed in the Fallout universe and played a similar role as he did irl because the Fallout timeline branches off from ours in 1945, only two years before he was assassinated).

It’d be one hell of a coincidence if that was the name he had as a tribal, and since we know that House’s reinvention of the strip families was specifically in the image of the old world, it only makes sense that that would include names. Swank probably wasn’t called Swank before the Boot Riders became the Chairmen either (I mean, his name is literally Swank).

Gecko doesn’t seem like a particularly unusual name for a tribal to have. It’s the name of a fairly common hostile creature in the Mojave Wasteland that the Boot Riders probably encountered regularly. Geckos were likely at least associated with combat or ferocity in their culture, which given Benny’s description of them when you talk to him at the fort were probably traits that the Boot Riders valued. Thus it isn’t that hard to believe that a Boot Rider would name their kid Gecko. Alternatively he may have earned the name after some kind of encounter involving one or more Geckos, if earning names was a thing in their culture a la the Khans.

We can assume that the usage of Gecko as a sort of surname for Benny could’ve been started by other members of the Chairmen while they were still getting used to the name transition. Like, imagine every single person you know suddenly has a completely different name. Informally tagging a person’s Boot Rider name onto the end of their Chairman name could’ve been a way to prevent confusion in the early days of them being Chairmen. (The implication of this subheadcanon being that every Chairman has a “surname” like this, which I personally think is really cool). People outside of the Chairmen probably just assumed those were their full names, so now they basically are, at least in the public consciousness of the city.

Another possible contributing factor to it’s usage as a surname is the general usage of surnames by other groups the Chairmen interact or associate with, especially the NCR. If House didn’t give the Chairmen last names, or if last names just weren’t a thing for the Boot Riders, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for them to just put their Boot Rider name as their last name when signing paperwork or whatever, or whenever else other people expect them to have one, especially if my subheadcanon from the last paragraph is true and they were already kind of using them that way anyway. Also I like to think there were at least a few Chairmen who, when asked what their last name was, assumed the asker meant the last name that they had.

#In accordance w this hc I will now be referring to swank as swank fisheyes bc im the meanest person ever #fisheyes (affectionate) if you will #im now hyperfixating on benny new vegas let the charliesposting commence #fnv headcanons #fallout headcanons #headcanons #fnv #new vegas #fallout new vegas #fallout #benny gecko #benny new vegas #benny fnv #swank fnv #the chairmen #chairmen fnv #bennyposting #charliesposting #anna talking about stuff

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liberalsarecool · 2 years

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In 2016, everyone knew Trump was a fraud and an abuser.

All the Republicans held their noses and voted for the lifelong predator/con artist/mobster.

In 2022, now that Trump has failed and abused as predicted, Republicans want to kill everyone who knew in 2016.

They have become Trump.

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justinspoliticalcorner · 11 days

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Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

Everyone reading this knows that MAGA will try to tamper with the jurors--and even the witnesses—to help Donald Trump in his criminal trial that began Monday in New York. That is why the judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, ordered that the names of the prospective jurors be kept anonymous citing "a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s)." While Trump’s lawyers will be provided with the potential juror’s names so they can research them, Judge Merchan’s partial gag order expressly bars Trump from “making or directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding” as well as witnesses. That is something you would expect in a criminal trial for a mob boss or leader of a terrorist movement. But then again, Trump is both a mob boss and the leader of domestic terrorist movement as the head of the violent, criminal enterprise known as MAGA.

In fact, Trump has been called the “Teflon Don” after New York mobster John Gotti who escaped criminal convictions in a few high profile cases in the 1980’s. Those cases are instructive as to what we may see from MAGA in Trump’s current case. In Gotti’s first well-publicized criminal case in 1986, his minions threatened a witness who conveniently got a case of amnesia in the courtroom and was unable to identify Gotti as the man who robbed and assaulted him. Gotti walked. And then in Gotti’s 1987 trial, a person named George Pape was able to get on the jury by withholding information that he was a close friend of someone connected to Gotti. Once on the jury, Pape was paid $60,000 by a Gotti intermediary to help the mobster beat the case—which Gotti did. Pape was later charged and convicted for crimes in connection with this bribe. In 1992, though, when there was neither jury nor witness tampering, Gotti was convicted of very serious felonies.

Turning to Trump’s case, on Monday we already saw clear evidence that MAGA would attempt to tamper with Trump’s jury to help him. One of the most jarring and overt attempts came from MAGA Rep. Byron Donalds who told viewers Monday on Newsmax to get on the jury and vote to acquit Trump regardless of the evidence. I’m not exaggerating. The Florida Congressman stated, “My plea is to the people of Manhattan that may sit on this trial: Please do the right thing for this country.” He continued, “Everybody’s allowed to have their political viewpoints, but the law is supposed to be blind and no respecter of persons.” At this point, if Donalds had ended his plea by saying please follow the evidence and be guided accordingly, that would be fine. Instead, this MAGA soldier directly told the people of Manhattan who might be watching: “This is a trash case, there is no crime here, and if there is any potential for a verdict, they should vote not guilty.”

Here is a sitting member of Congress telling people who watch the pro-Trump Newsmax that if they live in Manhattan and are called to be a juror on the case, they should ignore the evidence and vote to acquit Trump. All that was missing was the $60,000 payment that Gotti offered the juror in his case. Then there was Fox News contributor Clay Travis who Monday morning—with the Trump jury selection about to begin—made an even more direct appeal to his more than one million followers on Twitter to ignore the evidence and help Trump. Travis wrote, “If you’re a Trump supporter in New York City who is a part of the jury pool, do everything you can to get seated on the jury and then refuse to convict as a matter of principle, dooming the case via hung jury. It’s the most patriotic thing you could possibly do.”

Travis—with the line “do everything you can to get seated on the jury” -- was telling prospective jurors to follow the Gotti playbook of withholding vital information from the court of their obvious bias. Then ignore the evidence and cause a hung jury. In response to Travis’s post, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell—a former prosecutor—tweeted: “Jury tampering. That’s what they do. *It’s a felony.” And National security attorney Bradley Moss wrote on social media, “Clay is arguably conspiring to commit jury tampering here by encouraging someone to deliberately engage in jury nullification.” Those two were the most in your face attempts at jury tampering. Others, like MAGA Rep. Elise Stefanik from New York, were more subtle in trying to influence prospective jurors in her home state. On Monday she wrote on Twitter that the judge presiding over the case was “corrupt” and that this was, “A 6-8 week show trial... Total election interference.” This line of attack-- echoed by many Republicans including MAGA Senator JD Vance-- is a more subtle form of jury tampering where these elected officials are intentionally attempting to influence prospective jurors about the case before they see the evidence.

Dean Obeidallah bringing the heat on MAGA jury tamperers in the Trump business deal falsification trial.

#Donald Trump #Byron Donalds #Clay Travis #People of New York v. Trump #John Gotti #Donald Trump Trial #Elise Stefanik #J.D. Vance #Eric Swalwell #Jury Tampering

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republikkkanorcs · 1 year

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Mobster, stochastic terrorist, criminal, coke addict, Russian agent, and entitled spawn of a demagogue.

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republicansaredomesticterrorists · 8 months

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🤦🏼‍♀️

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1americanconservative · 1 month

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@TheThe1776 Gianni Vito Russo best known for his role as Carlo Rizzi in the 1972 film "The Godfather" said that the democrats paid a Philadelphia mobster Skinny Nicky $3 million dollars to fill in 30,000 blank ballots for Joe Biden. And how stupid they were to deliver all 30,000 Ballots and not one of the ballot was for Trump.

I’ve said this same thing that it was impossible that a batch of 950 military ballots went 💯 for Joe Biden in Fulton County, Georgia. If they wanted to cheat, they shouldn’t have made it so obvious.

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odinsblog · 11 months

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DONALD TRUMP: MOBBED UP AF - A RETROSPECTIVE

(by @saradannerdukic)

1970s & 1980s: wave of Russian criminals arrive in New York and begin interfacing with established American organized crime networks (La Cosa Nostra/The Five Families aka Bonanno, Genovese, Colombo, Lucchese, Gambino) (source)

1977: KGB reportedly opens file on Donald Trump (source).

1979: Construction begins on Trump Tower. Trump purchases overpriced concrete from mafia bosses Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano of the Genovese and Gambino crime families (respectively). (source)

1980: Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn, introduces Donald to Roger Stone. (source)

1982: New York City Housing Commissioner Anthony Gliedman received what he described as an “abusive and profane” call from someone angry that Gliedman had opposed Trump’s request for a $20 million tax abatement. Gliedman reported the call to the FBI, saying the caller was “threatening his life.” (source)

June 3, 1983: Rudy Giuliani becomes US attorney for SDNY

January, 1984: Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov, First Chief Directorate of the KGB arm responsible for gathering foreign intelligence, urges his officers to be more creative with agent recruitment - and to use money and flattery vs. alignment with Soviet ideology. Additionally, he gives the directive to find "U.S. targets to cultivate or, at the very least, official contacts...The main effort must be concentrated on acquiring valuable agents." (source)

1984: Russian émigré David Bogatin pays cash for five apartments in Trump Tower. (source). Bogatin's brother ran a $150 million stock scam with Russian mafia boss Semion Mogilevich (source)

1985: Trump reportedly “apoplectic” when he loses bid to re-develop the Coliseum at Columbus Circle to Salomon Brothers-backed Mort Zuckerman. (source) More on Trump’s proposal here.

October 1985: Trump's helicopter pilot indicted on drug trafficking charges. Trump doesn't fire him. Instead, he leases his personally-owned unit in Trump Plaza Apartments to him with an agreement of half the rent is to be paid in cash, the other half in unspecified helicopter services. Trump also writes a letter on behalf of his pilot (Weichselbaum), calling him "a credit to the community.” Who does the case end up with? Federal judge Maryanne Trump, Donald's sister. (source)

Autumn, 1986: Trump meets Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin. And per Trump's own account in Art of the Deal, “One thing led to another, and now I’m talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government.” (source)

1986: Trump makes the rounds in the news offering to negotiate with the Russians (source), and also angles for a Soviet posting in the Reagan administration (source)

March 16, 1987: Bogatin (who had purchased multiple apartments in Trump Tower for cash) pleads guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. The government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, because he'd used them to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.” A Senate investigation into organized crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. (from New Republic)

April 3, 1987: Trump excluded from bidding on Australian casino deal because of mafia connections (per Australian police) (source)

July 4, 1987: Trump flies to the USSR for the first time after being personally invited - the trip is arranged by the Soviet government (source).

1987: Trump talks extensively in an interview about nuclear bombs, and states that his pilot used to work for Qaddafi. In the same interview, Trump describes the type of bomb he thinks will be possible in the future: "Carry it in your briefcase, right. I’m not even talking about airplanes and missiles. You’ll walk in with your damn tape recorder,” he says, pointing to my innocent Sony, “and you’ll say it’s a tape recorder and nobody will be able to tell the difference. I mean, that’s where it’s going to be in 20 years.” (source)

1988: Trump starts talking about running for president on Oprah (source).

1988: Trump purchases a yacht from Adnan Khashoggi, the uncle of Jamal Khashoggi (source) (source)

1988: American Media Inc. (AMI) comes into being after Enquirer owner Generoso Pope dies. (source) Among the interested parties are Robert Maxwell (source), the father of Ghislaine Maxwell - Jeffrey Epstein's partner. (source). Among the trustees of the Pope estate are Peter G. Peterson, a partner in the Blackstone Group (source) - a private equity firm founded by Steven Schwarzman (source). (More on Schwarzman and his relation to Trump here). According to Pope's son, Paul, The Enquirer was started with a $75,000 loan from the mafia (source).

October 11, 1989: helicopter crashes with 3 Trump casino execs aboard (source). Trump claimed he was supposed to be on it, but then changed his mind at the last minute. (source) After their deaths, he blamed them for the failure of his Atlantic City casino (source) The helicopter's pilot was identified by the state police as Robert Kent of Ronkonkoma, L.I., and its co-pilot as Lawrence Diener of Westbury, L.I. b/b

1990: Wall Street bond house Salomon Brothers advises institutional clients to sell bonds issue from Trump's Castle Casino in Atlantic City, due to debt and performance concerns. (source)

1991: Trump declares bankruptcy (source)

1991: Trump sells his yacht to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal (source) (source)

December 17, 1991: Fred Trump gives Donald an interest-free loan by purchasing $3.5 million worth of casino chips at Trump Castle casino, circumventing bankruptcy rules and enabling Donald to make the interest payment due on his bonds. (source)

1992: Trump declares bankruptcy an additional 3 times stemming from various properties he's over-leveraged. (source)

1994: Trump allegedly rapes and beats a 13-year-old girl at a party with Jeffrey Epstein, multiple times. In the filed complaint, the 13-year-old was threatened to be "disappeared" like another young girl had been if she told anyone. (source)

October 20, 1994: Christine Seymour, Roy Cohn's secretary (Cohn was Trump's mentor), who was set to publish a tell-all book, dies in head-on collision with tractor trailer (source)

1995: Trump reportedly in Moscow to discuss matters related to Okhotny Ryad underground mall on Manezh Square. (source)

The trip is also reference in this article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/05/19/trump-solo

1995: Trump sells Plaza Hotel to Alwaleed bin Talal (source) Barbara Corcoran brokers the deal (source)

June 8, 1995: Vyacheslav Ivankov arrested (source). Ivankov was known to be a notoriously brutal gangster in the upper echelon of the Russian mafia. (source) After having difficulty finding him, the FBI picked up his trail at Trump Taj Mahal, and then discovered that Ivankov had a luxury condo in Trump Tower. (source) According to Robert Friedman in his book, Red Mafiya, Friedman viewed Ivankov's personal phone book containing "a working number for the Trump Organization’s Trump Tower Residence, and a Trump Organization office fax machine." (this is listed as a citation at the end of the book). Ivankov is also mentioned in this 2003 DOJ paper on organized crime, with a forward by Bruce Ohr (pp 49).

1996: Trump goes to Russia with Howard Lorber (source). Lorber later donated to the Trump inaugural fund (source).

1998: Trump Taj Mahal fined for currency transaction reporting violations (source)

February 1999: Evercore Capital Partners L.L.C., headed by former Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger C. Altman, acquires American Media, Inc. and places David Pecker at the helm. (source)

1999: Trump's first run for president (source)

2000/2001: Mark Burnett in negotiations with Putin for a show called "Destination Mir." (source)

October 2001: AMI offices in Boca Raton are attacked with anthrax (source). Later, in 2004, a cleaning company owned by Rudy Giuliani is contracted to clean up the anthrax, with his company, Bio-One, slated to rent/occupy the building after cleanup. (source) The contract later ended in a feud. (source)

2002: Mark Burnett begins talks with Trump regarding The Apprentice. (source)

2002 - 2011: The Bayrock Group partners with the Trump Organization on developments including the Trump SoHo hotel (source). Principals in the group include Felix Sater - believed to be connected with Semion Mogilevich (source) - and Tevfik Arif (source).

2004: Trump declares bankruptcy again. (source)

Spring 2004: The Apprentice debuts (source)

May 2004: Diamond dealer and former Trump Tower tenant (1 year prior he'd lived right below Kellyanne Conway) Eduard Nektalov is shot on 6th Avenue (source). He was reportedly cooperating with federal authorities on a money laundering investigation (source) More on money laundering and Trump properties here.

2005: at the same time Trump is unable to get a 25 million pound loan from Bank of Scotland due to being a credit risk (source), Deutsche Bank (who later is hit with massive fines for money laundering) loans Trump nearly one billion dollars. Trump's banker at Deutsche Bank is Justice Kennedy's son. (source).

2006: Felix Sater escorts the Trump children during their trip to Russia (according to Sater) (source). Later, in emails to Michael Cohen, Sater says that he'd arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin's chair. (source).

2006: Paul Manafort buys unit in Trump Tower (source).

2006 - 2009: Trump makes multiple attempts (and fails) to get a loan from the Bank of Scotland to purchase Hamilton Hall. The bank executive "expressed concern that Trump would hold the bank to 'future ransom'” (source)

2007 - 2016: Buyers tied to Russia make 86 cash purchases at Trump properties. (source)

2008: Soviet-born (Moldovia) Orly Taitz helps bring suit regarding Obama's citizenship/birth certificate. (source)

2008: Junior brags that they're getting a lot of money from Russia. (source)

2008: Russian oligarch buys a Palm Beach mansion from Trump, paying twice the value (source).

August 27, 2008: a small-time scam artist transfers a Beverly Hills, California, mansion to Donald Trump for $0. (source)

November 2008: Unable to meet his obligations for the nearly 1 billion dollar loan they gave him, Trump sues Deutsche Bank saying he shouldn't have to make good on his promise because of the economic crash. (source)

2009: Trump declares bankruptcy again. (source)

2009: a lawyer representing Trump Atlantic City casino creditors says he got threatening phone calls. The FBI traced one of them to a payphone outside the “Late Show With David Letterman,” where Trump was appearing.

“My name is Carmine,” the caller told the lawyer, Kristopher Hansen. “I don’t know why you’re fucking with Mr. Trump but if you keep fucking with Mr. Trump, we know where you live and we’re going to your house for your wife and kids.” (source)

July 23, 2009: Stormy Daniels' political advisor's car explodes (source). This was approximately 3 years after her affair with Trump (source).

August 2009: After multiple tries dating back to 2006, Trump denied a final time for loan for 25 million pounds from Bank of Scotland because the bank considered it "too risky." (source)

2010: Tevfik Arif, a principal of the Bayrock Group - which at this time is partnering with the Trump organization on a variety of projects - is arrested in a Turkish prostitution sting. (source). Charges were later dropped by Turkish authorities.

July 25, 2011: President Obama issues executive order declaring organized crime a national security emergency. (source)

2011 - 2015: Deutsche Bank, who 5 years previous had given Donald Trump nearly 1 billion dollars when Bank of Scotland wouldn't loan him 25 million pounds, is laundering billions of dollars with the help of Russians. (source)

2011: Eric Trump brags that they have access to millions of dollars from Russians. (source)

2011 - 2015: Donald Trump begins paying for his properties with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. (source)

January 1, 2012: former Trump bodyguard dies from apparent overdose (source).

2013: Trump walks out of a BBC Panorama interview when asked about his connections with Felix Sater. (source)

April 16, 2013: Preet Bharara, then US attorney for SDNY, announces charges against massive Russian organized crime ring operating out of Trump Tower. (source)

June 16, 2013: Trump announces Miss Universe pageant will be in Moscow. (source)

November 9, 2013: Miss Universe pageant (source). One of the fugitives indicted in the Trump Tower organized crime ring in April, ALIMZHAN TOKHTAKHOUNOV, is a guest of honor there. (source)

2014: Steve Bannon, while at Cambridge Analytica, orders testing on Putin messaging with Americans. (source)

February 10, 2014: Trump praises Putin on Fox & Friends. (source)

March 6, 2015: Trump Taj Mahal fined for money laundering. (source)

2015: Michael Cohen threatens a reporter covering Trump's divorce with Ivana. “I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting,” the Daily Beast’s Tim Mak, recalled Cohen telling him. “You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up … for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet.” (source) (source)

April 18, 2015: Trump's former pilot dies in head-on collision (source).

November 3, 2015: Felix Sater, who is believed to work for Semion Mogilevich (source) writes Michael Cohen stating that he'll get buy-in from Putin and that they'll engineer Trump's presidency. (source)

November 5, 2015: former head of RT Mikhail Lesin found dead in DC hotel room with blunt force trauma to head, neck and torso. He had a meeting with DOJ scheduled for following day. (source)

January 23, 2016: Trump tells the crowd at a rally that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose voters. (source)

February 23, 2016: Trump tells the crowd at a rally that he'd like to punch a protestor in the face, and "I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.” (source)

March 29, 2016: Paul Manafort joins Trump campaign. (source)

April - May 2016: George Papadopoulos in communication with “high ranking Russian official” in an attempt to set up meetings between Trump team and Russian reps, w/the promise “that the Kremlin had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails…” (source)

May 2016: Stephen Schwarzman flies to Riyadh to meet with Mohammed bin Salman - then the deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia - about infrastructure, and presumably the $20 billion fund that's announced a year later. (source) More on Schwarzman's relationship with Trump, and Saudi Arabia here. More on Schwarzman's links to Russia and Rosneft here.

Summer 2016: Stefan Halper, an FBI informant, approaches Trump campaign officials. (source)

June 9, 2016: Trump Tower meeting with Russians, Manafort, Kushner, Don Jr.. (source). Present at the meeting was Nataliya Veselnitskaya, who at the time was representing Prevezon (source), a company implicated in a money-laundering case at SDNY (source)

June 14, 2016: News breaks that the DNC has been hacked by Russians. (source)

June 14, 2016: Michael Cohen cancels his planned trip to Moscow to discuss Trump Tower Moscow (source)

Sometime after July 19, 2016: Trump warned by FBI that Russians will try to infiltrate campaign. (source)

July 2016: FBI opens counter intelligence investigation into Trump campaign. (source) (source)

September, 2016: Trump and Cohen discuss hush money and contingency for if guy gets hit by a truck. (source)

October 31, 2016: Mother Jones reports "A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump"

November 7, 2016 (one day before election day): Connie Watton, maid of Stephen Schwarzman - a Trump AND Kremlin friend - is pushed in front of a subway. (source) The woman who pushed her is assigned defense attorney Mathew Mari, known for his legal work for the Bonanno crime family. More on Schwarzman's relationship with Trump, and Saudi Arabia here. More on Schwarzman's links to Russia and Rosneft here. Schwarzman had also financed Kushner projects and gave Jared Kushner a loan (source).

November 8, 2016 (election day): Russian diplomat Sergei Krivov found unconscious at the Russian Consulate in New York and died on the scene. (source)

December 2016: FSB officers arrested in Russia. (source)

December 2016: Jared Kushner instructs Michael Flynn to sabotage US foreign policy. (source)

December 1 or 2, 2016: Kushner tries to set up secret back channel with Russians using Russians' secure facilities. (source)

December 1, 2016: Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn meet with Sergei Kislyak at Trump Tower (source)

December 13-14, 2016 (date not confirmed): Jared Kushner meets with Sergey Gorkov, "a graduate of the academy of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the domestic intelligence arm of the former Soviet KGB, who was appointed by Putin to the post less than a year before his encounter with Kushner." (source)

December 19, 2016: Russia's ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, is killed. (source)

December 19, 2016: Russian diplomat to Latin America, Peter Polshikov, is killed. (source)

December 20, 2016: Methbot white paper published. (source)

December 26, 2016: Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected of helping draft the Trump dossier, found dead in the back of his car. (source)

December 29, 2016: Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats. (source)

December 29, 2016: KT McFarland sends email stating that "If there is a tit-for-tat escalation Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia, which has just thrown U.S.A. election to him," (source)

December 29, 2016: Flynn calls Kislyak to discuss the expelling of the diplomates and asks that the Russians not retaliate. (source)

January 6, 2017: Trump, McFarland, Pence, Flynn, Priebus, Pompeo and Bossert briefed with classified intelligence report by Brennan, Clapper, Comey. (source) That same day, DNI releases this report.

January 9, 2017: Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei Malanin, found dead in his apartment (source)

January 10, 2017: Buzzfeed publishes Steele Dossier. (source)

January 24, 2017: Peter Strzok interviews Michael Flynn. (source)

January 27, 2017: Russia's Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, dies. (source)

January 30, 2017: New York State Department of Financial Services fines Deutsche Bank $425 million for massive Russian mirror trading scheme. (source)

February 2017: Trump's bodyguard, a Trump Organization lawyer and a third man raid Harold Bornstein's office, taking Trump's medical records. (source)

February 20, 2017: Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, dies suddenly in New York (source)

March 2, 2017: Ukrainian businessman with links to Trump found dead from undetermined causes. Oronov was Michael Cohen's brother's father-in-law, and Cohen did business with him. (source)

March 11, 2017: Trump fires Preet Bharara, who as US Attorney of SDNY had led the breakup of a massive Russian organized crime ring operating out of Trump Tower. (source)

March 16, 2017: laptop stolen from Secret Service agent's car while parked in her driveway. The laptop contained highly sensitive information including floor plans and evacuation protocol for Trump Tower. (source)

March 20, 2017: It's learned that the FBI had launched a counter intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian links in July of 2016. (source) (source)

March 21, 2017: A lawyer for a Putin-foe, Nikolai Gorokhov, reportedly thrown from a window in Moscow. Gorokhov was set to testify as a U.S. government witness in a money laundering case initiated by SDNY (led by Preet Bahrara). (source) "The alleged vehicle by which these dirty assets were washed clean was a Cyprus-registered company called Prevezon Holdings Ltd." (source) Prevezon is represented by Nataliya Veselnitskaya at the time that she attends the Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016. (source)

March 23, 2017: former Russian MP, Denis Voronenkov, shot dead in Kiev. (source)

March 30, 2017: FBI raids Trump-linked casino in Saipan. (source)

March 30, 2017: Mike Flynn asks for immunity. (source)

May 1, 2017: Scott Christianson, investigative reporter for McClatchy, publishes this:

May 9, 2017: Trump fires FBI director James Comey. (source)

May 2017 (date unclear): FBI opens counter intelligence investigation into Trump. (source)

May 10: 2017: Subpoenas issued to Michael Flynn by Senate Intelligence Committee. (source)

May 10, 2017: closed-door meeting in Oval Office with Russians. (source)

May 10, 2017: Roger Ailes falls in his home at Palm Beach Country. (source)

May 11, 2017: FBI raids GOP consulting firm in Maryland. (source)

May 14, 2017: Scott Christianson dies after falling down the stairs at his home (source)

May 14 2017: Republic operative Peter Smith found dead in Minnesota 10 days after speaking with WSJ (source)

Smith had said he'd been working with Michael Flynn (source).

May 17, 2017: Robert Mueller appointed special counsel (source).

May 18, 2017: Roger Ailes dies from head injury he'd sustained 8 days earlier (source).

May 20-21, 2017: Trump takes his first overseas trip as president to Saudi Arabia. During this trip, it's announced that Blackstone, led by Stephen Schwarzman, will manage Saudi Arabia's $20 billion investment fund. (source) Most of the investment will be in US infrastructure (source) During that trip, Trump also meets with Kirill Dmitriev of VEB bank (source)

July 4, 2017: body washes up on shore of Trump golf course in California. (source) (source)

July 26, 2017: Paul Manafort's home raided (source)

July 27, 2017: George Papadopoulos arrested. (source)

August 3, 2017: Secret Service kicked out of Trump Tower (source).

August 23, 2017: Russian ambassador to Sudan, Mirgayas Shirinsky, found dead. (source)

September 1, 2017: fire at Russian consulate in San Francisco (source).

September 14, 2017: Junior ditches Secret Service to go to Canada (source).

September 25, 2017: Richard Beckler, Trump's appointee as General Counsel of GSA dies (source). Beckler is the GSA staff member who'd assured Trump that requests for materials/emails from special counsel would not be honored (source).

September 27, 2017: Paul Horner, fake news writer who took credit for Trump’s win, dies of apparent overdose (source)

October 2017: Trump muses that he'll likely get to place 4 justices on the Supreme Court because of future health issues they may have (source).

October 16, 2017: Panama Papers journalist killed with a car bomb. (source)

October 25, 2017: Jared Kushner leaves on unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia.

October 26, 2017: Investigator (Catherine Hunt, a former FBI agent) working on behalf of 9/11 families suing Saudi Arabia interviews Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi texted Saudi officials that same day.

(as claimed by the lawyer working on behalf of the families)

October 28, 2018: Jared Kushner returns from unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia.

October 30, 2017: Papadopoulos guilty plea revealed (source)

November 3, 2017: Alex van der Zwaan is interviewed by the FBI. (source)

November 4, 2017: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman consolidates power and arrests several princes, including Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal. (source) Trump had previously sold his yacht (1991) and the Plaza Hotel to Alwaleed bin-Talal (source).

November 2017: Trump picks fights with North Korea. (source)

November 17, 2017: Brett Kavanaugh added to short list of SCOTUS nominees. (source)

December 1, 2017: Michael Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI. (source)

December 5, 2017: It's reported that Deutsche Bank received subpoena from Robert Mueller (source) In-depth Rachel Maddow segment on Deutsche Bank and the subpoena here.

December 16, 2017: Trump learns that Mueller has in his possession all of their transition emails on the .gov domain, obtained via the GSA. (source)

December 22, 2017: House Intelligence Committee interviews Rhona Graff

December 30, 2017: Fire at home linked to Ivanka's diamond business (source).

January 8, 2018: Fire at Trump Tower (source)

January 20, 2018: Former spokesman for Rick Gates, Glenn Selig, dies in Afghanistan hotel attack. Selig was a well-known Tampa Bay Area TV anchor. (source)

January 25, 2018: It's learned that Dutch intelligence had infiltrated Russian hacker group Cozy Bear and witnessed in real time as they attacked the State Department as well as the DNC. (source)

January 27, 2018: Steve Wynn resigns as RNC finance chair amid sexual assault allegations (source).

January 31, 2018: chartered train carrying GOP lawmakers to retreat crashes into truck (source).

February 16, 2018: Indictment of 12 Russians, outlining their methods of election interference (indictment sealed). (source)

February 20, 2018: Alex van der Zwaan pleads guilty to making false statements to FBI. (source)

February 22, 2018: Paul Manafort and Richard Gates indicted. (source)

February 23 - 27, 2018: Trump Tower Panama standoff with physical altercations and armed guards (source).

Week of March 4 - 10, 2018 (date unclear): FBI raids Trump-linked casino in Saipan a second time. (source)

March 4, 2018: Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, found poisoned on a park bench in Salisbury. (source)

March 16, 2018: FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe fired. (source)

April 7, 2018: ANOTHER Trump Tower Fire - art dealer Todd Brassner dies (source); Michael Cohen texts Dennis Shields with a warning to "get out ASAP" (source).

April 9, 2018: FBI raids Michael Cohen's home, hotel room, and office (source).

April 13, 2018: RNC Finance Chair Elliot Broidy resigns in midst hush money payoff scandal (source).

April 15 or 16, 2018: Matthew Mellon (finance chair, NY RNC, and who made his fortune in cryptocurrency) dies of apparent overdose (source). Note - original link/story is now gone; here are alternate sources for that story: https://twitter.com/business/status/986135482013769728

April 24, 2018: Devin Nunes sends classified letter to Jeff Sessions regarding FBI informant (source) who is later revealed to be Stefan Halper. (source)

April 28, 2018: Fire at Trump Tower Azerbaijan (source).

Week of April 29, 2018: Devin Nunes issues subpoena to DOJ seeking information about FBI informant (later revealed to be Stefan Halper). (source)

June 20, 2018: New York State Department of Financial Services fines Deutsche Bank $205 million for "unlawful, unsafe and unsound conduct in its foreign exchange trading business." (source)

June 22, 2018: Trump-backed Katie Arrington seriously injured in head-in collision (source).

June 27, 2018: Justice Kennedy, whose son was Donald Trump's banker, unexpectedly announces retirement. (source) Trump and Kennedy reportedly had a special relationship (source).

July 4, 2018: delegation of Republicans go to Moscow. (source)

July 9, 2018: Brett Kavanaugh nominated to SCOTUS. (source)

July 14, 2018: Indictment of 12 Russians/internet research agency unsealed (source).

July 16, 2018: Maria Butina criminal complaint unsealed. (source)

July 16, 2018: Trump meets with Putin in Helsinki. (source)

July 17, 2018: Secret Service agent dies in Scotland. After falling ill at Trump's golf course in Turnberry, he died the day after the Helsinki meeting (source) (source). (obituary)

July 25, 2018: dead body found in waters off Trump NYC golf course (source).

August 6, 2018: Rand Paul goes to Russia. (source)

August 10, 2018: Dennis Shields - the same guy Cohen texted back in April - found dead in Trump Tower (source)

August 15, 2018: Trump revokes John Brennan's security clearance. (source)

August 16, 2018: mystery case before grand jury initiated. (source)

October 2, 2018: Jamal Khashoggi murdered on orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (source) Trump later disputes the findings of the CIA and stands with MBS, stating that too much money is at stake. (source)

October 3, 2018: Nikki Hailey resigns, but resignation is not yet publicly announced. (source)

October 3, 2018: The Russian deputy attorney general (Saak Karapetyan) who reportedly directed Natalya Veselnitskaya (the lawyer who met with the Trump campaign in Trump Tower) dies in a helicopter crash (source). It was later reported that the pilot of the helicopter had been shot. (source)

October 9, 2018: Internet Research Agency (aka the troll farm) named in DOJ indictment (unsealed July 14, 2018) set on fire. (source)

October 9, 2018: Nikki Haley announces resignation.

October 9, 2018: New York Times reports that Saudi Arabia had ordered Khashoggi's murder.

October 17, 2018: Don McGahn resigns. (source)

October 19, 2018: "Project Lahkta" (Russian election interference) criminal complaint unsealed (source)

October 21, 2018: John Bolton goes to Russia to meet with Putin. (source)

October 22 - 27, 2018: week of terror begins with bombs at the home of George Soros. (source). It was followed by bombs sent to Bill and Hillary Clinton (Oct. 23); Barack Obama, CNN, John Brennan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Eric Holder and Maxine Waters (October 24); Robert de Niro and Joe Biden (October 25); and Cory Booker, James Clapper, Kamala Harris, and Tom Steyer (October 26). It ends with mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue on October 27 (source).

October 30, 2018: Whitey Bulger killed. (source)

November 21, 2018: head of GRU agency accused of DNC hacks and Skripal poisoning dies, reportedly after a long illness. (source)

November 27, 2018: Methbot indictment unsealed at EDNY. (source)

November 28, 2018: Miami Herald publishes Perversion of Justice investigative report.

November 29, 2018: Michael Cohen pleads guilty. (source)

November 29, 2018: Massive raid at Deutsche Bank. (source)

November 29, 2018: FBI raids offices of Trump's former tax attorney, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke. (source)

December 4, 2018: Epstein trial set to begin. It is settled at the last minute, avoiding testimony from witnesses. (source)

December 13, 2018: FBI allegedly raids Chicago Alderman and former Trump tax attorney Ed Burke's office a second time (FBI neither confirms nor denies whether raid took place) (source).

December 22, 2018: Government shuts down. (source)

January 8, 2019: it's learned that Manafort passed polling data to Kilimnik in the summer of 2016. (source)

January 11, 2019: it's learned/reported that the FBI had opened a counter intelligence investigation into Trump in May of 2017. (source)

January 23, 2019: Michael Cohen postpones testimony before Congress, saying it's because Trump has been threatening him. (source)

January 25, 2019: Roger Stone arrested and indicted. (source) (source)

February 21, 2019: Judge rules that federal prosecutors (including Trump labor secretary Alex Acosta) broke the law in Epstein case. (source)

February 27, 2019: Michael Cohen testifies before Congress that Trump had directed him to threaten people as many as 500 times when he worked for him. (source) He also testifies that Felix Sater's office had been located on the 26th floor of Trump Tower - the same floor as Trump's office - and, in the location that would eventually become Cohen's office. (source)

And let's not forget the acid in Steve Bannon's bathroom: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bannons-vacated-florida-home-had-a-bathroom-destroyed-by-acid-washington-post-report-985356

Or how Michael Cohen threatened this reporter: https://twitter.com/cherijacobus/status/974831949285031936

Or the threats Stormy Daniels received: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/25/politics/stormy-daniels-threat-60-minutes/index.html

A short history of Donald Trump's threats: https://www.propublica.org/article/a-short-history-of-threats-received-by-donald-trumps-opponents

#politics #donald trump #republicans #russia #money laundering #mobbed up #maria butina #ron paul #treason #traitors #tre45on #russian mafia #russian mob

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11x13kyle · 8 months

Note

gimme another s27 episode plot please

a-plot: cartman and butters are putting up increasingly absurd items on resale sites like depop with the goal of becoming ridiculously rich from scamming people. they start with just normal clothes and build up and up until they’re selling catholic indulgences and eventually butters himself. butters is really mad about this part because the price is only $10 and he thinks he’s worth at least $15. cartman disagrees.

b-plot: obviously they have to do a trump arrest one. they’ve got to. it’s fucking south park. so the b-plot is a looney tunes ass chase of mr garrison to bring him to the courthouse. and he’s simultaneously experiencing a christmas carol situation with a bunch of dead mobsters who are the ghosts of RICO act past present and future and trying to show him why he HAS to turn himself in. for SOCIETY. and yeah obviously he has a cunty mugshot photoshoot. once again this is an obligatory b-plot you guys know this.

#asks #hope everyone enjoyed it #s27 plots

28 notes · View notes

soberscientistlife · 7 months

Text

Michael Flynn’s brother.

Just so you know, a Rat Bastard is someone who turns on a criminal enterprise or a Mobster.

The Trump crime family is not happy.

69 notes · View notes

posttexasstressdisorder · 13 days

Text

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Why has America tolerated 6 illegitimate Republican presidents?

Thom Hartmann

April 15, 2024 9:11AM ET

"Ronald and Nancy Reagan, 1964” image showing The Reagans aboard an unidentified boat in this 1964 photo released on June 1, 2016. Courtesy The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation/Handout via REUTERS

As we watch the Trump campaign prepare to replace 50,000 civil servants with fascist toadies if he wins the White House, it’s important to remember that Dwight Eisenhower was the last Republican president who believed in democracy, the rule of law, and that government should prioritize what the people want.

From 1960 to today a series of leaders within the Republican Party have abandoned the democracy that American soldiers fought the Revolutionary War to secure, the Civil War to defend here at home, and World War II in Europe and the Pacific to defend around the world.

This has brought us a series of criminal Republican presidents and corrupt Republican Supreme Court justices, who’ve legalized political bribery while devastating voting and civil rights.

None of this was a mistake or an accident, because none of these people truly believed in democracy.

This rejection of democracy and turn toward criminality and it’s logical end-point, fascism, started in the modern GOP with Richard Nixon.

He took millions in now-well-documented bribes both while Vice President to Eisenhower and as President (his VP, Spiro Agnew, resigned rather than go to prison for taking bribes). Nixon saw public service as a way to bathe himself in money, power, and adulation.

He didn’t care a bit about democracy.

As Lamar Waldron and I point out in detail in Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination, then-President Eisenhower’s then-Vice President, Richard Nixon, was getting beat up badly in the 1960 election by his opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy.

Most of it had to do with Cuba, where mobsters affiliated with Nixon for decades had just lost fortunes, millions and millions of dollars in annual revenue.

After the Cuban revolution of 1959, Castro came to the US to seek military and economic aid for his island nation; Eisenhower left town, forcing Castro to meet instead with VP Nixon.

Given that Castro had just overthrown the dictator Batista, a friend of both Nixon and Nixon’s mafia patrons, the Vice President essentially blew off Castro, sending him into the welcoming arms of Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Union.

Thus, throughout the 1960 presidential race, Senator Kennedy pounded on Vice President Nixon for having “let Cuba go communist” on his watch. In response, Vice President Nixon put together a series of CIA and Mafia plots to assassinate Castro, timed to happen before the November 1960 election.

His hope was that if the Eisenhower/Nixon administration could be seen as having successfully overthrown Castro in 1960 it would de-fang JFK’s attacks and make Nixon — who Eisenhower had put in charge of Cuba policy — a national hero just in time for the election.

Nixon figured that would be enough to help him beat JFK at the polls. It was going to be his “October Surprise.” (The remnant of this scheme was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.)

For Nixon democracy was just an inconvenience, an obstacle to be conquered. He never really believed in it.

You can imagine Nixon’s frustration when plot after plot was bungled or foiled and, by election day, Castro was still happily ensconced in the Havana presidential palace. This appears to be the moment Nixon decided that, if he had a chance to run for president again, he’d not just consider a CIA-Mafia plot but would embrace far more extreme measures.

Thus began the first Republican plot to commit full-out treason to win a presidential election.

It started in the summer of 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson was desperately trying to end the Vietnam war. It had turned into both a personal and political nightmare for him, and his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was running for President in the election that year against a “reinvented” Richard Nixon.

Johnson spent most of late 1967 and early 1968 working back-channels to North and South Vietnam, and by the summer of 1968 had a tentative agreement from both for what promised to be a lasting peace deal they’d both sign that fall.

But Richard Nixon knew that if he could block that peace deal, it would kill VP Hubert Humphrey’s chances of winning the 1968 election. So, Nixon sent envoys from his campaign to talk to South Vietnamese leaders to encourage them not to attend upcoming peace talks in Paris.

The bribe was straightforward: Nixon promised South Vietnam’s corrupt politicians that he’d give them a richer deal when he was President than LBJ could give them then.

The FBI had been wiretapping these international communications and told LBJ about Nixon’s effort to prolong the Vietnam War. Thus, just three days before the 1968 election, President Johnson phoned the Republican Senate leader, Everett Dirksen, (you can listen to the entire conversation here):

President Johnson: “Some of our folks, including some of the old China lobby, are going to the Vietnamese embassy and saying please notify the [South Vietnamese] president that if he’ll hold out ’til November 2nd they could get a better deal. Now, I’m reading their hand. I don’t want to get this in the campaign. And they oughtn’t to be doin’ this, Everett. This is treason.” Sen. Dirksen: “I know.”

Those tapes were only released by the LBJ library in the past decade, and that’s Richard Nixon who Lyndon Johnson was accusing of treason.

At that point, for President Johnson, it was no longer about getting Humphrey elected. By then Nixon’s plan had already worked and Humphrey was way down in the polls because the war was ongoing.

Instead, Johnson was desperately trying to salvage the peace talks to stop the death and carnage as soon as possible. He literally couldn’t sleep.

In a phone call to Nixon himself just before the election, LBJ begged him to stop sabotaging the peace process, noting that he was almost certainly going to win the election and inherit the war anyway. Instead, Nixon publicly announced that LBJ’s efforts were “in shambles.”

But South Vietnam had taken Nixon’s deal and boycotted the peace talks, the war continued, and Nixon won the White House thanks to it.

An additional twenty-two thousand American soldiers, and an additional million-plus Vietnamese died because of Nixon’s 1968 treason, and he left it to Jerry Ford to end the war and evacuate the American soldiers.

Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court, pushing it hard to the right and setting up the predecessors of Citizens United.

Rehnquist, we later learned, didn’t believe any more in democracy than did Nixon. He’d made his chops in the GOP with Operation Eagle Eye, standing outside polling places in Hispanic and Native American precincts in Arizona challenging every voter who showed up there’s right to cast a ballot.

Nixon was never held to account for that treason, and when the LBJ library released the tapes and documentation long after his and LBJ’s deaths it was barely noticed by the American press.

Gerald Ford, who succeeded Nixon, was never elected to the White House (he was appointed to replace VP Spiro Agnew, after Agnew was indicted for decades of taking bribes), and thus would never have been President had it not been for Richard Nixon’s treason.

Ford pardoned Nixon and appointed John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court.

Next up was Ronald Reagan. He not only didn’t believe in democracy, he didn’t even believe in the American government.

Like Trump, he ridiculed public service like joining the military or getting a job with a government agency; he joked that there were no smart or competent people in government because if there had been, private industry would have already hired them away.

So, if you don’t believe in democracy and you think the US government is a joke, it’s not a big deal to betray your country to get the wealth, power, and fame that goes with the presidency.

During the Carter/Reagan election battle of 1980, then-President Carter had reached a deal with newly-elected Iranian President Abdolhassan Bani-Sadr to release the fifty-two hostages held by students at the American Embassy in Tehran.

Bani-Sadr was a moderate and, as he explained in an editorial for The Christian Science Monitor, successfully ran for President that summer on the popular position of releasing the hostages:

“I openly opposed the hostage-taking throughout the election campaign…. I won the election with over 76 percent of the vote…. Other candidates also were openly against hostage-taking, and overall, 96 percent of votes in that election were given to candidates who were against it [hostage-taking].”

Carter was confident that with Bani-Sadr’s help, he could end the embarrassing hostage crisis that had been a thorn in his political side ever since it began in November of 1979.

But, like Nixon, behind Carter’s back the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the head of Iran’s radical faction — Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini — to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 Presidential election. Khomeini needed spare parts for American weapons systems the Shah had purchased for Iran, and the Reagan campaign was happy to promise them.

This was the second act of treason by a Republican wanting to become president.

The Reagan campaign’s secret negotiations with Khomeini — the so-called 1980 “Iran/Contra Scandal” — sabotaged President Carter’s and Iranian President Bani-Sadr’s attempts to free the hostages. As President Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of 2013:

“After arriving in France [in 1981], I told a BBC reporter that I had left Iran to expose the symbiotic relationship between Khomeinism and Reaganism.

“Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the ‘October Surprise,’ which prevented the attempts by myself and then-US President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 US presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.”

And Reagan’s treason — just like Nixon’s treason — worked perfectly, putting a third Republican president in office after Nixon and Ford. Neither Nixon nor Reagan believed in or held up democracy and the rule of law that underpins it as a value.

The Iran hostage crisis continued and torpedoed Jimmy Carter’s re-election hopes. And the same day Reagan took the oath of office — to the minute, as Reagan put his hand on the bible, by way of Iran’s acknowledging the deal — the American hostages in Iran were released.

Keeping his side of the deal, Reagan began selling the Iranians weapons and spare parts in 1981 (and using the money to illegally fund rightwing neofascist death squad “Contras” in Nicaragua) and continued until he was busted for it in 1986, producing the so-called “Iran Contra” scandal.

Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, solidifying its rightwing tilt. We’d learn, in the Bush v Gore case in 2000 when they awarded the White House to the son of Reagan’s VP, that none of the three of them valued democracy.

And, like Nixon, Reagan was never held to account for the criminal and treasonous actions that brought him to office.

After Reagan, Bush senior was elected but, like Jerry Ford, Bush was only President because he’d served as Vice President under Reagan. And, of course, the naked racism of his Willie Horton ads helped keep him in office.

The criminal investigation into Iran/Contra came to a head with independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh subpoenaing President George HW Bush after having already obtained convictions for Weinberger, Ollie North and others.

For the first time in history, the President of the United States could go to jail for criminal conspiracy. Bush was sweating.

George HW Bush’s attorney general, Bill Barr (yes, the same guy Trump hired), suggested he pardon all six co-conspirators — who could point a finger at Bush — to kill the investigation. Bush did it on Christmas Eve, hoping to avoid the news cycle because of the holiday.

Nonetheless, the screaming headline across the New York Times front page on December 25, 1992, said it all: “THE PARDONS: BUSH PARDONS 6 IN IRAN AFFAIR, ABORTING A WEINBERGER TRIAL; PROSECUTOR ASSAILS 'COVER-UP’”

If the October Surprise hadn’t hoodwinked voters in 1980, you can bet Bush senior would never have been elected in 1988.

That’s four illegitimate Republican presidents.

President GHW Bush appointed Clarence Thomas and David Souter to the Supreme Court. We learned quickly that Thomas doesn’t value democracy. We now know his wife actively worked to subvert it, in fact.

Which brings us to George W. Bush, the man who was given the White House by five Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court.

In the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision in 2000 that stopped the Florida recount and thus handed George W. Bush the presidency, Justice Antonin Scalia (appointed by Bush’s father’s boss) wrote in his opinion:

“The counting of votes … does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner [George W. Bush], and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election.”

Apparently, denying the presidency to Al Gore, the guy who actually won the most votes in Florida and won the popular vote nationwide by over a half-million, did not constitute “irreparable harm” to Scalia or the media.

And apparently it wasn’t important that Scalia’s son worked for a law firm that was defending George W. Bush before the high court (with no Scalia recusal).

Just like it wasn’t important that Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife worked on the Bush transition team — before the Supreme Court shut down the recount in Florida — and was busy accepting resumes from people who would serve in the Bush White House if her husband stopped the recount in Florida…which he did. There was no Thomas recusal, either.

None of them believed in democracy.

More than a year after the election a consortium of newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today did their own recount of the vote in Florida — manually counting every vote in a process that took almost a year — and concluded that Al Gore did indeed win the presidency in 2000.

As the November 12th, 2001 article in The New York Times read:

“If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won.”

That little bit of info was slipped into the seventeenth paragraph of the Times story so that it would attract as little attention as possible, because the 9/11 attacks had happened just weeks earlier and the publishers of the big newspapers feared that burdening Americans with the plain truth that George W. Bush lost the election would further hurt a nation already in crisis.

To compound the crime, Bush could only have gotten as close to Gore in the election as he did because his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, had ordered his Secretary of State, Kathrine Harris, to purge at least 57,000 mostly-Black voters from the state’s voter rolls just before the election.

Tens of thousands of African Americans showed up to vote and were turned away from the polls in that election in Florida. BBC covered it extensively, although the American media didn’t seem interested.

So, for the third time in 4 decades, Republicans took the White House under illegitimate electoral circumstances. Even President Carter was shocked by the brazenness of that one. And Jeb Bush and the GOP were never held to account for that crime against democracy.*

President George W. Bush appointed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Alito not only doesn’t believe in democracy, he also doesn’t believe in a woman’s right to get an abortion. He’d put a judge like himself between a woman and her doctor, with a police officer and a prison to enforce his decree.

Most recently, in 2016, Trump ally Kris Kobach and Republican Secretaries of State across the nation used Interstate Crosscheck to purge millions of legitimate voters — most people of color — from the voting rolls just in time for the Clinton/Trump election.

Meanwhile, Russian oligarchs and the Russian state, and possibly pro-Trump groups or nations in the Middle East, funded a widespread program to flood social media with pro-Trump, anti-Clinton messages from accounts posing as Americans, as documented by Robert Mueller’s investigation.

And on top of that, we learned in 2020 that Republican campaign data on the 2016 election, including which states needed a little help via phony influencers on Facebook and other social media, was not only given to Russian spy and oligarch Konstantin Kilimnik by Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, but Kilimnik transferred it to Russian intelligence.

Even with all that treasonous help from Russia, Donald Trump still lost the national vote by nearly 3 million votes but came to power in 2016 through the electoral college, an artifact of the Founding era designed to keep slavery safe in colonial America.**

And then, in 2021, after losing to Joe Biden by 7 million votes, Trump mounted a seditious effort to overturn the election he’d just lost.

Trump didn’t believe in democracy in the least; he openly fawned over autocratic and fascistic states and their leaders.

After Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans blocked President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump filled Garland’s spot with Neil Gorsuch, the son of Reagan’s disgraced former EPA administrator, Anne Gorsuch.

For reasons that are still unclear, shortly after Trump mentioned Kennedy’s son to him publicly at the Gorsuch ceremony, Justice Kennedy decided to resign. Whether it had anything to do with young Justin Kennedy — then working at Deutsche Bank and having signed off on over a billion dollars in corrupt loans to Trump — is still unknown, and Kennedy, still in good health, isn’t talking.

Kennedy was replaced by “Blackout” Brett Kavanaugh, who had previously worked in the Bush White House. Republicans refused to turn over 95 percent of Kavanaugh’s papers to the Senate Judiciary Committee and jammed through his nomination after an epic meltdown on live television.

When Ruth Bader Ginsberg died just before the 2020 election, McConnell decided his “Garland Rule” was irrelevant and jammed through Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett in about six weeks; she was sworn in on October 27, 2020. When Democrats raised questions about Barrett’s role as a “Handmaid” (what she called herself) in a bizarre Catholic cult they were brushed aside.

Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanuagh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. We now know none of the three of them believe in democracy, either.

Fifty-four years of Republican presidents using treason to achieve the White House (or inheriting it from one who did) has transformed America and dramatically weakened our democracy.

Those presidents have contributed their own damages to the rule of law and democracy in America, but their cynical Supreme Court appointments have arguably done the most lasting damage.

Republican appointees on the Court during this time have gutted the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, union rights, the Affordable Care Act, and legalized Republican voter purges. They legalized the bribery of politicians by billionaires and corporations.

In short, they’ve done everything they can to weaken democracy and enforce minority rule in America.

One of their wives appears to have been involved in the January 6th attempted overthrow of our electoral process and thus our republic. Republican justices and judges openly flaunt the judicial code of ethics and routinely hand decisions to the GOP’s largest donors.

Today’s fascistic behavior by elected Republicans and their appointees on the courts has a long history, deeply rooted in multiple acts of treachery and treason. “Power at any cost” has been their slogan ever since Nixon’s attempts to assassinate Castro in 1960 to beat JFK in that year’s election.

Democracy? They laugh.

Which is why it’s time to call the Republican Party what it is: a criminal enterprise embracing fascism to hang onto power, a threat to our republic, and a danger to all life on Earth.

*For more detail, this is extensively documented and footnoted in my book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America.

**This is covered in depth in my book The Hidden History of the War On Voting.

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