Kevin Drum asks the world's best question!

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2019

Excitingly, Loughlin in chains:
In a new post, Kevin Drum is asking the world's best and most obvious question.

Excitingly and sexily, the question to which we refer involves Lori Loughlin. More specifically, and more excitingly, it involves Lori Loughlin in chains!

Long story short:

Federal prosecutors have now found a way to charge Loughlin with money-laundering. They couldn't get Trump on that charge down through all those years, but now they've apparently found a way to nail a Hollywood star!

Our elites are virtually all out of order. That seems to include federal prosecutors, many of whom have been establishing the framework for "cable news" discussions over the past several years.

Their principal skill often seems to be this: Sifting through our ten million federal laws in search of all-new-and-improved, creative ways to throw disfavored people in jail.

It isn't just the famously upper-class New York Times. It isn't just Donald J. Trump and his spy-spouting pal, William Barr.

Our elites are virtually all out of order. It's the obvious mark of a failing culture, of a society which is unknowingly awaiting the start of Mister Trump's War of Frustration.

The rewards have long been too damn high. We're speaking not just of piles of money, but also of cultural fame.

19 comments:

  1. Poor Bob, upset with the elites. No philosopher-kings around, eh? How odd...

    Oh yeah, and incidentally, somehow you forgot to mention the most obvious case 'they' failed to crack: the Clinton Crime Family Foundation...

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    1. What are you babbling about? Crime is against the law. If you have some information on crimes committed by the Clinton family, call the police. If not, STFU with your nonsense.

      Delete
  2. “Their principal skill often seems to be this: Sifting through our ten million federal laws in search of all-new-and-improved, creative ways to throw disfavored people in jail.”

    There is that. Then there is the case where people, disfavored or not, commit actual crimes for which they ought to be held accountable. Since the elites have an outsized control over our society, perhaps they need to be held more accountable for the many crimes they have usually been allowed to get away with, looting our economy, selling out our country, while simultaneously throwing the book at the true disfavored group, the poor and middle class.

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    1. We need to imprison the rich for their crimes, because we need the "unintended consequences". The "unintended consequences" in this case is prison reform. Once the rich get the prisoner treatment, they'll use their money and outsized political influence to clean-up our prisons.

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  3. Trump, Loughlin, Barr. Which one doesn’t belong in that list? Lumping them all together smacks of a desire to overlook the crimes of Trump and his cronies simply because they are from an opposing political party, and goes way beyond anything Kevin Drum intended.

    And lest we forget, Trump and Barr are far more powerful than Lori Loughlin is or ever will be. So, let’s keep these things in mind, and ask ourselves how Trump managed to avoid jail time all these years:

    “FinCEN Fines Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort $10 Million for Significant and Long Standing Anti-Money Laundering Violations”
    https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-fines-trump-taj-mahal-casino-resort-10-million-significant-and-long

    Federal court approves $25 million Trump University settlement
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/federal-court-approves-25-million-trump-university-settlement-n845181

    FAIR HOUSING ACT ANNIVERSARY: TRUMP AND HIS FATHER WERE SUED FOR RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, AND THESE PEOPLE STILL WANT AN APOLOGY
    https://www.newsweek.com/fair-housing-acts-50th-anniversary-look-back-investigation-trump-familys-879437

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  4. "...his spy-spouting pal, William Barr"

    Hmm, Bob, by all indications your fellow liberal tribesmen have been trying to perpetrate a coup against the duly elected president. Using federal intelligence and security apparatus.

    Don't you think it might deserve some attention?

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    1. Perhaps you want to check your timelines. The so-called spying occurred before Trump was elected. Subsequent to his election, the DOJ, in the hands of the GOP, appointed and approved the special counsel.

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    2. So, in your opinion the DOJ ("in the hands of the GOP") should've just ignored all those mountains of Russiagate bullshit produced by Bob's tribesmen?

      I agree, but that they didn't. So, the plan worked, to a point.

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    3. In any case, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If there was no spying, presumably the investigations will not find it.

      But with any luck they'll find that John Brennan and James Comey didn't pay enough taxes, and they should spend 7 years in jail each.

      Y'know: what goes around comes around.

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    4. I'll smack you in the lip.

      Delete
  5. No liberal would assume that Trump will not ultimately be brought to justice. No liberal has any sympathy for him.

    Lori Loughlin's crimes in this cheating scandal go way beyond the more limited activities of various other parents who have pled guilty and received plea deals. She broke more laws.

    Many of us are happy to see so-called white collar crimes prosecuted to the same extent as those committed by people with a lower SES.

    Kevin Drum doesn't consider this stuff serious enough for jail time. He is wrong. The problem is the corruption of the system through bribery, not just that some parents wanted to buy their kids something they didn't earn.

    This is like the people who defended Pete Rose. Does it matter that someone rigged a sporting event and bet on it, since it is just a game, or does the integrity of the sport mean more than the simple acts committed?

    This is where the rubber meets the road in terms of ethics. If Somerby cannot understand that, he must have flunked more than his course on Kierkegaard, since philosophy is about how to weigh ethical dilemmas and many who are philosophy majors go on to careers as ethicists. So glad Somerby chose a different route. Drum is a lightweight who comes for Irvine, where all the children are above average and they all expect to get into USC. No surprise who his sympathies might be with.

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    1. Agree with this 6:11

      Drum:
      “On the other hand, do we really need to toss people in jail for cheating their kid’s way into USC? I mean, I can see why USC might care about this, but why should the rest of us?” It’s because, Kevin Drum, the rich are privileged assholes, and should be made an example of.

      Interestingly or perhaps not, I ran across an article about Thorstein Veblen, whom I don’t recall ever hearing about, but whom I assume the Chomsky’s of the world can cite from memory.

      LINK

      The rich have designed things to be as they are, and are in control. The Loughlin's of the world should pay. But Bob makes a good point. Why throw an actor in jail for some “petty” crime, when people like, well, the entire power structure, does it with impunity?

      My answer is, we gotta start somewhere. But that’s a pretty pathetic place to start.

      Leroy

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. ...Thorstein Veblen, whom I don’t recall ever hearing about...

      Only Heilbroner's discusses Veblen, but were most anyone to carefully read through these two books I believe they would learn more about the "political economy" than most econ majors ever do:

      LINK
      LINK

      Given that it's 2019, I guess my syllabus should include a postmortem on neo liberalism. Nothing on that narrow topic is as fun to read as those two books, but, from the nineties, here was Chomsky giving the patient a complete work up before most people realized it was terminally ill.

      LINK

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    4. ¬¬Thanks for the links Cmike. Chomsky did indeed dismantle neo liberalism, as well as neo conservarvatism in the link you provided.

      Nice to see you don’t have to watse your time with brackets in your hyperlinks. Save some more time and forget the CTR+B. : )

      Leroy

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  6. You are my hero... The kids are overjoyed to have their father come back home for good.

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  7. Somerby cares so little about his website that he is not maintaining the security certificates for it.

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