PAUL MANAFORT REMAINS A BIGGER SCANDAL THAN HUNTER BIDEN
June 30, 2023/35 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, 2020 Presidential Election, 2022 Mid-Term Election, Financial Fraud, Foreign Influence, Hunter Biden, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel
I haven’t had the time to dig into Gary Shapley’s purported whistleblower claims about the case against Hunter Biden, which several US Attorneys have already disputed.

My read, thus far, matches Andrew Prokop’s: after IRS investigators tried to take steps during a pre-election prohibition period last year, someone in their vicinity leaked to Devlin Barrett, as right-wingers do every pre-election period. That led Delaware US Attorney David Weiss to (justifiably) remove the suspected leakers from the case. As other right wing officials have before, they then ran to Congress and belatedly claimed whistleblower status. ...

https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/06/30/paul-manafort-remains-a-bigger-scandal-than-hunter-biden/

Peterrsays:
June 30, 2023 at 9:38 am
The other comparison that keeps coming to my mind is (a) Hunter/Ukraine and (b) Ivanka/China & Jared/Saudi Arabia&UAE&Qatar. If the right wing insists on criminalizing presidential family members of trading improperly on the family name with foreign sources, let’s compare them all.

Reply
emptywheelsays:
June 30, 2023 at 9:47 am
Yup.

As I was doing this, I was thinking I probably need to do one for Jared.

But this one sticks in my craw, given how the GOP claims to care about tax crimes all of a sudden.

The calendar has turned to July 1, and that means one thing: It's time for Mets fans everywhere to wish each other a Happy Bobby Bonilla Day! Why? On Saturday, 59-year-old Bobby Bonilla will collect a check for $1,193,248.20 from the New York Mets, as he has and will every July 1 from 2011 through 2035.

Because of baseball's salary structure, Bonilla's annual payday is often more than some of the game's current young stars will make in a given year -- and this season that even includes the salary of two 2023 All-Star starters.

But the Mets are not alone in the practice of handing out deferred payments to star players long after they last suited up for the team, with former MVPs and Cy Young winners among the notable names still collecting annual paychecks from their previous employers.

Here is everything you need to know about Bonilla's payday, deferred money in MLB and the current players making less for the 2023 season than Bobby Bo will receive from the Mets on Saturday. ...

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/37938979/bobby-bonilla-day-2023-new-york-mets-paid-119m-every-july-1

Why FlashForward Was Ahead of Its Time
We take a look back at 2009 sci-fi TV series FlashForward, a show that may have been ahead of its time...

By Andrew Sharp
|
September 24, 2019

“On October 6, the whole planet blacked out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. The whole world saw the future.” Or so says 2009 series FlashForward. Whether through ironic coincidence or a twist of schadenfreude-fuelled fate, it seems rather cruel and unfortunate that a show premised on seeing the future lacked the foresight to predict the era it was best suited to: the age of binge-watching.

Based on the 1999 Robert J. Sawyer novel of the same name, ABC series FlashForward was originally developed by HBO but sold because it was seen as a better fit for a broadcast network. It aired in over 100 countries worldwide and got off to a more than promising start, premiering to a large US domestic audience of nearly 13 million and receiving both strong critical acclaim and audience buzz for its alluring pilot and provocative plot.

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Like many canceled shows, FlashForward left on a nail-biting and completely open-ended cliff-hanger at the climax of a poignant final scene accentuated by the only soundtrack choice I can recall across the entire series. In the spirit of not giving too much away, it is probably best to avoid any discussion about the ending altogether, other than to say the final shots explicitly alluded to a second season.

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Our media consumption habits have changed and, with them, our viewpoint. We have a greater propensity to concentrate our attention-span and deal with the increasingly convoluted and often tangential stories the FlashForward universe and its myriad characters has to offer. Bingeing actually enhances FlashForward’s watchability. So often do the episodes end in suspense but the viewer is no longer forced to break the cinematic illusion and wait a week, or in the mid-season case of FlashForward, fifteen weeks, for the next episode – it’s mere seconds away behind the autoplay timer and so the narrative continues to unfold and keep you hooked...

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/why-flashforward-was-ahead-of-its-time/

Ask This Old House 'Circuit; Table Saw; Fireplace Insert' New

Installing a basement circuit; safety techniques for common sources of table saw injuries; installing a wood-burning insert into a drafty fireplace.

Hosted by: Kevin O'Connor

8:30 PM
Thu Jun 15
23-1 PBS (WKAR) East Lansing, MI