…we here at the church of the conjoined sabbath are…as a rule…an understanding bunch…or at least we try to be…but if I allegedly rise to the level of eminence…well… that’d be more by way of the clay-footed variety than your heavenly host, I’m afraid…& I’m not after turning the lot of you into some slumped mass of incipient alcoholism…so the drinking part doesn’t have to be that sort…besides…there’s all sorts of neat libations that’re legal some places…milkshakes with CBD &/or THC…the fun sort of mushroom tea…although I’m told it tastes pretty bad…or…if you have a hardy sort of a gut…there’s always your ayahuascas & peyotes & mescalines &…hang on…that might not be any more responsible…hmmm….call it a work in progress…but feel free to make suggestions…a bring your own approach to communion would probably help, in fact…we’re not one of those churches with money…still working on the headed paper, to be honest…though…don’t knock it ’til you try it, I guess…which…if we’re casting this as a sermon…the smart money says you should probably get to smartish…we’re gonna need it…so…to get on to the trying it on aspect of proceedings

Trump had a Thursday deadline to file a petition at the Supreme Court contesting an appeals court decision from December that rejected his immunity arguments, but he did not do so.
[…]
“President Trump will continue to fight for presidential immunity all across the spectrum,” said Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman.

…well…except this bit of the…uhhh…narrow band…more the broad sense of the spectrum…don’t want to make that ask of his pocket justices when the one loose canon might be enough to turn it all down the river…gotta hoard them chips, I suppose

The civil lawsuits against Trump are separate from the criminal case against him that also arose from Jan. 6. On Monday, Trump asked the justices to put that case on hold on immunity grounds.

…uh huh…uh huh…so…ask them to hold the thing off…but not to actually rule on the part where it’s obviously bullshit that doesn’t hold up to the point of being essentially frivolous while purporting to be about principle, then…sounds about right

But the court added that when the cases move forward in district court, Trump “must be afforded the opportunity to develop his own facts on the immunity question” in order to show he was acting in his official capacity. He then could again seek to have the lawsuits dismissed, the court said.

…& we know how he likes to “develop his own facts”…or at least “facts”…like the genius thing…or how much he weighs…or how big his apartment is…or how much shit is worth…or how unfairly persecuted he is…as opposed to fairly prosecuted, say

The legal arguments being made by Trump are similar to those he is making in his criminal case as he seeks to prevent a trial from taking place before the November election.

…there’s an election…in november…do tell…

In rejecting Trump’s immunity claim in the criminal case, a different panel of judges in the same appeals court did not directly address whether Trump’s actions were official acts. The court instead assumed that they likely were official acts and found that, even then, Trump could not claim immunity.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/trump-opts-supreme-court-appeal-immunity-claim-police-jan-6-lawsuits

…but…after two bites of the cherry he still made out he wanted the thing he doesn’t want to ask for a judgement of the merits about from the supreme court to be given the full en banc treatment at a lower level…feels like you could draw some adverse inferences from a thing like that…either way…of the two trial dates that are “set”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/trump-investigations-charges-indictments.html

…one of them looks like aileen is after trying to block out some time in his calendar more than she actually aims to sit anyone down in front of a bench in may to talk about improper treatment of nat-sec materials…& that part’s been clear for…months

Justice Department prosecutors warned the judge overseeing the trial over former President Donald Trump’s handling of White House documents that the former president is trying to “manipulate” her into delaying his planned May 2024 trial, as Trump’s attorneys fight to push back looming trials in that case and his federal case over the 2020 election.

…that’d be forbes back in november

In a filing Thursday morning, the DOJ shared Trump’s election case request with Cannon, noting Trump’s attorneys asked to pause the election case—and thus delay that trial, now set for March 2024—hours after telling Cannon that the documents trial should be postponed because it would conflict with the election trial.

Trump’s attorneys’ alleged disingenuousness in using the election trial to delay the documents trial—when they were at the same time trying to push back the election case—illustrates the DOJ’s argument that Cannon should not base her trial date on the election case, prosecutors argued.

It also “confirm[s] [Trump’s] overriding interest in delaying both trials at any cost,” prosecutors wrote, asking the court not to “allow itself to be manipulated in this fashion.”

…the court being apparently only too delighted…but not willing to release the late-may slot lest it be filled by something else…hasn’t as far as I’m aware actually managed to say where it’s at just yet…so…judging by what that makes of come-on-aileen’s grasp of definitions for basic terminology…it’s not waving but drowning while holding it’s breath…or something else that involves a lot of flailing & could end up with corpses floating out to sea

It’s unclear when Cannon could rule on whether to delay Trump’s trial, though she said at Wednesday’s ruling she planned to do so “as soon as possible.” Trump has asked the judge to delay the case until after the 2024 election, though it’s unclear if she’d go that far, saying Wednesday she was open to making “reasonable adjustments” to the schedule, particularly given the [successfully rain-checked] March 2024 start date in the election trial. It’s also unclear when Chutkan could rule on Trump’s request to pause proceedings in the election case, or when his motion to dismiss the charges against him could be decided. Trump’s lawyers noted in their motion to dismiss the case that the Supreme Court hasn’t previously weighed in on whether presidents are immune from criminal charges, and it’s expected the legal tussle over whether the case can be thrown out could make it up to the high court.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/11/02/doj-warns-judge-cannon-trump-is-trying-to-manipulate-her-in-documents-case-as-ex-president-asks-to-delay-trials/

…& the other one…stormy’s teacup ride…scheduled for the last week of march…let’s see, now

Timeline of Donald Trump-Stormy Daniels hush money case [Reuters]

…so…may ’18…admits (in an “ethics disclosure” of all things) that he paid cohen back for the money that went to ms daniels…cohen pleads guilty in august…vance dicks about for a while pinging the org for possible tax fraud & chases records & gets stonewalled & whatever…maybe sandbagged is the term…since bragg turns up in early ’22 & they drop a couple of lead prosecutors…still…by the end of the year the org’s ruled guilty on the tax fraud…& alvin kicks off ’23 convening a grand jury…who hear from cohen among others by march…when the circus kicks into high gear for a hot minute

MARCH 18, 2023
Trump says on his social media platform Truth Social that he expects to be arrested on March 21 and calls on his supporters to protest. A spokesperson for Trump said the former president had not been notified of any arrest.
MARCH 23, 2023
Bragg’s office says Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested, and tells Republican congressmen seeking communications, documents and testimony about the probe that they were interfering with an ongoing investigation.
MARCH 24, 2023
Trump warns of potential “death and destruction” if he is charged with a crime.
MARCH 30, 2023
A law enforcement source and U.S. media reports say Trump is indicted.
APRIL 3, 2023
Trump arrives in New York from his home in Florida to face charges arising from the hush money investigation.

…the reuters thing

…funny story…death & destruction…did not ensue…not so much as a minor plague of frogs…or locusts…the grand dragon of oz must have been a bit miffed about his prophecy coming up all damp squib, really…but…sure did pull in the donations…oh, yeah…speaking of fleecing your flock

Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank that warns that third-party candidates could spoil the re-election chances of President Joe Biden in November, wrote to the secretaries of state in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan on Friday urging them not to accept any signatures gathered by the super PAC to help Kennedy.

The pro-Kennedy super PAC, American Values 2024, has announced plans to spend at least $15 million to help Kennedy get on the ballot, hiring at least three canvassing firms to gather signatures on his behalf in multiple states.

But attorneys from the powerhouse Democratic election law firm Elias Law Group, representing Third Way, argue that it is impossible to steer clear of federal rules barring coordination between a candidate and a super PAC while simultaneously complying with state laws […]

Shanna Ports, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog, said the rules governing super PACs are murky. The FEC has not updated anti-coordination rules since Citizens United, the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that paved the way for super PACs, and the agency rarely takes enforcement action.

“It’s created an environment where campaigns and super PACs feel like they can push the boundaries more and more because there’s no enforcement,” she said.
[…]
Bennett pointed to the former presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, which offloaded as many duties as possible from the official campaign to the super PAC, called Never Back Down, which took on virtually all of DeSantis’ field operations and even paid for events. That arrangement raised concerns about potential illegal coordination among campaign finance watchdogs.

“The DeSantis people pushed the boundaries as far as they possibly could,” said Bennett. “They used Never Back Down as aggressively as has ever been seen in presidential politics. And even they wouldn’t go far as having them engage in ballot access.”

Ports noted that at the same time super PACs find workarounds to work closer with campaigns, candidates often use anti-coordination rules as defense for actions taken by their allied groups.

A super PAC is helping RFK Jr. get on the ballot. Democrats say that’s illegal. [NBC]

…&…he-do-wrong-ron was basically a test bed for what could be gotten away with & what shit stuck…so…I’m hoping there’s a lot of bright-eyed & bushy-tailed early-risers getting on the campaign finance case…because moving sketchy money around in sketchy ways between sketchy individuals for sketchy purposes…even before campaign finance “allowances” get in on the act…easier than you might expect

Federal financial regulators are exploring allegations by two whistleblowers that Cash App, the popular mobile payment platform, and entities providing transaction services to its users performed inadequate due diligence on customers, potentially opening the door to money laundering, terrorism financing and other illegal activities.

While banks are required to know the true identity of every customer, the Cash App program “had no effective procedure to establish the identity of its customers,” the whistleblowers said. In their complaints, reviewed by NBC News, the whistleblowers detail an array of questionable Cash App transactions with entities under sanction by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, operations known to sell personal information and credit card data for illegal purposes, and offshore gambling sites barred to U.S. citizens.
[…]
Over three-quarters of U.S. adults have used a mobile payment app, such as Cash App, PayPal or Venmo, according to a 2023 study by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. But these services, also known as person-to-person payment platforms, pose risks to their users and to the financial system, regulators say. In recent years, for example, law enforcement officials have cited criminals’ use of payment apps to evade laws, such as laundering stolen Covid relief funds in 2020.
[…]
In addition to FinCEN, the whistleblowers made submissions alleging due diligence flaws at Cash App to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the nation’s top securities cop, and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, which combats fraud in the market for digital assets, their lawyer said. The SEC declined to comment on the existence of a whistleblower submission; the CFTC did not respond to a request for comment.
[…]
“There are obvious national security issues here and it would be foolhardy for the public to think that regulators and law enforcement are keeping pace with the financial ‘innovators,’” said Edward Siedle, a former SEC enforcement lawyer who represents the whistleblowers. NBC News interviewed the whistleblowers, who are knowledgeable on financial services compliance issues, on the condition of anonymity.

The whistleblowers’ filings arrive as regulators are increasing scrutiny on deficient anti-money laundering practices. On Monday, FinCEN proposed a rule that would require investment advisers to adopt systems to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing and report suspicious transactions to the agency. Such advisers oversee trillions of dollars but are not currently subject to these requirements, FinCEN said.
[…]
The whistleblowers’ allegations cover 2016 through 2022 and describe “a shadow financial system beyond the reach of regulators” where due diligence on Cash App’s users was negligible and often did not adhere to sound banking practices and rules. In addition, Cash App’s use of different institutions providing services for users prevents bank regulators from seeing the full scope of the transactions at the institutions they monitor, the submissions say. The siloed structure of the Cash App machine, the whistleblowers say, “misdirects the attention of regulators.”
[…]
Lax due diligence on Cash App customers poses risks for shareholders of its parent, Block Inc., the enormous fintech founded by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, the whistleblowers said. Ditto for Marqeta Inc., a financial technology startup that acts as a middleman transferring funds for Cash App transactions, and Visa Inc., whose name is on the Cash Card. Shareholders of all three companies have not been fully advised of the risks associated with the Cash App business, the submissions contend.

…so I guess we could call it blue sky thinking…or something

Like all financial services companies, the company added, “Cash App is not immune to bad actors attempting to use the platform for illicit purposes.” It partners with law enforcement “to help disrupt illegal or illicit activity.”

The spokesperson did not respond to allegations that the company pressured Lincoln Savings Bank to minimize due diligence and declined to say why Cash App stopped working with Lincoln in 2021. Cash App’s bank partnership model and fund-flows structure “are standard in the industry,” the statement said, “and are known to regulators. We collaborate with our bank partners on controls and monitoring for the activities they are responsible for.”
[…]
Cash App is a money machine for Block, generating net revenue of $10.4 billion during the first 9 months of 2023, or 65% of Block’s net revenue, its regulatory filings show. Cash App produced $2.9 billion in gross profit for Block during the first 9 months of 2023, up 37% year over year, the company said. Block has a market value of $38 billion.

In 2016, Cash App began working with Lincoln Savings Bank to handle customers’ deposits into their accounts. Lincoln, which opened in 1902 as a one-branch agricultural bank in Iowa, is now a fintech pioneer with $1.8 billion in assets.

Its LSB Financial Technologies unit offers virtual cards, mobile wallets and payment processing and “has created processes to allow for something unusual in banking — speed.”

Working with Cash App, Lincoln Savings Bank opened a pooled account where Cash App participants’ money was deposited and held briefly until it was transferred by Marqeta to Sutton Bank for Cash Card use or to Wells Fargo. When Cash App customers want to spend funds or withdraw money at an ATM, their Cash Cards are loaded with money from their Cash App account. At all other times, the Cash Card has a zero balance, Sutton says.

This setup meant that neither Lincoln Savings Bank nor Sutton Bank could monitor both the people sending the money and those withdrawing it, the whistleblowers explained. Lincoln only saw the incoming money while Sutton watched it exit. Cash App and Marqeta, neither of them banks, have views of the entire transactions, the whistleblowers said.

In the rush to attract Cash App users, neither Cash App nor Lincoln performed extensive due diligence on customers, the whistleblowers contend. For example, Cash App allowed access to the Lincoln pooled bank account for customers presenting just an email address or a phone number, the complaint said, and Lincoln “had no effective procedure to establish the identity of its customers.” Under traditional due diligence programs, federal banking regulations require a bank to obtain a customer’s name, date of birth, home address, and full Social Security number or other identification number.
[…]
In 2018, Cash App began offering transactions in bitcoin, opening the app’s flawed customer due diligence to terrorist financing worldwide, the whistleblowers said. The Cash App spokesperson disputed this, saying bitcoin customers must go through full identity verification and ongoing sanctions screening.

Marqeta, based in Oakland, California, creates digital payment technologies and provides issuer processor and card manager services. It launched its platform publicly in 2014, and Marqeta issued shares to the public in 2021 at $27 each. Today the company’s stock trades around $6.

Block is Marqeta’s largest customer, generating 72% of Marqeta’s net revenue during the first nine months of 2023, regulatory filings show. For the first nine months of 2023, 77% of Marqeta payment transactions went through Sutton Bank.

Visa’s involvement in the Cash Card is problematic because of the potential for illegal activity, the complaints say. “Visa has its own compliance requirements and tight limitations on the issuance and use of prepaid cards,” the complaint alleges, but it waived standard anti-money laundering restrictions for Cash App. The whistleblowers speculated that this may have occurred because in 2017, Visa led a $25 million investment in Marqeta with some of the startup’s existing investors.
[…]
But, the whistleblowers say, Cash App appears not to have closed accounts that were opened with inadequate vetting. Evidence for this, they said, can be seen in the market for buying access to Cash App accounts set up in the earlier years of the program when due diligence was spotty and creating the accounts didn’t require identifying information, which allows buyers to avoid the due diligence involved in setting up a new account. Existing Cash App accounts offered for sale on the internet, can go for above $150, up from $50 previously, the whistleblowers told NBC News.

Scrutiny of digital payment systems like Cash App is rising at other agencies. In November, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau proposed new federal oversight of companies offering digital payment apps. “Big Tech and other companies operating in consumer finance markets blur the traditional lines that have separated banking and payments from commercial activities,” the bureau said in the November announcement. That blurring can put consumers at risk, the bureau said.

Federal regulators are probing whether Cash App leaves door open to money launderers, terrorists [NBC]

…got to be careful with those consumer-grade risk factors & how they get retailed…probably why the big boys use those fancy instruments & vehicles & such

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the merger proposal of former president Donald Trump’s media start-up with a special purpose acquisition company, a critical step for a long-delayed deal that would make the owner of Trump’s website Truth Social a publicly traded company and unlock $300 million in investor funds.

Digital World Acquisition, the SPAC that first launched the merger for Trump Media and Technology Group in 2021, said in an SEC filing late Wednesday that the SEC had signed off on its registration statement and that Digital World would announce a shareholder meeting within two days to vote on the merger’s adoption. Digital World shares climbed Thursday morning, to about $50.

The approval is a victory for Trump, who will hold more than 78 million shares in the post-merger company, a filing shows — a stake that, at current prices, would be worth nearly $4 billion. Trump, who would own between 58 and 69 percent of the company, and other investors could earn tens of millions more shares through a provision, known as an “earnout,” tied to the stock’s performance, a filing said.

Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida, said the windfall is “paper wealth … with the emphasis on ‘paper,’ since his [Trump Media] shares cannot currently be sold.”

…& neither can all that pledged stock of elon’s without it pulling the house down in the process…but…on paper?

Trump Media’s key stockholders, including Trump and its management team, agreed to a common financial provision, known as a “lockup” period, that prevents them from selling shares for six months after the merger unless Digital World waives the agreement, according to a Digital World filing. If the merger occurs in April, for instance, Trump would not be able to sell his shares until October, at which point their value may have changed considerably.

Ritter said that in his opinion the merged company’s valuation — roughly $9 billion, based on Digital World’s current price — is out of sync with the Trump company’s financial performance. Trump Media generated $3.4 million in revenue and lost $49 million during the first nine months of 2023, Digital World said in a recent SEC filing.

Trump Media is “a money-losing company that generates less than $5 million per year,” Ritter said. Digital World, he said, is in his view “a classic meme stock, whose price is totally unrelated to the underlying fundamentals.”

…the CEO lost a case to actual twitter beef…so…I’m pretty sure the math checks out?

Several Trump allies will be nominated to the post-merger company’s board, a filing showed, including Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s oldest son; Robert E. Lighthizer, Trump’s former trade representative; Linda McMahon, his former administrator of the Small Business Administration; and Kash Patel, a former Nunes aide who served on Trump’s National Security Council.
[…]
The merger’s completion would require Digital World to pay an $18 million penalty to the SEC, under a settlement announced last summer, to resolve charges that it had misled investors and violated antifraud provisions regarding its initial merger plans.

A federal prosecution of three early Digital World investors, who investigators said made tens of millions of dollars in insider trades related to the merger deal, is also scheduled to go to trial in April. In a superseding indictment filed last week in federal court, prosecutors added a charge of money laundering to one investor, Michael Shvartsman, saying he used some of his profits to buy a $14 million luxury yacht he later renamed “Provocateur.” Trump, Trump Media and Digital World have not been accused of wrongdoing in the case.

…& why would they…apart from all the screamingly obvious reasons?

The deal is expected to easily win shareholder approval, given the likelihood that share prices will rise after the merger. Digital World said in a filing it intends to apply for the post-merger company’s stock to be listed on the Nasdaq exchange using Trump’s initials, “DJT,” as its symbol.
[…]
[Trump Media’s co-founders, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, whose investment company, United Atlantic Ventures] sent a text message to a Trump Media noteholder saying the company might try to block the merger, and UAV also sent Trump Media a letter last week threatening legal action, the Digital World filing said. Trump Media told Digital World it disagrees with UAV’s assertion and that the agreement was voided in 2021 in favor of a new deal granting “extensive intellectual property and digital media rights related to President Trump” to Trump Media’s new leaders.

The men founded the company and pitched it to Trump in early 2021 but were expelled amid infighting with Trump’s other business partners, a former executive at the company, Will Wilkerson, told The Washington Post and the SEC in a 2022 whistleblower complaint.

Patrick Orlando, who was fired as Digital World’s chief executive last year but remains on the board, has also demanded “additional compensation,” a request Digital World denied, the SPAC said in its filing Monday. “As a result, the professional relationship … has strained and there is no assurance that Mr. Orlando … will be cooperative in connection” with the merger deal.

Orlando played a pivotal role in creating Digital World, including connecting it to its sponsor, Arc Global Investments, a subsidiary of the Shanghai-based investment firm Arc Capital. Sponsors provide the initial funding to launch a SPAC before it goes public. “Orlando may use his control over the Sponsor and the majority of the Founder Shares as leverage to raise further demands,” the filing said.

…so…still some fun & games since as per usual he’s tried to burn everyone else with a finger in the pie he wants to keep for himself…but

Michael Ohlrogge, a New York University associate professor, said Trump’s post-merger company could raise conflict-of-interest concerns for the Republican presidential candidate, given that companies and foreign governments could deliver him money indirectly by buying ads on Truth Social. Trump’s businesses received more than $7 million in payments from foreign governments, including officials in China and Saudi Arabia, during his presidency, according to a House Oversight Committee report released by Democrats last month.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/15/truth-social-trump-merger-sec/

…it’s the money that makes the running, right?

A big question is whether Trump will have to touch anything in his real estate portfolio. Trump has gotten a cash boost from selling his properties before: he sold his golf club in the Bronx last year, and in 2022, he completed the sale of the Old Post Office building in Washington DC, which was converted into a hotel. Court documents showed that the sale of the Old Post Office netted $131.4m before taxes, according to the New York Times.

It will be a tough decision for a man who, just several years ago, claimed he was worth $10bn. This pride in his wealth has recently been used against him. In closing arguments in Carroll’s January trial, her lawyers told the jury that they should punish Trump with higher damages precisely because he claims he is so wealthy.

“A billionaire like Donald Trump could pay a million dollars a day for 10 years and still have money left in the bank,” Carroll attorney’s Roberta Kaplan told the jury on 26 January. “It will take an unusually high punitive damages award to have any hope of stopping Donald Trump.”

…well…at lest 6 years, anyway…unless he gets some of that paper off the paper & in his pocket…or his lawyers’ & sundry creditors’ I suppose…still…easy come, easy go…fool & his money…yadda yadda

Trump has been zealously fundraising off his legal troubles, probably because he has sizable legal fees for his two civil trials and four criminal trials.

What Trump can pay for using his campaign money is unclear. A federal law bans candidates from using campaign funds for personal use, making it unlikely that Trump can use campaign funds to help pay off some of the Carroll award and fraud penalty.

But Trump has not shied away from using campaign funds for some of his trials. The Associated Press reported in October that Trump’s Save America political action committee (Pac) had paid $37m in legal fees, more than half of the Pac’s total spending.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/16/how-will-trump-pay-trial-penalties

…still plenty more…well…more anyway…where that came from…or there’s some play left in that SPAC business…S-PAC…bound to be like a super PAC & those are just what you need in the clutch, right…when the wash trades on the NFTs are all washed out & everything

While the reality of Trump’s business acumen – and the true extent of his wealth – have long been questioned, on Friday a New York judge forever tarnished his gilded image, finding Trump and his allies guilty of frauds that “shock the conscience” and a “lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological”.

…uh huh

Trump is “the archetypal businessman – a dealmaker without peer”, with a name “synonymous with the most prestigious of addresses”, according to his own company: the “very definition of the American success story”.

…oh, really…how very if-you-do-say-so-yourselves of him

Over 11 weeks in a Manhattan courtroom, the Trump Organization was publicly exposed to forensic scrutiny for the first time. This is a business that says it has “set new standards of excellence”, affording Trump “the designation of arguably being the preeminent developer of luxury real estate” in the world. Engoron took an altogether different view.

Before the trial had even started, he ruled that the former president had committed fraud for years by exaggerating the value of his assets.
[…]
The money is still coming in. Trump has proven to be a highly effective fundraiser. His campaign raised about $44m in the second half of last year. His legal battles appear to have provided an additional boost.
[…]
On the campaign trail and social media, in the courtroom and the inboxes of supporters, the former president has repeatedly pledged to fight what he argues is a gross injustice. On Friday Trump once again attacked the “tyrannical Abuse of Power” he claims is arrayed against him and the “liquid and beautiful Corporate Empire that started in New York, and has been successful all around the world.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/17/trump-civil-fraud-trial-analysis

…his liquid empire of beautiful assets…very liquid…so liquid it’s running down his fucking leg…might require a catheter…but he’s not old…ok…he’s a very sprightly septuagenarian…in enviable shape for a 30yr old…heavy-smoking alkie whose drug habits are co-dependent in their own rights…& his assets are very liquid…puddles of them everywhere

It offers a character study of the behavior, beliefs and worldview that define the DNA of an irrepressible figure and unchained force who is again tearing at American unity, institutions, democracy and the rule of law as another contentious election looms.

A trial, which Trump tainted with histrionics and contempt for the judicial system, and Judge Arthur Engoron’s final, stinging judgment, revealed four foundational codes that explain Trump’s tumultuous path through a life that he simply sees as an endless stream of business and political deals he must close.

• Trump thinks rules are for other people. He will always break them in seeking more wealth, more attention, or more votes.
• If reality doesn’t get the ex-president what he wants, he conjures a new one.
• Trump is compelled always to fight — even when stepping back would be smarter.
• And when accountability finally arrives, he sees justice as an act of persecution by his enemies.

[…]
The judge encapsulated the former president’s brazen refusal to play by the same rules under which everyone else must live — and that in this case are the key to a functioning banking and economic system — with the words: “ The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.”
[…]
The climax of the case deepened the extraordinary legal morass facing Trump who is embroiled in multiple cases and faces the first of his criminal trials next month. The judgment portrays Trump, his adult sons and the Trump Organization, flouting business ethics, rules and laws to pull valuations for their property assets out of the air to get favorable loans, and then even more remarkably, refusing to accept the facts of their conduct when confronted with the evidence.

Practically, Engoron’s decision will impose severe financial and personal strain on Trump as he’s emerging as the almost certain Republican presidential nominee. While Trump boasts of being a billionaire many times over, it’s unclear if he has the liquidity to pay what he owes or if some of the “beautiful buildings” and golf resorts over which he often waxes fondly in campaign speeches are at risk. An emperor has no clothes moment that reveals the ex-president as less wealthy than he claims could threaten the mogul’s mystique on which he built his political brand and his self-identity.
[…]
While the ex-president’s strategy of basing his legal defenses on a political argument that he’s a victim of persecution from the Biden administration may be working in the campaign — at least for now — it is no match for the exacting standards of a court of law. At a defining moment of Trump’s fraud trial, when he was effectively making a campaign speech from the stand, Engoron asked Trump’s lawyer: “Can you control your client?” Of course, no one has ever been able to do so. But Engoron’s ruling shows that the legal system has the power to constrain Trump and impose consequences that the political system lacks, despite two impeachments and a lost presidential election. This must be a worry for Trump as he faces four criminal trials, and may partly explain his desire to win back power since presidential authority could help him block or reverse convictions – at least in federal cases.
[…]
Trump’s belief that the rules are for others defines his business and political life. It’s essential, for example, to his claim now before the Supreme Court that presidents enjoy absolute immunity and cannot be prosecuted for their actions after they leave office.

Engoron, meanwhile, marveled at the ex-president’s audacity in flouting business ethics in inflating the values of his real estate and then his refusal to accept the truth of his actions when confronted with the evidence. “Defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ posture that the evidence belies,” he wrote. Engoron explained that such a crushing verdict was necessary to account for Trumps ill-gotten gains — because he believes they will continue in the absence of a painful price: “Donald Trump testified that, even today, he does not believe the Trump Organization needed to make any changes based on the facts that came out during this trial.”

Trump’s willingness to create a convenient reality is also at the heart of the case filed against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James, which rested on accusations that he serially inflated the values of his holdings to obtain better terms from banks and financial firms and to ultimately make more money. The ex-president claims that there were no victims from his behavior and that everyone made money. Yet regular Americans wouldn’t get away with such conduct in their far less lucrative financial lives and investments. And Engoron argued that he was obligated to “protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole.”

Trump’s propensity to simply alter truth and fact transferred easily from the business world to politics. It emerged hours into his presidency when he declared he had the biggest inaugural crowd ever despite photos proving the contrary. And his greatest fraud rests in his lies that he won the 2020 election and that the Constitution gave him the right to stay in power despite his defeat. The con-game of plucking a number out of the air to vastly over value his Trump Tower triplex is not that much different, after all, than calling Georgia election officials and asking them to “find” votes so that he could overturn Biden’s victory in the key swing state.

In his book, “Never Enough,” author Michael D’Antonio shows how Trump was taught by a demanding father and teachers that he needed to be “a killer” and that winning “was the only thing.” This explains his relentless willingness to fight, his never-ending legal crusades and his fervent desire at 77 years old to win back power after a humiliating election loss that nearly wrecked American democracy. Yet this refusal to ever admit defeat also appears to be leading Trump into dangerous legal territory.

The former president’s fight at all costs legal strategy seems to be coming unstuck. “Trump is unique in that he stubbornly thumbs his nose at our justice system and finds himself in legal turmoil,” said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers. “Sometimes it’s better to cooperate with authorities or to settle a civil lawsuit rather than fight a losing battle.”
[…]
“I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need,” Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal.” He added: “I do it to do it. Deals are my art form.”

Trump’s crushing fraud trial defeat is a microcosm of a life defined by breaking all the rules [CNN]

…well…someone ghost wrote for him, anyway…after it turned out they just had to hang out in his vicinity & then wing it as best they could since he was incapable of sitting down to be interviewed the way someone normally would in order for that sort of book to have their name on the front instead of the one that wrote it…your boy ain’t ever been about the follow-through, after all…or…for that matter…getting the good end of the fucking deal

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

…of which, to date…something like $75 billion has been from uncle sam…at an RoI that has made uncle vlad weep at times…which sounds like a fucking bargain if you ask me…not that anyone’s likely to…particularly not if they have any idea how long my answers run, let’s face it

Former President Donald Trump pushed for providing Ukraine aid as a loan as efforts to approve further assistance remain deadlocked in Congress amid a domestic fight over immigration and border policy.

“They want to give them $60 billion more,” Trump said Wednesday at a rally in North Charleston, as he campaigned before South Carolina’s Feb. 24 Republican presidential primary. “Do it this way. Loan them the money. If they can make it, they pay us back. If they can’t make it, they don’t have to pay us back.”

“Why should you just hand it over to them? Do it as the form of a loan,” he added.

…& before any charitable souls out there think he’s taking his inspiration from the fucking marshall plan or something…fuck no…it ain’t that

Trump likened the plan to deals he said he cut with athletes who had potential but lacked money at the start of their careers.

“I do that with athletes,” Trump said. “You know like a professional golfer who I think is very good. They don’t have any money, but they have a lot of talent. I’ll say here’s the deal.”

…the only kind of artists at work here are piss-artists…& low-rent ones, at that

Some Senate Republicans who support Ukraine aid in principle, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, backed an idea floated by Trump over the weekend in a social media post that would make the foreign aid to Ukraine and other countries zero-interest loans with no scheduled repayments.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-15/trump-pushes-ukraine-aid-as-a-loan-with-funding-bill-deadlocked

…though…to be honest…who among us could turn down tens of billions in a zero-interest loan with no repayment schedule…everyone wants to know how the other half live, after all…although…it’s not really a game of two halves, that one…is it?

The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.

…in…fucking 2018

Oxfam said the wealth of more than 2,200 billionaires across the globe had increased by $900bn in 2018 – or $2.5bn a day. The 12% increase in the wealth of the very richest contrasted with a fall of 11% in the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population.

As a result, the report concluded, the number of billionaires owning as much wealth as half the world’s population fell from 43 in 2017 to 26 last year. In 2016 the number was 61.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report

…in 2018…the other half…equated to just over two dozen individual wealth magnets…I mean…if we really followed the money…would the remaining most-of-the-having-half not be more than halfway inclined to incline towards the interests of half the fucking global population over those of a couple-dozen people so absurdly rich as to become more morally & ethically dubious than most actual nation states?

The distribution of wealth differs from the income distribution in that it looks at the economic distribution of ownership of the assets in a society, rather than the current income of members of that society. According to the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, “the world distribution of wealth is much more unequal than that of income.”^[1]
[…]
A broader definition of wealth, which is rarely used in the measurement of wealth inequality, also includes human capital. For example, the United Nations definition of inclusive wealth is a monetary measure which includes the sum of natural, human and physical assets.^[2][3]
[…]
There are many ways in which the distribution of wealth can be analyzed. One common-used example is to compare the amount of the wealth of individual at say 99 percentile relative to the wealth of the median (or 50th) percentile. This is P99/P50 is one of the potential Kuznets ratios which is the inverted U shape that indicates the relationship between the inequality and the income per capita. Another common measure is the ratio of total amount of wealth in the hand of top say 1% of the wealth distribution over the total wealth in the economy. In many societies, the richest ten percent control more than half of the total wealth.
[…]
Wealth over people (WOP) curves are a visually compelling way to show the distribution of wealth in a nation. WOP curves are modified distribution of wealth curves. The vertical and horizontal scales each show percentages from zero to one hundred. We imagine all the households in a nation being sorted from richest to poorest. They are then shrunk down and lined up (richest at the left) along the horizontal scale. For any particular household, its point on the curve represents how their wealth compares (as a proportion) to the average wealth of the richest percentile. For any nation, the average wealth of the richest 1/100 of households is the topmost point on the curve (people, 1%; wealth, 100%) or (p=1, w=100) or (1, 100). In the real world two points on the WOP curve are always known before any statistics are gathered. These are the topmost point (1, 100) by definition, and the rightmost point (poorest people, lowest wealth) or (p=100, w=0) or (100, 0). This unfortunate rightmost point is given because there are always at least one percent of households (incarcerated, long term illness, etc.) with no wealth at all. Given that the topmost and rightmost points are fixed … our interest lies in the form of the WOP curve between them. There are two extreme possible forms of the curve. The first is the “perfect communist” WOP. It is a straight line from the leftmost (maximum wealth) point horizontally across the people scale to p=99. Then it drops vertically to wealth = 0 at (p=100, w=0).

The other extreme is the “perfect tyranny” form. It starts on the left at the Tyrant’s maximum wealth of 100%. It then immediately drops to zero at p=2, and continues at zero horizontally across the rest of the people. That is, the tyrant and his friends (the top percentile) own all the nation’s wealth. All other citizens are serfs or slaves. An obvious intermediate form is a straight line connecting the left/top point to the right/bottom point. In such a “Diagonal” society a household in the richest percentile would have just twice the wealth of a family in the median (50th) percentile. Such a society is compelling to many (especially the poor). In fact it is a comparison to a diagonal society that is the basis for the Gini values used as a measure of the disequity in a particular economy. These Gini values (40.8 in 2007) show the United States to be the third most dis-equitable economy of all the developed nations (behind Denmark and Switzerland).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

…or is that just crazy talk…not to mention outdated?

The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion (£321 billion) to $869 billion (£688 billion) since 2020, while the wealth of the poorest 60 per cent – almost five billion people – has fallen, a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power has found. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.

Inequality Inc., published as business elites gather for the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort town of Davos, examines how sharply increasing billionaire wealth and rising corporate and monopoly power are interconnected. And how corporate power exploits and magnifies inequalities of gender and race, as well as economic inequality.

The report reveals that seven out of ten of the world’s biggest corporations have a billionaire as CEO or principal shareholder. These corporations are worth $10.2 trillion (£8.1 trillion), equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America.

…& ain’t that some shit?

Over the same period, people worldwide are working harder and longer hours, often for poverty wages in precarious and unsafe jobs. Across 52 countries, average real wages of nearly 800 million workers have fallen. These workers have lost a combined $1.5 trillion (£1.2 trillion) over the last two years, equivalent to nearly a month (25 days) of lost wages for each worker. The most recent Gini index – which measures inequality – found that global income inequality is now comparable with that of South Africa, the country with the highest inequality in the world.

Aleema Shivji, Oxfam’s interim Chief Executive said “These extremes cannot be accepted as the new norm, the world can’t afford another decade of division. Extreme poverty in the poorest countries is still higher than it was pre-pandemic, yet a small number of super-rich men are racing to become the world’s first trillionaire within the next ten years.

“This ever-widening gulf between the rich and the rest isn’t accidental, nor is it inevitable. Governments worldwide are making deliberate political choices that enable and encourage this distorted concentration of wealth, while hundreds of millions of people live in poverty. A fairer economy is possible, one that works for us all. What’s needed are concerted policies that deliver fairer taxation and support for everyone, not just the privileged.”

…any takers?

The past three years’ supercharged surge in extreme wealth has solidified. Despite some individual fluctuations, billionaires are $3.3 trillion (£2.6 trillion) richer than in 2020, and their wealth has grown three times faster than the rate of inflation. The wealth of the five richest men has increased by 114 per cent. Meanwhile, the wealth of the poorest 4.77 billion people (60 per cent) has fallen by 0.2 per cent in real terms.
[…]
Mirroring the fortunes of the super-rich, big business is set to smash annual profit records over the last year. 148 of the world’s biggest corporations together raked in $1.8 trillion (£1.4 trillion) in total net profits in the year to June 2023, a 52 per cent jump compared to average net profits in 2018-2021. Their windfall profits surged to nearly $700 billion (£554 billion). The report finds that for every $100 of profit made by 96 major corporations between July 2022 and June 2023, $82 was paid out to shareholders.

New Oxfam analysis of World Benchmarking Alliance data on more than 1,600 of the largest corporations worldwide shows that fewer than one in 250 of them are publicly committed to paying workers a living wage and support a living wage in their value chains. It would take 1,200 years for a woman working in the health and social sector to earn what the average CEO in the biggest 100 Fortune companies earns in a year.
[…]
The top five richest billionaires are from the Forbes real-time billionaires list as of the end of November 2023. Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault and family, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Warren Buffett. Oxfam assessed their wealth development between March 2020 (using the Forbes 2020 annual list) and the end of November 2023 (using the real-time billionaires list).

The total wealth of these five billionaires as of 30 November 2023 was US$869bn, up from US$340bn in March 2020, a nominal increase of US$456bn, or 155%. To calculate the growth in real terms (taking inflation into account), we use the US consumer price index (CPI) for the months of October 2023 and March 2020. Our calculation shows that in real terms, the wealth of the richest five billionaires (as of the end of November 2023) has increased by US$464bn, or 114%, since 2020.

According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Database, the combined GDP of economies in Africa in 2023 is $2,867 billion, while that of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean is $6,517 billion, for a total of $9.4 trillion.

https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/wealth-of-five-richest-men-doubles-since-2020-as-wealth-of-five-billion-people-falls/

…so…what am I wasting everybody’s time for reading all this bollocks that nobody’s paying any of us spending money for?

I’ve been a Washington journalist for nearly 25 years, yet I’ve never trailed members of Congress around the Capitol, interviewed the faithful at a campaign rally or exposed the misdeeds of a corrupt politician. Instead, I interpret Washington by reading it.

I read political histories and manifestoes. I pore over centuries-old essays and decades-old special counsel reports. I scour Supreme Court decisions and the footnotes of congressional investigations. I read lots of books about American politics, and, yes, plenty of books by politicians and government officials. I read the glossy biographies peddled by wannabe presidential contenders and the revisionist memoirs of former notables. I read tell-all books by midlevel White House staffers and tell-some books by presidents, vice presidents, senators and F.B.I. directors.

I’ve explored these texts for the past decade, first as a book critic for The Washington Post and now as an opinion columnist for The Times. When people learn that I make a living by reading books about politics — rather than, say, discovering the next Great American Novel — I often get a look of pity, followed by some variation on this line:

Wow, you read those books so we don’t have to.

The assumption behind this response is clear: These books must be terrible, either bureaucratic tomes or self-serving, ghostwritten propaganda. […] The commentator Chris Matthews once admitted that Washingtonians themselves don’t really read such books. Instead, they give them what he calls the “Washington read” — a quick skim, a lone chapter or just an optimistic search through the index. In 2020, a reviewer in The Times even suggested that my dedication to reading so many contemporary political books constituted “an act of transcendent masochism.”

…why you lookin’ at me that way…knock it off…this isn’t about me, you know?

[…] But I want to make the case for the Washington book. I believe in the Washington book. And that’s because, no matter how carefully politicians sanitize their experiences and records, no matter how diligently they present themselves in the most electable or confirmable light, they always end up revealing themselves. They may not want to, but they can’t help it. In these books, they tell us who they are; they expose their fears, self-perceptions and unresolved contradictions.

It might be a throwaway line here, a recurring phrase there, or a single paragraph in the acknowledgments — but it’s in there somewhere. And that means that even these supposedly terrible books can be illuminating and essential.

…or to put it another way…even fucking doubt-that doesn’t doubt that funding ukraine is the only play that doesn’t play to the russian advantage…&…albeit cack-handedly…that does seem like it’s saying…something

It was impossible to miss Donald Trump, or his books, later that year. […that would be 2015] If you had read a sampling of them at the beginning of his campaign, as I did, you would not have been surprised by the presidency that followed. Shocked, perhaps, but not surprised. The bragging and insecurity, the insults and vindictiveness, the ease with deceit and contradiction — it was all right there, a reminder that even ghostwritten works provide plenty of truth. In the case of “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” the ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, did not go through the typical process of conducting in-depth interviews with his subject because, as he told The New Yorker years later, Trump couldn’t sit still or focus long enough to share his life story. Instead, Schwartz fashioned Trump’s story by following him around the office and listening in on his phone calls, an approach that most likely captures Trump as well as any.

…see…& you thought I made that shit up just on account of I don’t like the asshole…which…fair enough…I fucking don’t…but I didn’t…didn’t have to, did I…truth is stranger than fiction, anyhow

Trump loves to bring up that first memoir — “we need a leader who wrote ‘The Art of the Deal,’” he declared in the 2015 speech announcing his presidential candidacy — but it’s a different Trump book that, to me, captures him especially well. In “How to Get Rich,” published in 2004, Trump provides a lengthy passage about his hair, but it doubles as a damning admission about his life. “The reason my hair looks so neat all the time is because I don’t have to deal with the elements very often,” Trump says. “I live in the building where I work. I take an elevator from my bedroom to my office. The rest of the time, I’m either in my stretch limousine, my private jet, my helicopter or my private club in Palm Beach, Fla. … If I happen to be outside, I’m probably on one of my golf courses, where I protect my hair from overexposure by wearing a golf hat.”

Political reporters say that the White House traps presidents in a bubble. But Trump lived in a bubble of his own making long before he came to Washington. In a soliloquy about his mane, Trump shows us his deliberately constructed isolation.
[…]
When you’re reading a Washington book, look for omissions and repetitions. In his 2022 memoir, “So Help Me God,” Mike Pence quotes extensively from Trump’s video message on Jan. 6, 2021, when the president finally called on his supporters to leave the Capitol — except, as I pointed out in these pages, Pence leaves out the lines in which Trump reiterated his nonexistent electoral victory. Even when describing the day rioters were calling for his hanging, Pence still massages the facts to make Trump look better. And in her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” Kamala Harris, then a U.S. senator from California, frequently decries “false choices,” like the choice between supporting law enforcement and holding police accountable, or between the rights of U.S. citizens and of undocumented immigrants. It may sound quite sage, but it also captures Harris’s preference to stay on both sides of difficult questions.

Reading Washington books is not always about finding the gotcha tidbit that launches a news cycle, but about stumbling upon that revelatory detail that marks someone’s beliefs or character — and then holding it to the light and to account. That these books are often deliberately vague and superficial, written in the service of careerism or mythmaking, renders that effort harder, but more satisfying, too.

I like to linger on the acknowledgments of Washington books; they are a delightful source of snubs, groveling and accidental transparency. In 2016, I reviewed the acknowledgments sections of books published by the Republican presidential field, and by far my favorite is in Marco Rubio’s memoir, “American Dreams.” The first person whom Rubio thanks by name in his acknowledgments is “my Lord, Jesus Christ, whose willingness to suffer and die for my sins will allow me to enjoy eternal life.” The second? “My very wise lawyer, Bob Barnett.”
[…]
There is another kind of Washington book, written not by individuals trying to shape their own stories but by institutions telling our collective story. Landmark documents like the Senate report on Watergate, the 9⁄11 Commission report, the Kerner Commission report on urban riots in the late 1960s and the Jan. 6 committee report are essential Washington texts. Together, they form an unofficial historical record, capturing America at its most traumatized moments. They deserve to be read, not just discussed in absentia.

There are two sets of documents, opposed yet intertwined, that capture the role these texts can play in our civic life. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the C.I.A. embarked on a program of “enhanced interrogation” of terrorism suspects in clandestine sites around the world. And to do this, the Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department issued a series of memos, between 2002 and 2005, approving the techniques. These memos were revealed in the press and later published as a book, “The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable.”
[…]
We know so much about what the C.I.A. did in part from another Washington document, which appeared years later: the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the C.I.A.’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation programs. The executive summary, published as a 549-page book in 2014, found that torture did not generate useful intelligence, that the interrogation sessions were even harsher than the C.I.A. acknowledged and that the spy agency impeded oversight of its actions.
[…]
I like to revisit the report of the Senate committee investigating Watergate, which appeared 50 years ago. “Law is not self-executing,” wrote Sam Ervin, the North Carolina Democrat and committee chairman, in his opening statement to the report. “Unfortunately, at times its execution rests in the hands of those who are faithless to it.” And in words that should resonate across the decades, Ervin placed the burden on voters to weigh the character of the leaders we choose: “The only sure antidote for future Watergates is understanding of fundamental principles and intellectual and moral integrity in the men and women who achieve or are entrusted with governmental or political power.”

In “The Speechwriter,” published in 2015, Barton Swaim describes his time working for a Southern governor, drafting speeches, statements and letters and channeling the ideas of a boss he didn’t respect. Swaim reaches an intriguing conclusion about political rhetoric. “One hears very few proper lies in politics,” he writes. “Using vague, slippery or just meaningless language is not the same as lying: It’s not intended to deceive so much as to preserve options, buy time, distance oneself from others or just to sound like you’re saying something instead of nothing.”

To sound like you’re saying something instead of nothing. That is politicians’ specialty, which is why I parse their words and write about their books. If the art of politics is to subtract meaning from language, to produce more and more words that somehow convey less and less, then it is my mission to try to find that meaning and put it back.

I realize this journalism may seem a bit passive. After all, I’m just reading. But Washington books are about the construction of identity and self-image. They are case studies in isolation, ambition and subservience. They span conflict and compromise, high principle and low deceit. These are some of the great themes of literature and the great struggles of life, whether the life of individuals or of nations. I may not be unearthing the next Great American Novel, but by exploring these texts, I hope to fill in a bit more of the American story.

I assure you the experience is rarely masochistic. On occasion, it can even be transcendent.

I Read These Books So You Don’t Have To [NYT]

…look at that…ending on a transcendent note…will wonders never cease?

…we should order that letterhead…there might be something beyond a tax break to this church business…& people take you more seriously if you have a letterhead…I…errr…read it in a book?