…ok…so…before I wander off on some tangent or other as per usual…much as I, too, do hope that @lymond had a happy birthday…& am averse to talking about money in a way I suppose I blame on being of british extraction…if anyone who hasn’t already happened to have little to spare the costs of keeping us all in a spot here are not inconsiderable & do land on our longsuffering prophet more unavoidably than the rest of us…so I know they’d appreciate anyone who might be able to kick in on that score…&/or anyone who might care to throw in a post for some bonus anniversary fare…so…there’s that

…anyhow…what else is clamoring for my attention this morning…let me see?

The investigation – a rare occurrence on the part of the US with regard to Israel – could result in the unit being penalised under a landmark peace of legislation known as the Leahy Law, which prohibits the state and defence departments from rendering assistance to foreign security force units facing credible accusations of human rights abuses.

Nine members of Force 100, a unit inside the Israeli Defence Force, are the subject of criminal investigation over allegations that they sexually assaulted a prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert, which human rights groups have dubbed “the Israeli Guantanamo”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/21/israel-force-100-abuse-palestinians-investigation

…putting the money in the line of fire is…contentious

Israel has accused Hezbollah of keeping hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in a bunker under a hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut, though it said it would not strike the complex.

The Sahel hospital in Dahiyeh, was evacuated shortly afterwards, and Fadi Alame, its director, told Reuters that the allegations were untrue.

Israel did not provide evidence for its claim that cash was being kept under the hospital. Instead, it published an animated graphic that purported to show a bunker under the hospital and said that it had previously been used to hide former secretary general of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah. Israel appealed to the Lebanese government to confiscate the money it said the Shia militant organisation had stolen from the Lebanese people.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/21/israel-claims-hezbollah-bunker-under-beirut-hospital-holds-millions-in-cash

…be nice to be able to say that they definitely didn’t need to evacuate a hospital because you’d be safe in one of those…but…recent history would beg to differ…& seem quite hard to argue with…although…not all projections are equal

“We’re deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned, about any leakage of classified information into the public domain. That’s not supposed to happen, and it’s unacceptable when it does,” he said.

“He will be actively monitoring the progress of the investigative effort to figure out how this happened, and obviously he’ll be very interested in hearing any mitigation measures and recommendations that come as a result of the investigative efforts.”

Earlier on Monday, a defense department official confirmed to the Guardian that an in-depth inquiry was under way into how the two documents, attributed to the US Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, came to be published on the Telegram messaging app four days ago.

The papers relate to Israel’s military planning for a retaliatory strike on Iran following the 1 October missile barrage that was Tehran’s largest-ever assault on its regional foe and an escalation of the Middle East conflict sparked by the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel in October 2023.

The first document is titled “Israel: air force continues preparations for strike on Iran and conducts a second large-force employment exercise” and the second is “Israel: defense forces continue key munitions preparations and covert UAV activity almost certainly for a strike on Iran”.

Kirby said it was not yet known if the papers, both marked top secret, were deliberately released, or if their publication was the result of a hack. But, he said: “We don’t have any indication at this point that there’s an expectation that there will be additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain.”

…but…intentions matter

Kirby, however, was cautious about the likely success of Blinken’s mission. “I cannot sit here today and tell you that that negotiations are about to restart in Doha or Cairo or anywhere else for that matter,” he said.

“[We will] continue to engage in intensive diplomacy to see what can be done to try to find a path to a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/21/israel-attack-iran-leak-documents

…so

Key rightwing legal groups with ties to Donald Trump and his allies have banked millions of dollars from conservative foundations and filed multiple lawsuits challenging voting rules in swing states that are already sowing distrust of election processes and pushing dangerous conspiracy theories, election watchdogs warn.

They also warn that the groups appear to be laying the groundwork for a concerted challenge to the result of November’s presidential election if Trump is defeated by Kamala Harris.

America First Legal and the Public Interest Legal Foundation together reaped more than $30m dollars from the Wisconsin based Bradley Impact Fund and its parent, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, from 2017 through 2022, according to a financial analysis from the Center for Media and Democracy.

Lawsuits filed by the groups, which overlap with some Republican party litigation, focus in part on conspiratorial charges of non-citizen voting, which is exceedingly rare, and bloated voter rolls, and pre-sage more lawsuits by Trump if his presidential run fails, in an echo of his 2020 election-denialist claims, say watchdogs.

“It seems clear that the lawsuits these rightwing groups are bringing attacking the integrity of the voting rolls, methods of voting and how the ballots are counted are an attempt to make it harder for people to vote, disenfranchise and intimidate legitimate voters, and create confusion,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission.

Noble added: “At the same time, they also appear to be laying the groundwork to challenge the results of the election after November 5, if Trump loses.”

In another troubling sign, Noble cited the dearth of data to support non-citizen voting claims to reject the “rationale for the non-citizen voting lawsuits”.

A study from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, in the wake of false claims by Trump of widespread non-citizen voting in the 2016 presidential election, revealed only 30 incidents among 23.5m ballots cast.

Other voting watchdogs voice strong warnings about the Maga-allied legal blitzes.

“We’re seeing much more litigation from Trump allies this election cycle, targeted at swing states, which appears to lack evidence,” warned David Becker, who runs the nonpartisan non-profit Center for Election Innovation and Research.

Becker noted, critically, that the lawsuit plaintiffs often knew about the challenged policies, including issues relating to voting lists, non-citizen voting, mail voting and military voting, years or even decades earlier, and seem to have intentionally waited until the last minute to file their lawsuits. “While they’re very unlikely to get the relief they’re seeking, this could later fuel claims that the election was stolen,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/21/trump-maga-swing-states-voters

…yeah

“This kind of energy lights a fire in my soul,” he said, having just made one of the crowd a millionaire after everyone chanted his name.

His love – and that $1m – of course, was contingent on them all doing exactly as Elon Musk wanted: signing a petition tied to his political action committee (Pac) , which is dedicated to sending Donald Trump back to the White House.

The spectacle was both surreal and potentially illegal. But no one here, not least Musk himself, seemed to care in the slightest.

…no wonder the people they hire to knock on doors like to claim they knocked on doors they never went to…the guy couldn’t be clearer about being happy to throw good money after bad in ways that have every appearance of being of dubious legality…a $1M check every day for being a semi-random registered voter in a swing state is…whatever kind of arbitrage you think it buys you…a fucked up RoI?

Musk’s latest ploy to assist Trump to attain more political power, has been to give away $1m every day to a member of the public, provided they also live in a swing state and are registered to vote.

The stunt is prohibited and akin to buying votes, in the view of some experts, as it violates federal election law preventing payments for registering to vote. The state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, on Sunday described it as “deeply concerning” and encouraged law enforcement to “take a look at”. Musk’s America Pac did not respond to a list of questions from the Guardian after the Pittsburgh town hall.
[…]
Throughout the event, Musk reiterated a litany of falsehoods tied to Trump’s campaign. He argued that the “constitution is literally under attack”, spread false claims about voting machines and said that a Trump loss in November could ultimately end American democracy. “I fear if Trump does not win, we are going to have a single-party state that is going to be worse than California,” he said.

Many in the audience asked questions about Musk’s businesses; his views on the future of AI; even if they should be starting their own families. One asked if he would consider running for president himself in 2028. He could not, he explained, due to the natural born citizen clause of the US constitution, and he did not want the job either.

“I hate politics,” he said. “I just like building stuff. And making products that people love.”

…oh

…whatever, princess pissypants…if I had an inconceivable amount of money & offered $1M a day to the first person to find elon musk & get a picture of them slapping him hard enough to make him stagger…that might be illegal, too…less likely to make a difference in a potentially existentially-determinative national election…but…if it made him look like inspector clouseau in a world of potential katos

…that’d probably be illegal, too…but…I can see how if I were rolling in cash it might be hellaciously tempting?

The motorcade did not stop as the Guardian asked from the roadside: “Why will you not take questions from journalists, too?”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/21/election-elon-musk-trump-pennsylvania

…some appearances might be…in a weird sort of a way…less misleading than others?

“My name is Matthew Metro,” said the man in the video, who went on to describe life as a student decades ago at a high school in Minnesota where Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz was a teacher. Some of the details — including about being at the school when Walz worked there — matched the biography of the real Metro. But the man in the video went further, leveling fabricated allegations against Walz, who the real Metro said he never met.

Millions of people have viewed social media posts containing the video since it was published Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter. For some viewers, the use of Metro’s name and verifiable biographical details created an aura of credibility around the false allegations. Not so for the real Metro, whom The Washington Post located in Hilo, Hawaii.

…on used-to-be-twitter, you say…fabricated disinformation that plays against the don’t-elect-felonious-bunk ticket…shocked, I tell you

“It’s obviously not me: The teeth are different, the hair is different, the eyes are different, the nose is different,” said Metro, 45, who has not previously spoken publicly. “I don’t know where they’re getting this from.” Metro showed The Post his Hawaii driver’s license to confirm his identity.

Metro told The Post that Walz never taught him. He said he was irate that his name and biographical information were being used to bolster a lurid false accusation — and that he may be forever associated with it online. “It’s an invasion of my privacy and my personal life,” he said.

The four-minute video, published by a mysterious X account falsely using Metro’s name, is one of numerous outlandish smears against Walz and the other candidates that have flown around social media in recent days, in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. While X eventually added labels beneath the video indicating the content had been manipulated, multiple versions of the clip remain online. In all, posts featuring the video garnered at least 5 million views, according to engagement data the platform publishes.
[…]
Metro said he was contacted after the video’s publication by a senior aide to Walz. According to Metro, the aide said Walz’s team was investigating and already knew he was not the person featured in the video.

…reactions can be…telling, I guess

A spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign confirmed the outreach.

X did not respond to emailed questions from The Post.

…tim’s lot: “oh, that bit of low-key fuckery? sure, we know all about that – it’s not even “sophisticated” like some of the crap we’re sifting, which is definitely more surprising than the part where it showed up in that particular stagnant cesspool of forced partisanism…we knew all that before the poor guy they spoofed for their ID even knew they made him their punk”

…elon’s lot: “la la la la la…we can’t heeeaaarrr yooooooouuuu”

…maybe it really is that…simple?

The earliest instance of the video that The Post could find online was published just after noon on Wednesday by an X account using Metro’s name as its user and display names. Metro told The Post he had no connection with the account; user and display names can be changed at any time. The account was created in October 2023. Other than posts critical of Walz, which began last week, it has mostly shared content about dogs.

The video containing the false allegation against Walz attracted little attention until several hours after it was posted, when it was repackaged and shared by an anonymously operated X account associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory. The video was also shared on Rumble, Truth Social and Gettr — all popular platforms among Trump supporters — by accounts that, according to information in their bios, are linked in a network that also includes the X account.

Messages left for the operator or operators of those accounts received no response.

The X account’s post containing the video was viewed more than 5.4 million times in the next 22 hours, archives show, before it was deleted. The video was shared by other accounts with significant readerships […]

Many Trump supporters with small followings promoted the post as a bombshell revelation about the conduct of Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate toward students when he was a teacher, one made credible because there was seemingly a named accuser who had attended a school where Walz taught.
[…]
Hany Farid, a professor of computer science and member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Lab, said the video was likely a “cheap fake.” Unlike a typical deepfake, he noted that the bogus Metro — whose voice is heavily accented — does not look or sound like the real one.

Farid said an analysis his team conducted with a computer-assisted detection tool found no evidence of generative AI, a technology used to create deepfakes. He said apparent distortions are actually indications of a low-quality video that was compressed from its original size.

Siwei Lyu, a professor of computer science and engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said analyses of the video by some of his students led them to a similar conclusion. “Our algorithms found no clear evidence to show the video was made or manipulated with AI,” Lyu said. The analysis determined that it was unlikely that the video was created with face swap or lip-syncing, he said.

Oren Etzioni, the founder of True Media, a nonprofit AI company that creates a popular deepfake detection tool, said his firm’s analysis detected significant evidence of audio manipulation. “I think what it indicates most likely is that the video is real, but that the audio has undergone various kinds of transformations,” Etzioni said.

Viral attack on Walz features fake former student making false claim [WaPo]

…false claims are kind of the richest-man-in-the-world™’s stock in trade

After someone referenced a Reddit post asking why there are almost zero pro-Trump posts, Elon replied: "Reddit is hard-captured by the far left"
byu/twinbee inelonmusk

…let’s…for the sake of argument…assume he doesn’t mean it in the sense it probably came to him in

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

…whichever way around reddit & the left view one another vis à vis which one is the mothership…docking isn’t really how you’d try to work the allegory

…maybe he got confused…there’s a lot of definitions he might have been recently revisting that could have tripped him up that way

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

…or

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

…but the one that applies to space rockets sounds right if you know pretty much fuck all about it & think elon is a bona fide genius…&/or your head is wedged so far up your ass you think the whole world smells of shit to an equal extent

…& I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist…but…it wouuld be tragic if he contracted an acute case of lethal-window-itis

Russian Oligarch Found Dead in Moscow after Falling Out of Window
byu/blllrrrrr inworldnews

“I think cryptocurrency is an interesting and probably valuable bulwark against centralized control,” Musk said, speaking at a campaign rally for former U.S. president Donald Trump in Pittsburgh when asked by an attendee whether the cryptocurrency XRP XRP could be incorporated into the financial system.

“Crypto by its very nature helps with individual freedom,” Musk said, adding he wasn’t endorsing XRP or any other specific cryptocurrency.

Musk later said he “wasn’t actively involved in crypto,” dodging a question about whether blockchains, the technology that underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, could be used in future elections to reduce or eliminate voter fraud.

…so…checks notes…when they moved the tesla horde of bitcoin the other day to new addresses & everyone went nuts trying to decide if he flogged a bunch of that

Tesla moves $765 million in Bitcoin to unknown wallets, putting Musk’s crypto plans in the spotlight [yahoo finance]

…that’s…what…passive involvement?

Musk was a key driver of the Covid-era bitcoin and crypto market boom, posting regularly about bitcoin and crypto but has more recently directed his attention toward criticism of the U.S. spending, repeatedly warning the U.S. is hurtling toward the brink of “bankruptcy.”

Musk has agreed to lead a so-called Department of Government Efficiency that has been suggested by Trump, calling it Doge—a reference to the meme that’s also the basis of the dogecoin cryptocurrency.

The dogecoin cryptocurrency, a tongue-in-cheek rival to bitcoin that’s been semi-adopted by Musk over recent years, has seen its price soar 25% this last week on the back of Musk’s Doge department comments—which caused billionaire Mark Cuban to joke that Musk could put “dogecoin in the U.S. Treasury,” if Donald Trump retakes the White House next month.

…so…that’s nice…in light of this new information I’m delighted to be able to say that I’m only passively incandescent with ire at all things musk-ish this morning…so…that’s pretty keen?

Tesla is known to hold almost 10,000 bitcoin, however, Arkham analysts have identified 68 addresses they believe to be controlled by Tesla, bringing its total bitcoin to 11,500.

While the bitcoin was likely being moved in either an over-the-counter sale or in preparation for one, some speculated it may be being moved to a different custodial wallet for storage.

In early 2022, Musk sold off the majority of the $1.5 billion of bitcoin he added to Tesla’s balance sheet in early 2021 to secure a quarterly profit for the company. Tesla will post its 2024 third-quarter results after the market closes next Wednesday, October 23.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/10/21/surprise-elon-musk-endorsement-suddenly-sends-bitcoin-and-crypto-prices-higher/

…weird, too…what with how he does think he’s actively involved in the rockets & the electric cars in an engineering way…when he isn’t…which is almost symmetry until you think about it & realise it’s the escher school of topology?

Recent data from the Harvard Youth Poll, a national survey I oversee for the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, reveals an increasing political rift between young men and women under 30, two groups critical to Democrats’ success in recent elections. Almost exactly equal shares of young men and young women say they will definitely vote in this election or have already done so. But since the spring of 2020, the share of young men identifying as registered Democrats has dropped by seven percentage points, while those identifying as Republicans have increased by seven points — a net shift of 14 points in just four years. Young women, during the same period, shifted two points away from the Republicans.

…boys…I know you’re…how can I put this…gonna be boys…but…fuck’s sake…I hope your mommas quit doing your laundry & make you cook your own dinner…& you find out why the word lysistrata is all over your girlfriend’s whatapp

…quit being such collosal fucking assholes…you…dicks

The young man’s experience reflects a broader crisis of confidence and purpose, rooted in economic insecurity and social disconnection. The Covid pandemic exacerbated the alienation, with many first-time voters spending thousands of hours isolated and online in their formative years.

While these struggles affect the whole country, they weigh especially on young men of all educational, racial and ethnic backgrounds. Nearly three-quarters of Gen Z men report feeling regularly stressed by an uncertain future, stirring painful memories of the Great Recession they witnessed as children. These feelings erode self-esteem and diminish their interest in personal relationships and long-term planning, leading many to describe their future as “bleak,” “unclear” and “scary.”

…uh huh…but…& I can not stress this enough…you don’t gotta be a dick about it

Today’s young men are lonelier than ever and have inherited a world rife with skepticism toward the institutions designed to promote and defend American ideals. Men under 30 are nearly twice as likely to be single as women their same age; Gen Z men are less likely to enroll in college or the work force than previous generations. They have higher rates of suicide and are less likely than their female peers to receive treatment for mental health maladies. Most young men in my polling say they fear for our country’s future, and nearly half doubt their cohort’s ability to meet our nation’s coming challenges.

…so…what I’m saying, I guess…is that shit isn’t an excuse for this shit

This shift in support for Mr. Trump among men is neither organic nor unexpected. It’s what happens when a well-coordinated political operation invests tens of millions of dollars to amplify Mr. Trump’s narrative and weaken confidence in the party in power. Compared with when Mr. Trump ran in 2020, young male voters are now less likely to support government-backed climate change solutions (down 15 points, according to our poll) and affirmative action for qualified candidates (down eight points). They are more likely to question immigration policy (up 12 points), free trade (up 10 points) and whether government stimulus leads to economic growth (up seven points). They are also more likely to believe that religious values should play a more important role in government (up six points).

…there are squirrels harder to outwit than these boys…& maybe it’s all just a sideshow

To be sure, she is doing better than Mr. Biden. Among men 18 to 29, her favorable rating is 44 percent, seven percentage points higher than Mr. Biden’s and thirteen points higher than Mr. Trump’s. While Mr. Biden’s age and traditional political approach often created distance with younger voters, Ms. Harris’s ability to engage across digital platforms and tap into youth culture sets her apart. Our polling also shows that while Mr. Trump has made significant inroads with young men, more still find Ms. Harris more relatable and competent. Mr. Trump still holds a narrow advantage on the economy, patriotism and strength, but Ms. Harris’s connection with young men continues to grow, suggesting she has yet to reach her ceiling with this demographic.

…but dipshits & dumpster fires use more than their fair share of the available oxygen…still…they can’t all be winners

Here’s one way. To reignite the hope of the emerging generation, Ms. Harris should make a sweeping national call to both military and civilian service — name it the Generation Z Compact to Rebuild and Renew America. Such a plan would offer a sense of identity, community and patriotism, while providing economic stability and skill-building — things many young men feel they are missing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/21/opinion/trump-gen-z-men-harris.html

…sure…when rishi did it that went gangbusters…checks notes…oh…well…he didn’t call it word-salad-of-the-day…he called his “sweeping call to both military and civilian service”…uh…”national service”…& it turns out the rank & file of the culture wars are draft-phobic?

…oh…& that opinion comes from…a pollster?

John Della Volpe is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. He is the author of “Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America.” He was a pollster for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020 and runs a research firm that conducted polls for a PAC supporting the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris campaigns.

…so…adjust accordingly?

Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to “retribution.”

In all the different ways that Mr. Trump has upended the traditional rules of American politics, that may be one of the most striking. He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived. He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.

His persecution defense, the notion that he gets in so much trouble only because everyone is out to get him, resonates at his rallies where he says “they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in the way.” But that of course belies a record of scandal stretching across his 78 years starting long before politics. Whether in his personal life or his public life, he has been accused of so many acts of wrongdoing, investigated by so many prosecutors and agencies, sued by so many plaintiffs and claimants that it requires a scorecard just to remember them all.

…even just the low-tide marks are hard to keep track of at this point

His businesses went bankrupt repeatedly and multiple others failed. He was taken to court for stiffing his vendors, stiffing his bankers and even stiffing his own family. He avoided the draft during the Vietnam War and avoided paying any income taxes for years. He was forced to shell out tens of millions of dollars to students who accused him of scamming them, found liable for wide-scale business fraud and had his real estate firm convicted in criminal court of tax crimes.

He has boasted of grabbing women by their private parts, been reported to have cheated on all three of his wives and been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women, including one whose account was validated by a jury that found him liable for sexual abuse after a civil trial.

He is the only president in American history impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, the only president ever indicted on criminal charges and the only president to be convicted of a felony (34, in fact). He used the authority of his office to punish his adversaries and tried to hold onto power on the basis of a brazen lie.

…his momma always told him he was special

His businesses went bankrupt repeatedly and multiple others failed. He was taken to court for stiffing his vendors, stiffing his bankers and even stiffing his own family. He avoided the draft during the Vietnam War and avoided paying any income taxes for years. He was forced to shell out tens of millions of dollars to students who accused him of scamming them, found liable for wide-scale business fraud and had his real estate firm convicted in criminal court of tax crimes.

He has boasted of grabbing women by their private parts, been reported to have cheated on all three of his wives and been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women, including one whose account was validated by a jury that found him liable for sexual abuse after a civil trial.

He is the only president in American history impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, the only president ever indicted on criminal charges and the only president to be convicted of a felony (34, in fact). He used the authority of his office to punish his adversaries and tried to hold onto power on the basis of a brazen lie.

…& it’s…nice, I suppose…that somehow it might just lately be dawning on some people who go to print that a whole bunch of stuff they were very conscious of in the case of the one old white guy who looked like trying to be president again…is true of the old white guy still trying to be on the president side of his president-or-bust get-out-of-jail hail mary…which…is a geopolitical hospital pass for the ages

Not Mr. Trump. He has moved from one furor to the next without any of them sinking into the body politic enough to end his career. The unrelenting pace of scandals may in its own way help him by keeping any single one of them from dominating the national conversation and eroding his standing with his base of supporters.

…that shit is hella distracting, you see…that’s how they didn’t see that…ummm…all of that stuff that serially screamed “dude’s brain is broker than he is” with a side of “you get how him being in the white house makes the US a liability for “the west”, right?”

Mr. Trump got an early start learning how to cut corners. As a high school student at New York Military Academy, he knowingly borrowed a friend’s dress jacket with a dozen medals attached to wear for his yearbook photo, in effect appropriating medals that he did not win himself, according to a new book, “Lucky Loser,” by Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig of The New York Times.

He likewise cheated to get into college, according to his estranged niece, Mary L. Trump. The future president paid a friend to take the SAT for him, Ms. Trump asserted in her own book, earning a score that later helped him transfer to Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania, a credential he has boasted about ever since. (A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump has denied this, and the widow of a man with the name cited by Ms. Trump as the test-taking friend said that she was confident the assertion was false.)

…yadda yadda…bone-spurs…yadda

Freed from military obligations, Mr. Trump went into the family business, helping run his father’s empire of rental apartment buildings in the outer boroughs. Even in those early days, he came under suspicion of misconduct. In 1973, the Justice Department sued the Trump family company for racial discrimination in renting apartments. Applications from Black applicants were marked C for “colored.” Mr. Trump fought the matter in court but ultimately agreed to a settlement that the Justice Department at the time called “one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated.”

…even at a rate of one a minute you’d figure the forces of natural selection would have culled the crop of suckers a bit harder than the size of his base…even if that’s exaggerated…suggests…mind you…if all this stood to reason you’d probably need the number of people dying from choking because they could not in fact walk & chew gum at the same time to be up there with the covid tally in places that think facemasks in public is the same as being imprisoned by a tyrannical state…so…go figure?

The Trump Shuttle airline? Failure. His dreams of building a Television City in Manhattan? Failure. A United States Football League franchise? Failure. The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump Taj Mahal, Trump’s Castle Casino Resort, Trump Mortgage, Trump Vodka, Trump University, Trump Steaks, GoTrump.com? All failures.

His most spectacular flameouts came in the gambling mecca of Atlantic City, where he overextended himself building or buying three casinos that ultimately cannibalized each other’s clientele as he failed to keep up with enormous debt payments. He filed bankruptcy for the Taj Mahal in 1991 and then for the other two casinos in 1992. He also filed bankruptcy in 1992 for the Plaza Hotel.

Even after recovering from that debacle, Mr. Trump failed again. His casino company filed for bankruptcy in 2004 and then again in 2009, for his sixth trip into that process. In his various bankruptcies, he was compelled to sell assets, and creditors were forced to write off some of his debt. But Mr. Trump has boasted that he still made money in Atlantic City even after leaving a trail of losses for nearly everyone else involved, including workers who lost jobs.

Mr. Trump played the game along the edge, and sometimes over the line, of propriety. To grease his path, he would hire a governor’s son or a federal prosecutor’s brother. Along the way, he was investigated time and time again. Federal, state and local authorities looked into his ties with the Mafia, found violations of money laundering laws and penalized him for skirting stock trade rules.

At one point when Mr. Trump was strapped for cash to make an interest payment, his father sent a lawyer to one of the son’s casinos to buy $3.5 million in chips without placing a bet. New Jersey’s casino regulators imposed a $65,000 fine for what amounted to an illegal loan.

But Mr. Trump makes a point of not admitting misdeeds or mistakes. Even his failures he portrays as triumphs. “I made a lot of money in Atlantic City,” he once said, “and I’m very proud of it.”

His view of women and his belief in his right to pursue them with impunity ultimately was put on display before that election anyway. The now-famous “Access Hollywood” tape posted by The Washington Post weeks before the final balloting revealed his belief that he could “do anything” with women because he was famous. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he said. “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

While he later dismissed that as mere “locker room banter,” Mr. Trump has been a one-man #MeToo magnet, accused by two dozen or so women of sexual misconduct that goes well beyond banter. One said he grabbed her breasts and tried to run his hand up her skirt on an airplane. Another said he kissed her while she worked for him, and at least two others said he groped them at the U.S. Open. Perhaps most famously, E. Jean Carroll, a writer, said he raped her in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the 1990s.

He has consistently denied all charges, suggesting that all of these women, one after the other, simply made it up. “Every woman lied,” he said in 2016. In a couple of instances, he has dismissed the allegations, not by saying that he would never do such a thing but by saying that he would never do such a thing with those particular accusers because of their looks. “She would not have been the chosen one,” he said last month about one of them.

In the only time one of these allegations made it to a verdict in court, a New York jury last year did not establish that he raped Ms. Carroll but did unanimously find that he sexually abused and defamed her and ordered him to pay her $5 million. Another jury earlier this year found that he continued to defame her and ordered Mr. Trump to pay Ms. Carroll $83.3 million. He is appealing both judgments.

…he’s…the other kind of “a cheap date”

No president in American history has been wealthier than Mr. Trump. And no president in the modern era, at least, paid less in federal income taxes in their first year living in the White House.

Tax documents obtained by The Times in 2020 showed that Mr. Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he originally ran for president, and only $750 again in 2017, the first year of his presidency. In fact, in 11 of the 18 years examined by The Times, Mr. Trump paid no income taxes to the federal government whatsoever.

…but…sure, buddy…the man is only looking to take those overdue pounds of flesh out of him because he threw himself in between them & you…the voter…slash-tax-evading-serial-crook-&-sex-offender…because those are all everyman characteristics…right?

According to a Times investigation in 2018, Mr. Trump and his siblings took a real estate empire from his father that banks a few years later would value at nearly $900 million and, through favorable appraisals, paid taxes on it as if it were worth just $57 million. Buildings given by Fred Trump to his children were valued low by the Trump family for tax purposes and high for other purposes, turning a potential $10 million tax bill into a charge of just over $700,000, The Times reported.

He has even gotten the Internal Revenue Service to send him large amounts of cash. By declaring large losses on paper at least, he collected more than $90 million in local, state and federal refunds. Even Mr. Trump was astonished. “He could not believe how stupid the government was for giving ‘someone like him’ that much money back,” Mr. Cohen, his former lawyer, recalled in congressional testimony.
[…]
Unlike every other modern president, Mr. Trump refused to voluntarily release his tax forms, going all the way to the Supreme Court in an ultimately futile effort to shield them from public view. But he has made no apology for avoiding taxes where he can. “That makes me smart,” he famously said in 2016.

…”smart”…for a very narrow (not to mention narrow-minded) definition of “smart”…that’s almost solely transactional…& he still arguably fails to clear even that bar

The tax forms that did eventually become public highlighted the disparity between his public claims of business conquests and his private claims of business setbacks. In the same year that he published “The Art of the Deal,” his iconic best seller promoting himself as a masterful business mogul, his core businesses reported $45 million in losses on his tax returns.

Mr. Trump relied heavily on his father’s fortune to assemble his own. While he likes to say that he parlayed a $1 million loan from his father into his own empire, the Times investigation in 2018 found that his father had begun giving him $200,000 a year in inflation-adjusted dollars starting at age 3 and that over the course of his career he received $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate business. (Mr. Trump disputes this.)

The future president was not content to exploit his own inheritance. He got into a legal battle with his own niece and nephew, who accused him of cheating them out of their share of Fred Trump’s estate. Mary Trump and her brother Fred Trump III, the children of Donald’s late brother, Fred Trump Jr., argued that they were originally supposed to split a 20 percent share of their grandfather’s estate, worth millions, upon his death. Instead, under a revised will, the two were each offered a one-time payment of $200,000.

When they sued, the future president retaliated by cutting his niece and nephew out of the family’s medical insurance fund at a time when the younger Fred Trump was using it to pay for care for his severely ill infant son. “I was angry because they sued,” Donald Trump later explained to The Times. Fred and Mary eventually settled, but were embittered that their uncle would betray them in what seemed like a bid to find cash to pay his debts.

“He was willing to squeeze his own niece and nephew and manipulate his father’s wishes, all to try and stop his own creditors from collecting the money he legally owed them,” Fred Trump wrote in “All in the Family,” a memoir published in July. “If that meant screwing his late brother — well, so be it. If it meant raiding the inheritance of his brother’s two children — well, OK.”

…family values…check?

Mr. Trump’s relatives were not the only ones who considered themselves bilked. Over the years, so did contractors, bankers, business partners, customers and competitors, among others. By the time he first ran for president in 2016, he had been involved in 4,095 lawsuits, according to a count by USA Today, although in many of them he was the plaintiff.

Not counting personal injury lawsuits, which are common for many businesses, Mr. Trump or his firms were the defendants in at least 1,026 of those cases, accused of not paying taxes, not paying overtime, not paying companies he had hired, not paying back golf club fees that were to be refunded and not abiding by contracts. He won many of those fights but lost or settled others.

His educational and philanthropic enterprises were also seen as shams. Just after he was elected president in 2016, Mr. Trump agreed to pay $25 million to students of his defunct Trump University who accused him of defrauding them. Two years later, New York state authorities found “a shocking pattern of illegality” at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which functioned “as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.”

And in 2022, one of his tax schemes came unraveled when the Trump Organization, a family-owned business that he controlled, was convicted in criminal court of 17 counts of tax fraud, a scheme to defraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records for doling out off-the-books perks to some of its top executives. The company was given the maximum fine of $1.6 million.

…notwithstanding the part where his kid is plausibly so fucking dumb that it renders him as immune as a president to charges of actively conspiring with representatives of a hostile foreign power to procure “oppo research” to shift the odds against his opponent in ’16…which is unambiguously what jr did to the point of not being able to deny anything about other than grasping how that might be illegal…conveniently…which is what bill barr likes to call complete absolution from an accusation very carefully framed in terminology not used by the courts…co-ordination…amounting to…err…conspiring, galore…but…no collusion anywhere even if you CTRL-F the whole mueller report…which bill didn’t…because he definitely hadn’t seen it or had prior knowledge of its contents when he put out that memo that hobbled the thing with just the most incredibly fortuitous timing if your name rhymes with pr0n-ald dump

At the same time, he outlined more than 10 instances where Mr. Trump might have committed obstruction of justice by trying to thwart the investigation — including the dismissal of Mr. Comey. Mr. Mueller said he did not decide if charges were warranted because Justice Department policy precluded prosecution of a sitting president. Mr. Trump insisted this amounted to “total exoneration,” although Mr. Mueller explicitly said he was not exonerating the president.

…he’s the “anti-lawfare” candidate…allegedly?

Time and again, he publicly pressed his attorneys general — first Jeff Sessions and then William P. Barr — to prosecute Democrats or government officials who angered him. At various times, he called for the prosecution of Mr. Biden, Ms. Clinton and former President Barack Obama and lashed out when advisers resisted.

…totally not fixated on matters of petty personal animus that eclipse his understanding of how any of anything works

He grew particularly obsessed with prosecuting certain people, like former Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr. Trump was fixated on the former top diplomat for talking with the Iranians with whom Mr. Kerry had negotiated a nuclear agreement from which Mr. Trump withdrew the United States. In meeting after meeting, Mr. Trump repeatedly badgered Mr. Barr to charge Mr. Kerry, according to a memoir by John R. Bolton, his former national security adviser.

Mr. Bolton’s memoir was another example of Mr. Trump pushing the bounds of the presidency to punish someone. Angered that Mr. Bolton had criticized him, Mr. Trump pressured the Justice Department to block his former aide from publishing his book. The decision to go to court to squelch a memoir prior to publication after it had been initially cleared for classified information by a career official was seen as so beyond the pale that the assistant attorney general who filed the suit on White House orders, Jody Hunt, immediately resigned.

…& tv networks should be taken off air if they don’t flatter him…& even if they have him played by a man so much better looking than he’s ever been that you’d think that alone would break any suspension of disbelief…movies that depict shit that’s demonstrably true are election interference…just like anything that involves factual details of what he actually does rather than the crap he talks getting out in the wild constitute a crippling disadvantage to him so huge that it can’t be considered “fair play” & everyone involved should be put in stocks in the digital town square & pelted with rotten tomatoes SWAT teams

Mr. Trump tried to put so many people who irritated him in the cross hairs of the legal system that it is hard to maintain a thorough list. He wanted prosecutors to investigate Mr. Comey as well as Andrew G. McCabe, his acting successor, and other F.B.I. officials who participated in the Russia investigation, including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

The president was so determined to revoke security clearances for John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, and James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, who both criticized him on television, that his chief of staff John F. Kelly estimated that Mr. Trump raised the matter between 50 and 75 times.

He also sought to use his power to help specific companies he favored and penalize those that angered him. He told aides to instruct the Justice Department to block the merger of Time Warner with AT&T, which would include the CNN network, one of the biggest thorns in his side. The Justice Department unsuccessfully sought to stop the merger in court, although officials insisted they acted on their own initiative, not at the behest of the White House.

…some people…probably not generally the ones the NYT favors for the op-ed section…but…some people…would call that sort of…fact pattern…clues?

Mr. Trump also tried to penalize Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, another media irritant, by pressing for increases in U.S. postal rates for the company and by blocking a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract.

But he monetized the presidency for himself, as his Trump International Hotel in Washington and other properties became magnets for money from people and institutions currying favor, including the governments of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines. Critics took him to court charging him with violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution barring the acceptance of gifts from “any king, prince, or foreign state,” although the Supreme Court threw out legal challenges.

Most notably, Mr. Trump sought to use his office to strong-arm another country to deliver dirt on Mr. Biden, a political rival. The president suspended military aid to Ukraine and leaned on its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to “do us a favor” by announcing an investigation into supposed corruption involving Mr. Biden and other Democrats.

…remember that?

…the fucking senate hopes not…because that shit was internationally shameful…fucking twice over

Mr. Trump made prolific use of his presidential pardon power to help friends and political allies — and particularly figures who he might have had reason to fear would turn against him by talking with prosecutors if faced with prison time. Critics argued that dangling pardons amounted to an attempt to obstruct investigators.

…critics? …fucking billy-boy himself couldn’t deflect that plumb line

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/barr-says-trump-dangling-pardons-could-be-crime-hearing-update-3

…sorry…where was I before the sheer fucking insanity of it all derailed my train of somebody else’s thoughts for a moment?

Among others, Mr. Trump gave pardons or commutations to Paul Manafort, his onetime campaign chairman; Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist; Roger J. Stone Jr., his friend and political adviser, all of whom had been in the cross hairs of prosecutors looking at Mr. Trump. In the final weeks of his presidency, he also used his clemency power to help convicted felons who paid people close to him to lobby for them.

…oh, yeah…I remember now…beg pardon

…which…I probably should for starting down this god-forsaken track today…which…isn’t over yet

Mr. Trump’s presidency ended in violence as a result of his concerted effort to overturn the 2020 election that he lost so that he could hold onto power despite the will of the voters. He filed dozens of lawsuits and pressured state officials, members of Congress, the Justice Department and his own vice president to help reverse his defeat, something no president has ever done before. And when the crowd of supporters he told to march on Congress stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to stop the finalization of Mr. Trump’s defeat, he sat in the White House watching on television without trying to stop it for 187 minutes.

…I…don’t want to advocate for political violence…& I’m not pretending that taking him out behind a woodshed…or even just a bikeshed for a beat-down…would really “solve” a problem like mr “why don’t we listen to ave, maria”

…but…if you gave me 187 minutes with the man…there’s a chance I’d start looking for the nearest shed with a back to drag him round & hitting up youtube for clips of what seemed to work for jack bauer in a time-crunch…just sayin’

The explosive finale of the Trump presidency did not bring an end to the Trump scandals. On the contrary, it opened a new and unprecedented chapter in the epic and still-unresolved struggles between the 45th president and the American law enforcement system.

In the months after he departed the White House, authorities in Washington, New York, Georgia, Florida and Michigan opened investigations that ultimately led them to Mr. Trump. Civil lawsuits also mounted. Mr. Trump became a target or defendant in so many courthouses that his post-presidency has become a full-employment act for defense attorneys.

One after another, judges and juries found against Mr. Trump, branding him a fraudster, a sexual abuser and, through his real estate firm, a tax cheat. The two verdicts on behalf of E. Jean Carroll have left him on the hook for nearly $100 million including interest. The tax fraud conviction of the Trump Organization made him the first president to head a criminal company.

A separate civil lawsuit brought by the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, went to the heart of Mr. Trump’s self-image as a tycoon of Olympian proportions. Mr. Trump’s practice of valuing properties according to his needs came back to bite him when a judge found him liable for sweeping business fraud, ruling that he illegally inflated his net worth in securing loans. The judge not only hit him with penalties that could top $450 million, he also barred Mr. Trump from leading any business in his original home state for three years. Mr. Trump is appealing.
[…]
And then came what might have once been unthinkable — criminal charges against a former president. Mr. Trump was indicted not once, not twice, not three times but four times. While other presidents like Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton were not without their own scandals, none of them were ever charged with felonies.
[…]
The drumbeat of hearings and appeals and procedural fights that have followed may have numbed the shock value, but these cases will stand out in those future history books. He has gone to trial on only one of the four indictments so far, Mr. Bragg’s hush-money case, and the jury unanimously found him guilty of 34 felony counts. Sentencing has been pushed off until after the election.

The other three cases are in various states of limbo in part because of aggressive and successful defense moves by Mr. Trump’s lawyers aimed at delaying or undercutting the charges against him. The Georgia case was sidetracked by revelations that Ms. Willis had a personal relationship with the prosecutor she chose to manage the case.

The Florida case was thrown out in July by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, not because she found Mr. Trump innocent but because she considered Mr. Smith’s appointment as special counsel to be procedurally improper, a decision that stunned legal experts. Mr. Smith is appealing, and the charges could be reinstated.

The federal election case was thrown off track for months by Mr. Trump’s assertion that he had immunity as president. The Supreme Court largely accepted the argument, ruling for the first time in history that presidents have substantial immunity for crimes related to official acts. Now Judge Tanya S. Chutkan must determine whether Mr. Trump’s actions in trying to overturn the election to hold onto power constituted official acts, a process that could stretch out for months.

In the end, she may not get a chance. If Mr. Trump is elected next month, he could pull the plug on the federal prosecutions, and even the state cases in New York and Georgia may be frozen while he is in office again. He knows that, and he is counting on it. As he said earlier this year, “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5, by the people.”

For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment [NYT]

…just…look…I don’t speak “for the people” or anything…but…america really & truly is better than that…so…just…fucking don’t…there’s a good electorate?

…or I’m not the only one who won’t be held responsible for actions that ensue

…& I’m pretty much sure nobody wants that…not really…well…okay…maybe some people…but…you wouldn’t say those were a natural bedfellow for US interests…because you haven’t got your head jammed in somebody’s colon, I’m guessing

…let’s see if I can guess my way into naming a few tunes & we can all see about beating today down into a truce before bedtime?