…so…seems basically inevitable

Less than 24 hours after getting hit with a partial gag order in the New York criminal case involving his alleged falsification of business records, former President Donald Trump repeatedly lashed out at one person who’s not covered by the ruling — the judge.

On his social media platform, Trump called Judge Juan Merchan “biased and conflicted” while also taking aim at the judge’s daughter for a social media post that a court spokesperson said was wrongly attributed to her.

In a ruling Tuesday, Merchan noted the impending April 15 trial date and said Trump must “refrain” from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation” in the case, as well as about individual prosecutors and court staff and their family members.

The order did not mention the judge and his family members — a loophole Trump exploited Wednesday.

“This Judge, by issuing a vicious ‘Gag Order,’ is wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement,” Trump wrote, saying the judge “is suffering from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” and should recuse himself from the case.

Trump ramps up attacks on judge in hush money case after gag order [NBC]

…but…also seems like…he’s suffering from trump arraignment syndrome…the symptoms of which include screaming consciousness of guilt at every turn…he can’t help it…that’s what he is…so that’s how it comes across…unless you live on the extreme end of the willfully delusional spectrum of “comprehension”

On Nov. 5, North Carolina will determine whether a slate of Republican candidates who believe that the 2020 election was stolen, who dismiss Donald Trump’s 88 felony charges and who are eager to be led by the most prodigious liar in the history of the presidency can win in a battleground state.

Pope McCorkle, a Democratic consultant and professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, argued in an email that the results of this year’s Republican primary elections on March 5 demonstrate that “the North Carolina G.O.P. is now a MAGA party. With the gubernatorial nomination of Mark Robinson, the N.C. G.O.P. is clearly in the running for the most MAGA party in the nation.”
[…]
In February 2018, Robinson, the first Black lieutenant governor of the state, described on Facebook his view of survivors of school shootings who then publicly call for gun control. They are “media prosti-tots” who suffer from “the liberal syndrome of rectal cranial inversion mixed with a healthy dose of just plain evil and stupid permeating your hallways.”

In a March 2018 post on Facebook, Robinson declared: “This foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.”

…fuck knows how he thinks the story goes…they all had a sleepover with milk & cookies or some shit…wonder what he thinks of…I dunno…what’s happening in gaza…or ukraine…aside from “well, it ain’t north carolina”…which happens to be in or around the top 10 for size of state economy…but…somewhere in the 30s in the list of highest per capita income…which…tells me something in the basic math stakes about a thing or two

There are many ways to express MAGA extremism.

On May 13, 2020, Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee for North Carolina superintendent of public schools, responded on X to a suggestion that Barack Obama be sent to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp on charges of treason. Morrow’s counterproposal?

I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad. I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.

In Morrow’s world, Obama would be unlikely to die alone. Her treason execution list, according to a report on CNN, includes Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Representative Ilhan Omar, Hillary Clinton, Senator Chuck Schumer, Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates and President Biden.

…anyone know any hollywood types? …only that dumb idea for the film where the one guy shoots hair furore with the splurge gun chambered for guano…is significantly less dumb than these people…& frankly I could use the residuals…lot of good causes out there…& I wouldn’t mind having an effect or two…maybe even a disproportionate one…they seem to be fashionable at the minute

In 2023, according to a University of North Carolina study, white people were a minority of registered Democrats, at 40 percent, and Black voters were a plurality, at 46 percent, with the remainder being Hispanic, Asian American and other ethnicities.

Registered North Carolina Republicans, in contrast, were 88 percent white, 2 percent Black, 2 percent Hispanic and the rest other ethnic groups.
[…]
Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan research organization, released a report showing a consistent gap between white and Black turnout in non-presidential-year elections from 2002 to 2022, from a six- to 11-point white advantage through 2020 to a 16-point white advantage in 2022.

The recent rise of MAGA forces in both the Republican electorate and the ranks of the state party has provoked a series of internal disputes, the result of which has been the marginalization of the once dominant establishment wing of the party.

In February 2021, for example, the North Carolina Republican Party censured Senator Richard Burr because he voted to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial.

In June 2023 the party censured Senator Thom Tillis, a mainstream Republican, for his support of gay rights, some moderate immigration initiatives and gun violence policies.

…because that’s what that’s for now…they hate when they think they’re being censored…but they do love to censure people who say a thing they don’t like…particularly if that thing happens to be…on the money…bet that’s why they think it has a “U” in it

In many respects, North Carolina stands apart from the rest of the South. Ferrel Guillory, a professor at the University of North Carolina, described by email the bifurcated character of partisanship in the state: “Republican presidential candidates carried North Carolina in 12 of the 14 presidential elections from 1968 to 2020. Over that same period, Democrats won 10 of the 14 elections for governor.”

…now…what I want that to say to me…is NC gave the asshole a shot…because they’re team players…but they aren’t fucking morons…well…they might be for that second bite of the cherry in ’20…but…I don’t get a lot of what I want out of the headlines…so I wouldn’t read too much into that little bit of wishful thinking

Republicans hold veto-proof majorities in both branches of the legislature, but Democrats have won every election for attorney general for more than 100 years.

…I mean…when it comes to who they think they’re willing to trust to wield the law…maybe they aren’t a bunch of rubes?

McCorkle believes that the combination of Trump, Robinson and Morrow may prove toxic: “These days we don’t usually think of the races below affecting or influencing the presidential one at the top of a ticket. Trump, however, could have his hands more than full with the rest of the Republican ticket.”
[…]
Asher Hildebrand, a professor of public policy at Duke, agreed that “extremist candidates” like Robinson, Morrow and Dan Bishop, the Republican nominee for attorney general, “are absolutely liabilities for the Republican ticket.”

…& republican voters are absolute liabilities for the republic…world’s a funny old place

David McLennan, a political scientist at Meredith College, was cautious in his assessment of the shift to the right among North Carolina Republicans, noting that he would not characterize the party as “full MAGA.”

But, he added in his email:

the primary voters that put these candidates on the ballot definitely reflect the MAGA ideology. In recent Meredith polls, we found that those with the strongest approval of Donald Trump were the most likely to vote in the primary elections. Put simply, the energy in North Carolina Republican voters reflects the MAGA wing of the party.

…I mean…fuck a poll

The most recent Meredith poll, conducted Jan. 26 to 31, showed some significant differences between North Carolina Republicans and Democrats.

Asked whether “having a strong leader for America is more important than being a democracy,” Republicans agreed 48.7 percent to 46.3 percent, while Democrats disagreed 62.4 to 34.4 percent.

Asked whether they agree that “our American way of life is disappearing so fast, we may have to use force to save it,” Republicans agreed 61.1 to 31.5 percent, and Democrats disagreed 57.0 to 35.9 percent.

…but…super-double-cactus-fuck killing the patient to save them because you insist on a rodeo clown performing the fucking surgery

Candis Watts Smith, a political scientist at Duke, described North Carolina in an email as “a purple state demographically” with a Republican Party that “has moved to the right faster than Democrats have shifted to the left.”

These trends, in Smith’s view, are likely to improve Democratic prospects:

Given the extreme culture-war-focused policy stances that candidates like Robinson are offering, many North Carolina Democrats may be inclined to turn out. If North Carolinians, like many other Americans, are not particularly interested in a rematch of the 2020 presidential election, they may certainly be watchful of down-ballot races — and Biden may benefit from that.

Smith provided data, however, that suggested that the rapid growth of North Carolina, including the influx of many immigrants from other states, has not worked to the advantage of Democrats. She cited a University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, report, “How Have Registered Voters in N.C. Shifted Demographically Over the Past Decade?,” that found that “North Carolina has added nearly one million new registered voters since 2013. In that time span, there has been an increase of over 210,000 new Republican voters, a decrease of over 350,000 Democrats, and an increase of over 960,000 unaffiliated voters.”
[…]
What is striking is how quickly and completely the North Carolina Republican Party has been taken over by MAGA Trump loyalists who, in turn, have repudiated the old guard.

Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College, described the takeover in an email, citing the results of the state’s 2022 and 2024 primary elections.
[…]
So, Bitzer continued, “in my analysis, the North Carolina Republican Party — in terms of the party’s electorate, as an organization and in its candidates and, in general, its elected officials — is the MAGA/Trump Republican Party of North Carolina.”

The Trumpification of the Republican Party has not led to its dominance. Bitzer pointed to the 2004 election, when George W. Bush won the state by 12 points while Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, cruised to re-election by the same margin.

That election stands in contrast to the 2020 contest, Bitzer pointed out, when there was “a point-and-a-half spread between Trump’s 49.9 percent win and Cooper’s 51.5 percent win.”

Bitzer’s description of the current situation amounts to a good description of the 2024 election in the state and the nation as a whole: “North Carolina statewide candidates live on the knife’s edge when it comes to the margins of victory.”

One Purple State Is ‘Testing the Outer Limits of MAGAism’ [NYT]

…testing limits, you say?

Shares of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company continued to surge on Wednesday, extending the gains on its first official trading session on the Nasdaq the day before.

After another double-digit percentage gain, the parent of Truth Social approached $9 billion in market value, a windfall for insiders awarded shares in the company.

The biggest beneficiary is Mr. Trump, the company’s largest shareholder, whose stake is worth more than $5 billion, on paper. No other shareholder comes close, according to regulatory filings, but many of Trump Media’s executives have seen their net worth swell this week, in some cases by many millions of dollars.

…& tony soprano was in the municipal sanitation game…just trying to take out the trash

The bullishness around Trump Media has been driven by the enthusiasm of individual investors and Trump supporters, rather than investment firms and hedge funds. The company’s lofty valuation stands in contrast to its relatively small operations, with $3.3 million in revenue in the first nine months of last year.

…AKA a quasi-legal…nominally above-board…funnel into which to toss endless buckets of unearned means to prop up the poorest excuse for an alleged billionaire ever to be feloniously acquitted by the least-spine-having set of unindicted co-conspirators ever to cos-play at being able to understand the role they play

…somehow…the fact the thing they’re throwing all that cash at…is a loss-making shithole that can’t even get the-platform-formerly-known-as-twitter to make it look like a viable business…feels like it should be admissible in some sort of a fucking court

The original sponsor of Digital World and its initial public offering, the investment firm ARC Global, holds a stake worth more than $700 million. ARC Global is headed by Patrick Orlando, a former chief executive of Digital World.

ARC Global has a mix of investors, none of whom have been publicly disclosed. But a regulatory filing in August by Digital World showed that non-U.S. citizens had a roughly 17 percent stake in the firm. The filings noted that ARC Global includes investors from Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Peru and Mexico.

Mr. Orlando, for a time, had been a senior adviser to ARC Group, a Hong Kong-based financier that had been an adviser to Digital World when the special purpose acquisition company was being established. It is not clear if any of the principals of ARC Group has a financial interest in ARC Global.

United Atlantic Ventures holds a stake in Trump Media worth about $500 million. The firm is controlled by Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky, former contestants on Mr. Trump’s reality television show “The Apprentice,” who approached the former president in early 2021, shortly after he left the White House, about starting a social media company. They were early participants in talks that ultimately led to the merger of Trump Media and Digital World.

Mr. Orlando, Mr. Litinsky and Mr. Moss are in court fighting over their stakes in Trump Media. Mr. Orlando has said that he and the shell company’s sponsor group are entitled to more shares. Mr. Litinsky and Mr. Moss have filed a lawsuit claiming Trump Media is trying to diminish their stake.

Many People and Companies Have Made Millions on Trump Media’s Stock [NYT]

…uh huh…anyone ever hear of this thing called “FTX”? …apparently it was the talk of the town…real goldmine…no?

When Sam Bankman-Fried is sentenced on Thursday, the US judge deciding his fate will weigh a range of factors, from the nature of his offences and history to how much his actions cost the investors and customers of the FTX crypto exchange he founded.
[…]
Judge Lewis Kaplan’s evaluation will be a critical factor in determining whether the 32-year old Bankman-Fried spends a mere handful of years in prison, as his lawyers have suggested, or up to five decades, as prosecutors have urged.

When Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange imploded in November 2022 with an $8bn hole in its balance sheet, prosecutors labelled it “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history”. One year later, he was convicted on multiple counts of fraud and money laundering by a New York jury.

While its founder faced his criminal case, FTX has been quickly wound down in bankruptcy court under the oversight of its caretaker chief executive, John Ray. After months of tracking down and clawing back money, tokens and other assets, FTX bankruptcy administrators told the court in January that customers with legitimate claims against the exchange “will eventually be paid in full”.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers seized on that. “The harm to customers, lenders, and investors is zero,” they wrote to Kaplan last month, arguing for a sentence of no longer than six-and-a-half years. The $8bn hole, they said, reflected “the temporary shortfall in liquid assets to cover the unprecedented level of customer withdrawal requests” during a rush on FTX in late 2022.

“Each victim . . . will receive 100 cents on the dollar, plus interest,” lawyers Marc Mukasey and Torrey Young wrote in a subsequent letter to the judge. 

People with knowledge of the restructuring negotiations told the Financial Times this week that FTX could even repay its customers up to two-fifths more than the initial value of their claims, thanks to the surging value of various cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence assets.
[…]
Bitcoin, the market’s best-known token, has risen roughly 300 per cent since the time of FTX’s bankruptcy, jumping from about $17,000 to register an all-time high of $73,800 earlier this month. Rival token ether has surged by roughly 180 per cent to $3,850 as of Tuesday. Solana — a Bankman-Fried-favourite — has jumped from $15 at the time of FTX’s demise to $188 now.
[…]
Bankman-Fried’s calculations were based on a “distorted depiction” of the bankruptcy proceedings, they added, pointing to former customers who would “never get back either the amount of actual fiat money they deposited in FTX nor the cryptocurrency they were falsely told their deposits had been used to purchase”, because many of the tokens had vanished.
[…]
Customers are not the only ones nursing losses: FTX investors such as Sequoia Capital stand to lose more than $1.7bn in the bankruptcy, prosecutors said, after their stakes were written down to zero. 
[…]
Josh Naftalis, a partner at Pallas who until last year was a federal prosecutor in the office that indicted Bankman-Fried, said the FTX founder’s contentions were “the kind of argument that the judge would say that a jury rejected”. But he said the government had failed to acknowledge some mitigating factors: “The people who were investing in this weren’t necessarily widows and orphans, they were, in the crypto world, relatively sophisticated.”

“The fact that victims might be made whole by someone else’s hand, while Bankman-Fried is serving time, I don’t think that’s a mitigating factor to any great degree,” said Mark Kornfeld, of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney. “He’s not the one making them whole.”

How will the cost of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crimes be counted at sentencing? [FT]

…so…how do you suggest we count the cost of this criminal enterprise?

Qatari royal invested about $50 million in pro-Trump network Newsmax [WaPo]

Mnuchin tried to force a sale of TikTok. Now he’s a possible bidder. [WaPo]

Supreme Court focus on Comstock Act suggests potential threat to abortion access [WaPo]

How can Donald Trump’s lossmaking Truth Social be worth $8bn? [Guardian]

Trump got some good financial news this week. But there’s a dark side [Guardian]

…anyone know anyone who might know what they did with the props after they wrapped on bugsy malone?

…asking for a friend…they’re on the blower to the WSJ trying to place an ad just now…&…they sound kinda pissed?

…there’s a show for that

…I just

…keep getting distracted