These numbers are not about people off the streets in "blue cities", and they're not about spoiled pampered brats in pro sports, and they're not ancient history.
These are numbers from the 535 Congress Critters we've got on our payroll right now.
Republicans have nothing but money, and since that's their only tool, everything and everybody has to have a price.
And of course, if the parties were reversed, the Wingnut Outrage-O-Matic would be cranked up to 12.
Ain't it funny how there's no mention of this anywhere on "the right". Their silence is a deafening confirmation of their intention to continue with the hypocrisy as they preach about "transparency", but remain as opaque as possible.
They pull their shit and then pretend they didn't do anything untoward, or they have the mandate of law.
(like they give one empty fuck about the law)
Ground News
Federal Courthouse, Victoria St, Laredo TX
Texas city removes anti-border wall mural after loss of funding threat from governor
HOUSTON (AP) — A South Texas city has removed a mural protesting the border wall along the southern border with Mexico following a threat by Gov. Greg Abbott to withhold up to $1.6 billion in road funding.
The mural, which was painted on a street in front of the federal courthouse in Laredo and said, “Defund the Wall,” was removed Tuesday evening, said Noraida Negron, a spokesperson for the city of Laredo.
Its removal came after Laredo’s City Council on Monday voted to do so.
Laredo is the latest U.S. city to remove political messages or artwork from roadways following a directive from the administration of President Donald Trump and action by Republicans.
In August, Florida officials removed a rainbow-colored crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub where 49 people were gunned down. In March, crews in Washington, D.C., removed a large yellow “Black Lives Matter” mural that had been painted on a street one block from the White House. The removal came after pressure from Republicans in Congress.
During an at times contentious meeting on Monday, Laredo Mayor Victor Treviño said he had requested a vote on the mural’s removal after receiving a letter earlier this month from the Texas Department of Transportation, or TxDOT, directing the city to eliminate the mural or risk losing up to $1.6 billion in funding for roads.
“We’re not going to devastate our community for what is considered one particular vantage point on our public roads, even if this speech may be popular or well received,” Treviño said.
On Oct. 8, Abbott directed TxDOT to ensure that all Texas cities and counties are in compliance with federal and state guidelines on roadway safety and that symbols, flags and other markings conveying social or political messages were prohibited.
“Texans expect their taxpayer dollars to be used wisely, not advance political agendas on Texas roadways,” Abbott said in a statement.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Wednesday.
Abbott’s directive came after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy in July sent letters to all U.S. governors saying that intersections and crosswalks needed to be kept free from distractions as part of a nationwide roadway initiative.
“Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork,” Duffy said in a statement in July.
The mural in Laredo was painted in 2020 using private funds and came amid lawsuits and protests against the building of the border wall in the area. In 2021, federal officials terminated all remaining border contracts for the Laredo sector.
In Laredo, Elsa Hull a landowner who opposed the building of the border wall, told city council members on Monday that the state’s order to remove the mural was “bullies threatening our city.”
“This mural enabled the people to unite and stand against injustice and allowed us to keep our land, our homes, and our river from being taken away from us. This is part of our history. Don’t erase our voices completely,” Hull said.
The removal of the mural in Laredo comes as earlier this month officials in Houston removed a rainbow-colored crosswalk that had been in place for the last eight years to honor in part the LGBTQ+ community.
During a City Council meeting earlier this month, Houston Mayor John Whitmire was critical of Abbott’s directive but said the city would likely lose any legal challenge to the order.
“If we do not find ways as a city to take a stand, what’s next?” Houston City Council member Abbie Kamin said. “When something is erased like this that means so much to so many, there is a real toll on the community.”
Is anybody legitimately surprised by this latest scandal involving players and the huge money that goes with big time sports leagues?
We've seen this over and over.
1919 White Sox
College basketball in the 50s and 60s
Pete Rose and Art Schlichter in the 80s
Boxing - in the forevers
And that's just the shit I can remember off the top of my head. There has to have been hundreds of similar instances even in the relatively brief history of the US. And there has to be plenty more - probably going on right now - that we've never known about, and probably never will know about.
"Integrity" in big time sports has always been a little iffy, but add the corrupting influence of gambling money, and the near-absolute eventual involvement of mobsters, and whatever sport we're talking about, there's going to be something that looks a lot like a collapse in viewership and fandom because there's no way to trust these fuckers to play it straight anymore.
It's a problem.
It's a very real problem.
And it's getting to be a very real, very big fucking problem.
Sports become de-legitimized, because you can't trust the outcome to be real.
NBA’s gambling scandal renews congressional calls to regulate sports betting
Lawmakers want “safeguards” added after charges are brought against dozens of people, including current and former high-profile NBA figures, in federal sports-betting and illegal poker investigations.
The arrests of current and former high-profile NBA figures on Thursday for illegal sports betting and rigged poker games spurred fresh calls from lawmakers for federal regulation after the scandal exposed evidence of the corrupting influence of betting on sports.
Since a 2018 Supreme Court decision overturned a federal law prohibiting sports betting outside Nevada, 38 states and D.C. have legalized gambling on sports and spawned a multibillion-dollar industry, according to the American Gaming Association.
Members of the House and Senate on Thursday called for “safeguards” after FBI agents arrested more than 30 people, including Portland Trail Blazers Coach Chauncey Billups, who authorities said was involved in a mob-run rigged poker scheme and supplied information to sports bettors about his team. The indictment does not suggest that Billups played any role in the placing of bets or that he received any money in return for the inside information that was used.
Miami Heat player Terry Rozier also was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. FBI Director Kash Patel described the alleged criminal activity by high-profile figures as “the insider trading saga for the NBA.”
Propositional betting, often referred to as prop bets, is facing particular scrutiny inside and outside of Congress. Instead of wagering on the game’s outcome, prop bets, which are at the heart of the federal case, allow gamblers to wager on players’ statistics during the game. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday said he supports increased federal regulation on sports betting to lessen the chances for manipulation of games because of betting. He pointed to his league’s request last year to its gambling operating partners to restrict prop bets on players who split their time between the NBA and its developmental league as an example of ways manipulation can be reduced.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement Thursday that he was committed to getting prop bets out of the system.
“The temptation for athletes, seasoned coaches, and professional officials to adjust performances is real. Sadly, scandals are becoming more and more frequent,” Durbin said, noting that industry leaders such as NCAA President Charlie Baker voiced support for increased regulations at a committee hearing on sports betting last year.
He added: “Congress, states, and sports leagues must all work to maintain the integrity of sports and prevent future sports betting scandals,” after the Supreme Court “struck down commonsense federal law in 2018.”
Bills designed to tighten rules around gambling and gaming have been introduced in recent years, but have failed to gain overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. The SAFE Bet Act, introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-New York) in March, would require states to meet minimum federal standards in marketing, affordability and artificial intelligence, but the bill hasn’t advanced in either chamber.
Responding to the Justice Department’s indictments Thursday morning, Blumenthal posted on X that he would “continue to fight for federal legislation that provides safeguards against the excesses & abuses that lead to the kind of wrongdoing highlighted by these indictments.”
Tonko described the scandal on social media as “an inevitable consequence of the unchecked explosion of the sports betting industry,” which he said had destroyed public trust in the game with “dire consequences for countless across our nation struggling with problem gambling.”
Sen. Katie Boyd Britt’s (R-Alabama) office said in a statement Thursday that the senator was “open” to having talks “about potential solutions to crack down” on sports betting issues. Britt was one of several senators who signed a bipartisan letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month that called for restrictions on illegal offshore gambling, which is sometimes used to get around existing gambling laws and regulations.
After the Judiciary Committee’s December hearing on how the industry’s widespread legalization was affecting athletes, public health and the integrity of amateur and professional sports, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) said he would be “very open” to an independent commission that would assess potential federal oversight.
Other legislative attempts during this Congress have taken a more nuanced approach to tackling specific gambling-related harms as opposed to calling for broad national regulation. Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Washington), who introduced a bill to restrict prop betting in college sports, said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the arrests.
“The world of prop bets has opened up a lot of potential for illegal activity and issues that can threaten games,” he told The Washington Post in an interview Thursday, but clarified he was not advocating for a prop bet ban in professional sports. Such a ban would be very “unlikely” to pass through Congress, he said, because there are “many law-abiding citizens” who enjoy participating in prop bets.
While Congress might be inclined to legislate on narrower issues, such as banning prop betting on college athletics, the argument often made by the gaming industry is that offshore betting and criminal syndicates are to blame when betting issues arise. “I don’t think there’s really [an] appetite to go back the other way,” Baumgartner said, referring to the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that ushered in legalized sports betting across the country.
Sports betting companies have responded to the NBA scandal by stressing their “commitment to rooting out abuses,” as per a statement by FanDuel to CNBC. The American Gaming Association said while Thursday’s revelations are “a stark reminder of the pervasive and predatory illegal market … it is important to recognize that the regulated legal market delivers transparency, oversight, and collaboration with authorities that assists in bringing these bad actors to light.”
A DraftKings spokesman told CNBC: “We fundamentally believe that regulated online sports betting is the best way forward, to monitor for and detect suspicious behavior.”
The technique of linking religion to whatever economic &/or political power you're trying to exert is the oldest trick in the book.
The unwashed masses have been conditioned to believe they're not allowed to criticize god, and that they can't resist the awesomeness of his awesomely awesome power, so everybody should just shut up and knuckle under.
If you can convince them that you're actually one with that all-powerful being, you can shit on their heads, and they'll instinctually say, "Thanks for the hat, boss.".
Je suis l’État, et l’État c’est moi.
So here's the WaPo piece:
Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction
The Washington Post reviewed leaked audio from four off-the-record lectures the tech investor delivered in San Francisco over the past month that fused beliefs about religion and technology.
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel recently warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of technology or artificial intelligence are “legionnaires of the Antichrist” in private lectures on Christianity that connected government oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future, according to recordings reviewed by The Washington Post.
In the four, roughly two-hour lectures, which began last month and culminated Monday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Thiel laid out his religious views to a sold-out audience told to keep the contents “off-the-record,” according to an event listing. He argued that those who propose limits on technology development not only hinder business but also threaten to usher in the destruction of the United States and an era of global totalitarian rule, according to the recordings.
“In the 17th, 18th century, the Antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil crazy science,” Thiel said in his Sept. 15 opening talk, according to the recordings. “In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. It’s someone like Greta or Eliezer,” he said, referring to Thunberg and Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent critic of the tech industry’s approach to AI.
Thunberg has criticized global capitalism as a driver of environmental degradation while Yudkowsky advocates for limiting AI research to prevent the technology from surpassing human intelligence. Thiel previously funded Yudkowsky’s work but said in his Sept. 15 lecture that he is now embarrassed by the association and that the AI critic and others like him have become “deranged,” according to the recordings.
Thiel’s lectures come at a time of rising Christian nationalism in the United States. Christians have varying interpretations of the biblical Antichrist, but the figure is often understood to be an opponent of God who appears during the end-times.
The Post sent Thiel, through a spokesperson, a detailed list of questions about his remarks in the lectures, but Thiel declined to comment.
Yudkowsky said in a statement “my understanding is that authorities from multiple Christian denominations have stated that Thiel’s views, identifying the Antichrist with proposals to regulate the AI industry, are not deemed by them to be compatible with conventional Christian belief.” Spokespeople for Thunberg did not return a request for comment.
The Post reviewed audio recordings of all four of Thiel’s lectures, titled “The Antichrist: A Four-Part Lecture Series.” A review of a sample of the audio by Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, indicated they were probably authentic and not manipulated by AI. Reuters previously reported some passages from Thiel’s lectures.
Thiel, an early investor in Facebook and co-founder of data analytics firm Palantir, has long espoused libertarian views, arguing that politics, bureaucracy and regulations have led to economic stagnation in the U.S. and Europe.
But the recent lectures appear to mark an intensification of this ideology and attempt to pitch it on a grander scale. The recordings offer new detail about how the billionaire seems to place those who would critique or regulate tech developers into a religious good-vs.-evil worldview, where the future of all creation depends on giving innovators free rein.
Silicon Valley leaders have escalated their fight against regulating AI since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Thiel has close ties to administration officials including Vice President JD Vance, White House science adviser Michael Kratsios and David Sacks, White House AI and crypto czar. As one of the industry’s most influential leaders, his effort to cast resisting oversight of technology development as a religious battle could intensify the industry’s crusade.
Thiel said in his third lecture, on Sept. 29, that only a religious argument could inspire the proper response to the threat of a growing web of global rules, according to the recording.
“There are a lot of rational reasons I can give why the one-world state’s a bad idea: Turn the planet into a prison; I think the tax rates would be very high,” he said, according to the recording. “But I think if you strip it from the biblical context, you will never find it scary enough. You will never really resist.”
The billionaire’s lectures were also notable as a forceful display of religiosity in an industry that has historically been secular. Christianity has recently become a significant presence in some influential tech circles, in part because of ACTS 17 Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading Christian principles inside the tech industry that organized the Thiel lectures.
Those with tickets were required to attend the full series of four talks in addition to respecting the off-the-record policy, the event listing said. Thiel hinted in his third lecture on Sept. 29 that the restriction was intended to draw more attention to his ideas, according to the recording. “It’s a pretty good marketing shtick if you want everyone to hear about something, not to let anyone into the room,” he said. “I’m not bragging, but I’m not totally incompetent.”
The billionaire spoke for nearly eight hours across the four private lectures about his theories of the role of technology in society and the world, according to the recordings, citing sources ranging from the Bible and theological and philosophical texts to Japanese anime.
He acknowledged that technology could have negative effects on people and society but argued that constraining its development would be more harmful.
“Maybe these things are good or bad — stopping them seems far, far worse,” he said, according to the recordings. “If the internet or the AI deranges some people but we have to shut it down altogether, that feels like out of the frying pan into the fire — a cure that’s far worse than the disease.”
A threadbare patchwork of state laws imposes limits on AI development, requiring California companies to safety-test products and preventing Texas companies from discriminating against protected classes. Despite a flurry of activity in Washington in recent years, no federal law has passed.
Thiel argued that critiques of technology and calls for stricter regulation by Thunberg and others appear to echo biblical interpretations of an Antichrist who will win power by offering the world “peace and safety” from apocalyptic destruction, according to the recordings. He previously cited Thunberg in a June interview with the New York Times
Thiel also accused Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, who is known for popularizing the idea that humanity will eventually invent a potentially dangerous “superintelligence,” of advocating for restrictions on technology that will hold society back, according to the recordings.
In an interview, Bostrom said his views are “complex” and have evolved to focus more on the positive potential of AI. “Maybe he needs a new casting agency for his demonology,” Bostrom said of Thiel.
Thiel, whose net worth is around $27 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, also used his private talks to criticize financial regulations. He said such rules were a sign that a singular world government has begun to emerge that could be taken over by an Antichrist figure who could then use it to exert control over people.
“It’s become quite difficult to hide one’s money,” Thiel said, according to the recordings. “An incredible machinery of tax treaties, financial surveillance and sanctions architecture has been constructed.” Wealth gives the “illusion of power and autonomy,” Thiel added, according to the recordings, “but you have this sense it could be taken away at any moment.”
Thiel has deep ties to the Trump administration and was early among tech figures to endorse the president’s first run for office in 2016. He did not donate to any Republican politicians in 2024 but was part of a network of tech elites who helped install Vance, a mentee, as vice president.
Thiel has donated to GOP candidates this year, giving $850,000 to the joint fundraising committee of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), according to federal election filings.
In his lectures and the Q&As that followed each one, Thiel offered views on whether figures including President Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, former president Joe Biden and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were Antichrist-like figures, according to the recordings.
Biden and Xi were not charismatic enough, Thiel said, according to the recordings, and while he declared Gates a “very, very awful person,” the investor said he was not “remotely able to be the Antichrist.”
Thiel’s comments about Trump were more complex, according to the recordings. “If you, in a sincere, rational, well-reasoned way are willing to make the argument that Trump is the Antichrist, I will give you a hearing,” he said. “If you’re not willing to make that argument, maybe you have to be open to possibility that he’s at least relatively good.”
A spokesman for Thiel, Jeremiah Hall, said: “Peter doesn’t believe Trump is the Antichrist. His challenge was for Trump’s liberal critics to make that case if they want Peter to hear them out, and he knows that in practice they can’t and won’t do so.” The White House did not return a request for comment.
Thiel also talked about other powerful figures in technology. He accused fellow tech investor Marc Andreessen of “pure Silicon Valley gobbledygook propaganda,” according to the recordings, in Andreessen’s 2023 essay titled “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” that predicted AI would rapidly transform society in many positive ways.
Thiel had kinder words about Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to the recordings, calling the entrepreneur, who has recently praised Christianity, one of the “smarter, more thoughtful people” he knows.
The investor said he recently encouraged Musk to renege on his 2012 commitment to the Giving Pledge movement co-founded by Gates, which asks wealthy people to commit the majority of their fortune to charitable causes, according to the recordings.
“$200 billion — if you’re not going to be careful — is going to left-wing nonprofits that are going to be chosen by Bill Gates,” Thiel said he warned Musk, according to the recording, painting the philanthropist as among the malevolent forces besetting technologists.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for Andreessen and Gates did not respond to requests for comment. Reuters previously reported some of Thiel’s comments on Trump and Musk.
Thiel has long been a devout Christian, but in recent times he and other prominent Silicon Valley figures have been more vocal about their faith. The movement has gained momentum since Trump’s reelection and has become entangled with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, which some see as a potentially all-powerful technology raising deep questions about humanity.
ACTS 17, the Christian nonprofit that organized Thiel’s talks, is an acronym for Acknowledging Christ within Technology and Society. Its name also refers to the New Testament book of Acts, in which the apostle Paul travels to Athens, where he debates the Christian Gospel with philosophers.
The group’s founder, Michelle Stephens, is married to Trae Stephens, an investor at Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund, and a co-founder of military tech company Anduril.
Stephens has said that she got the idea for ACTS 17 at a 40th birthday party for her husband in 2023. At the celebration, she has said in interviews, Thiel gave a speech about Christ and miracles, prompting her to realize that ministering to elites is just as important as Christian teachings about ministering to the poor.
Stephens introduced Thiel at his first lecture on Sept. 15 as “one of the great capitalists” and also “great Christians of our time,” according to the recording. Protesters gathered outside the event, according to local news reports, with some dressed as devils or holding signs that accused Thiel himself of being the Antichrist.
When asked for comment, Stephens asked The Post to “respect” the event’s off-the-record policy and did not comment further.
Garry Tan, chief executive of the start-up incubator Y Combinator and a member of ACTS 17, has hosted events in his San Francisco home — a converted church — about the intersection of Christian faith, science and technology over the past year.
One gathering hosted by Tan in June featured Pat Gelsinger, former CEO of chipmaker Intel, and was organized by ACTS 17, according to a social post by Gelsinger. “Such a deep discussion on the ‘Holy Shift’ across life, AI, leadership and faith,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for Playground, a venture capital firm where Gelsinger is a general partner, declined to comment.
Tan said he thought Thiel’s comparison of potential overregulation of AI to the Antichrist was “thought-provoking” and a “somewhat tongue-in-cheek” use of the concept. “These are useful mental frameworks for how technology interacts with society,” he said.
Overregulation of nuclear power has worsened the climate crisis, he added. “What if we do that to the age of intelligence? The future won’t repeat, but it will rhyme.”
They don't listen to you or me, and they've become so enamored of their power - and the money they enjoy from their wealthy benefactors - they don't even listen to themselves as they barf their talking points into the atmosphere.
"I am more powerful than Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg because I can stand up right here, right now, and say, "Fuck you Donald Trump. Fuck you. And they can't do that."
Gold just hit a fresh all-time high with tariff worries sending investors scrambling for safety
Gold reached a fresh high over over $3,100 an ounce on Monday.
The safe haven is gaining on tariff fears, falling yields, and a declining dollar.
Goldman expects the gold prices to reach $3,300 an ounce by year-end.
Tariff anxiety is crushing risk appetite and sending gold to fresh highs amid the flight to safety.
The yellow metal surged to $3,127 per ounce Monday morning, up $100 in less than a week. Tariff-driven economic fears have made it one of this year's hottest commodities, having gained 18.3% so far in 2025.
The metal gained momentum amid heavy losses in US stocks on Monday as traders brace for the April 2 tariff date set by Trump.
Investors worry that the sweeping duties could escalate a global trade war, battering US markets and the economy. The tariffs have been the chief culprit behind the stock market's correction this year, and explain why Treasury yields have dropped to the 4% range.
But the stock market's pain is gold's gain this year.
"While stocks falter, gold continues to shine. The metal's status as a safe haven has been reinforced by tightening financial conditions, falling bond yields, and a weaker US dollar," wrote Daniela Sabin Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com. "As foreign demand for US assets drops due to lower yields, the environment becomes increasingly supportive for non-yielding assets like gold."
At $3,100 an ounce, the metal trades above the year-end forecasts made at the end of 2024.
But since President Donald Trump took office, banks such as Goldman Sachs have reassessed expectations. As of last week, the bank now sees $3,300 as the likely outcome, as tariff fears have reshaped gold flows and a pick up in central bank demand.
"While ETF flows generally track Fed policy rates, history shows they can overshoot during extended periods of macro uncertainty -- such as during the Covid-19 pandemic," the bank wrote Wednesday.
While technical indicators suggest gold is currently overbought, broader bullish momentum should overcome any short-term consolidation, Hathorn said. The next level of resistance for the metal will be at $3,200.
But some are not so sure the metal can keep outperforming. Morningstar analyst Jon Mills told Business Insider that a number of headwinds will drag gold to $1,820 in the coming years.
For now, tariff jitters are also moving other metals. Copper, which reached a nine-month high recently, is in retreat ahead of the April levies. According to ING, industrial metals suffer if tariffs slow global growth.
The down side / dark side of living here in the Land Of Opportunity is that aside from growing up with a sense of optimism about taking hold of our own destiny, and striking out to tame the next frontier, and to leave our mark in the history books, blah blah blah - aside from all that good worldly wholesomeness, we end up saddled with a spiritual deficit that some will struggle in vain to fill with a new car, or the cool vacation in the islands, or a growing investment portfolio, or whatever.
It's never enough. And eventually, if we stay in the race long enough, it turns us all into greedy little grubbers.
The graphic above is a fairly recent iteration of a famous survey - I can't remember the name of or who did it - that asked a few basic questions:
How are you fixed now?
Are you satisfied with it?
What would it take for you the be more satisfied?
No matter how they answered the first two questions, every respondent - regardless of where they fell in the wealth or earnings percentiles - they all answered #3 with: "If I had just a little more - maybe 10 or 15 or 20% more - things would be so much better for me."
And here's a kind of side effect:
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. -- Lyndon B. Johnson
It's revealed that the candidate has some pretty nasty secrets, and the voters - some of them anyway - get reluctant to stay with him. But the money guys know they can get 25 or 30 percent of those voters to swallow any little piece of shit that floats by as long as their favorite "news" readers and commentators say they should.
note: Let's be real clear - the GOP knew about all this shit way before CNN broke it. There's no way this comes as big surprise. So I have to suspect that Robinson's backers figured they could use it as leverage.
So the monied interests "take a second look", but instead of deciding not to back a slug like that guy, they stay in their default transactional mode, and figure, "We got him to commit to supporting our shitty harmful business model in exchange for the money we've already spent, so what more can we get from him now that the election calculus is changing?"
The money says, "we're pulling our support".
Robinson says, "what'll it take to get you back on board?" And then he proceeds to sweeten the pot.
Deregulation is the prize - full on unfettered private enterprise in the ultimate goal.
Robinson was spouting all kinds of crazy shit before. I suspect he'll double down again, which I think means he's made his deal.
And the big money sees a chance to win by losing. Robinson may be going down in flames, but the authoritarians can look forward to him doing further damage to a free press, which they'll continue to use as a tool to tear down democracy.
BTW - dark money is called dark money because the "donors" don't have to show themselves.
They can cluck their tongues and make a public show of withdrawing, but there's nothing that says they can't just go underground with it.
We haven't heard a lot lately about "drill baby drill", and it kinda leaps to mind here.
Did the billion-dollar deal with the Dirty Fuels Cartel fall through, so he has to suck up to Mr $45-million-a-month?
Does he think he can start a bidding war?
What the hell is it?
Trump says he has 'no choice' but to support electric vehicles because Elon Musk 'endorsed me very strongly'
Former President Donald Trump said he had "no choice" but to support electric vehicles after Tesla CEO Elon Musk "endorsed" him.
Trump then went on to criticize the EV industry at length.
Musk has long been a champion of the pivot to electric vehicles. His company, Tesla, has largely led the way in developing the industry, which for a time made Musk a darling of the climate-conscious left.
But Musk has more recently embraced conservative politics, especially the issue of free speech. Musk bought Twitter in 2022, rebranded it to X, and has dismantled many of the checks and balances meant to limit hateful speech and misinformation on the platform.
Musk has publicly supported Trump since the assassination attempt last month. Musk, however, has denied reports that he pledged a $45 million donation to a pro-Trump super PAC.
At a rally in Georgia on Sunday, Trump told the crowd that he supports electric cars but thinks people should still have access to gas vehicles.
"I'm for electric cars. I have to be because, you know, Elon endorsed me very strongly," Trump told the crowd. "So, I have no choice."
He then clarified that he only supports them as a "small slice" of the larger auto industry.
"You want to have gas-propelled cars. You want to have hybrids. You want to have every kind of car," he said.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Biden administration's electric vehicle regulations, including its plan to grow electric vehicle sales to half of all new vehicle sales by 2030.
Trump says he loves Elon Musk but hasn't been told of any plans for Musk to donate $45 million a month to his campaign
Biden tries to drum up fundraising off Elon Musk's Trump endorsement: 'The richest person in the world is now on Team MAGA'
While speaking at a bitcoin conference in July, Trump gave similar remarks when referencing Biden's regulations, which also make it more difficult for gas-powered cars to meet EPA standards.
"Not everybody has to have an electric car. I told him that," Trump said, referencing Musk. "So we're going to get rid of that mandate if you don't mind. Some people want gasoline-propelled cars, some people want a hybrid, and some people like an electric car."
Trump has also repeatedly criticized the cost of installing EV chargers nationwide. He erroneously claimed the government built eight chargers in the Midwest for $9 billion.
He's given wildly inconsistent estimates for how much it would cost to install EV chargers nationwide. At the bitcoin conference, he said it would cost $12 trillion. At a North Carolina rally on Thursday, he said it would cost $9 trillion. And at the Atlanta rally on Sunday, he said it would cost $5 trillion.
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 included $7.5 billion to help pay for thousands of electric vehicle chargers around the country, Politico reported.
The White House's infrastructure tracking website shows that only 15 charging stations have been installed so far. An analysis published by research firm Atlas Public Policy shows that each station received about $770,000 in federal funding, Politico reported.
Actually, we're not spending all that much on cancelling student debt.
Someone with a $20,000 college loan, who has paid $250 a month for 10 years, has repaid $30,000, but often still has an outstanding balance of $15,000 - because of the way the loan was written.
Loan relief says the borrower has paid 50% more than what they borrowed - so we're going to call it good and discharge the remaining balance.
The lender has already received a fair return on their investment.
Plus, someone in their late teens or early 20s is not fully equipped to understand the long-term effects of these high-interest loans - many of which are basically equivalent to Usury, trapping people in a lifetime of debt.
It's better to erase that debt, and allow the borrowers to spend the money in ways that better benefit the broader economy instead of filtering it through a middleman.
"... And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."
Donald Trump is the poster child for the new Gilded Age of Robber Barons - The Resurgence of the American Plutocracy.
And the kind of ugly claim to entitlement that Trump embodies goes way back.
Droit du seigneur ('right of the lord'), also known as jus primae noctis ('right of the first night'), sometimes referred to as prima nocta, was a supposed legal right in medieval Europe, allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with any female subject, particularly on her wedding night.
If you've got the money, you've got the power. And with enough money and power, you can do whatever the fuck you want.
I don't know how many old westerns I've seen where the local cattle baron buys up water rights, or builds a dam upstream from the farmers to force them off their land, so he can snap up more for himself.
As long as the bad guys can hide the amounts, and the recipients, and the donors, we're going to have bigger and bigger problems with getting good decent people elected, and with understanding just what the fuck is wrong when we know with near certainty that everybody voted one way, but somehow the result went in the other direction.
AN EGYPTIAN BANK CLAIMED DETAILS OF A SUSPECTED $10 MILLION PAYMENT TO TRUMP MIGHT BE IN CHINA
Back on September 19, 2018, then DC Chief Judge Beryl Howell denied a motion brought by an Egyptian bank to quash a subpoena for information on a suspected $10 million payment made to then-candidate Trump in fall 2016. That set off litigation that continued, at the District, Circuit, and Supreme Courts, for at least nine months.
As CNN described in 2020, not long after the investigation got shut down under Bill Barr, investigators had been trying to see whether Egypt (or some entity for which Egypt served as go-between) provided the money that Trump spent on his campaign weeks before the election.
For more than three years, federal prosecutors investigated whether money flowing through an Egyptian state-owned bank could have backed millions of dollars Donald Trump donated to his own campaign days before he won the 2016 election, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.
The investigation, which both predated and outlasted special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, examined whether there was an illegal foreign campaign contribution. It represents one of the most prolonged efforts by federal investigators to understand the President’s foreign financial ties, and became a significant but hidden part of the special counsel’s pursuits.
The investigation was kept so secret that at one point investigators locked down an entire floor of a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, so Mueller’s team could fight for the Egyptian bank’s records in closed-door court proceedings following a grand jury subpoena. The probe, which closed this summer with no charges filed, has never before been described publicly.
Prosecutors suspected there could be a link between the Egyptian bank and Trump’s campaign contribution, according to several of the sources, but they could never prove a connection.
It took months of legal fight after Judge Howell denied that motion to quash before the Egyptian bank in question complied, and once they got subpoena returns, prosecutors repeatedly complained that the bank was still withholding information, which led prosecutors to reopen the investigation with a new grand jury.
That much we know from documentation unsealed back in 2019 (part one, part two, part three), in response to a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press request for unsealing.
On August 17, 2023, while she was still Chief Judge, Beryl Howell ordered the government to post newly unsealed sets of some of the orders she issued during the litigation. On Thursday, Chief Judge Boasberg ordered that newly redacted set of opinions to be released. While Howell released six opinions in June 2019 along with the other materials from the case — with redactions done digitally, thereby hiding the length of redactions — just three new versions of her orders got released last week:
These may be limited to orders incorporated as appendices in prior appeals, which might also explain why the first two appear twice in the newly-released materials.
Much of the newly unsealed material pertains to a fight over how much Alston & Bird, the law firm representing the Egyptian bank, could say about the litigation publicly. Among other things, prosecutors under Robert Mueller objected to their own names appearing publicly, out of a desire to tie this litigation to the narrow scope of Mueller’s investigation into interference in 2016.
One thing made clearer by a redaction in that January 2019 opinion on public comments is that the DC Circuit considered what public comments the two sides could make, in addition to SCOTUS, as part of its denial of cert.
It’s possible that the DC Circuit has weighed in, secretly. Among the details newly unsealed in the original opinion are the names of two of the bank’s other lawyers: Ashraf Shaaban (who appears to be or have been in-house counsel) and Mona Zulficar (who runs a Cairo corporate law firm). Those lawyers were named in conjunction with declarations they submitted arguing some part of the claim that Egyptian Anti-Money Laundering law would prohibit compliance with the subpoena as would unspecified law in a third country, described as Country B.
Howell described that Alston & Bird are relying on,
conclusory declarations by [redacted] own Country A in-house and retained counsel, which themselves cite no legal authority on this question of [redaction] See Decl. of Ashraf Shaaban,, Mov’s Group Legal Counsel (“Shaaban Decl.”)¶7, ECF No. 3-6; Suppl. Decl. of Mona Zulficar, “Suppl. Zulficar Decl.”)¶ 4, ECF No. 12. The Court gives these declarations little weight. [bold newly unsealed, compare this passage with this one]
So if we can figure out who Shaaban works or worked for to ID the bank.
It’s the unspecific third country, Country B, that is the most interesting new disclosure, however.
The newly unsealed passages do not identify which country, described as Country A and which CNN identified as Egypt, owns this bank. But they do show that the bank or its lawyers wanted to share the subpoena with personnel in Cairo.
The newly unsealed passages do identify which third country’s laws, unspecified laws, might prohibit lawyers from searching for responsive documents in that country: China.
In other words, a bank owned by Egypt said it couldn’t comply with a subpoena seeking information on a suspected payment to Trump during the 2016 election, in part, because China’s laws would prevent that.
Trump "owns" 78.5 million shares. At the closing price today, he has a little over $2 billion in "equity" - that doesn't really exist because he can't access that money for another few-to-several months.
If billionaires (along with their coin-operated politicians and judges) aren't in fact above the law, then somebody needs to step up and prove it.
Start putting these assholes in prison.
Sick to fucking death of this shit.
Billionaire Leonard Leo rejects Senate subpoena over supreme court gifts
Progressive groups hail long-brewed move against influential donor but protest lack of summons for Harlan Crow
The big-money rightwing donor Leonard Leo said he would not comply with a subpoena issued by the US Senate judiciary committee, as it investigates undisclosed gifts to conservative supreme court justices that have stoked an ethics crisis at a court already held in historically low public esteem.
Referring to Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the committee, Leo said: “I am not capitulating to his lawless support of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse [a Democrat from Rhode Island] and the left’s dark money effort to silence and cancel political opposition.”
Democrats on the judiciary committee are concerned with rightwing dark money and its effects on a court stacked 6-3 in favour of conservatives since Donald Trump installed three justices in just four years in power.
Multiple reports, led by the non-profit newsroom ProPublica, have described undisclosed gifts including luxury travel and resort stays given to Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, long-serving hardline court rightwingers.
Thomas and Alito deny all wrongdoing. The chief justice, John Roberts, has refused to testify in Congress. The court issued a new ethics code but it is enforceable only by the justices themselves.
In November, the Senate committee voted on party lines to subpoena Leo and the Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, a collector of Hitler memorabilia with close links to Thomas. On Thursday, more than four months later, Leo said he had received a subpoena but a spokesperson for Crow said he did not.
In a statement to the Washington Post, Durbin said: “Since July 2023, Leonard Leo has responded to the legitimate oversight requests of the Senate judiciary committee with a blanket refusal to cooperate. His outright defiance left the committee with no other choice but to move forward with compulsory process. For that reason, I have issued a subpoena to Mr Leo.
“Mr Leo has played a central role in the ethics crisis plaguing the supreme court … This subpoena is a direct result of Mr Leo’s own actions and choices.”
Progressive groups welcomed the Leo subpoena but protested about the lack of one for Crow.
Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US, which has focused on drawing attention to Leo’s coordination of billions of dollars in rightwing political spending, said: “Thanks to … Leo, a full-blown corruption crisis has plagued the high court for over a year, undermining its credibility …
“Today’s subpoena is a critical step toward accountability, and toward ensuring that our high court adheres to the highest possible ethics standards. As a result of the strong leadership of Chairman Durbin and the judiciary committee, we can now begin to get to the bottom of the corruption crisis pervading the supreme court.”
But Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, said that though the Leo subpoena was “a long overdue first step towards ensuring accountability” it was also “far from enough”.
“The entire country has been waiting too long for Durbin to take action, and subpoenaing Leonard Leo without simultaneously subpoenaing Harlan Crow is a half-baked attempt at doing his job as judiciary chair.”
Pointing to epochal rulings from the rightwing court including removing the federal right to abortion, loosening gun control and ending race-based affirmative action in colleges, Levin added: “Democrats cannot let this corrupt and compromised supreme court continue to have a strong hold on our fundamental rights without any form of accountability.
“Durbin cannot ignore the overwhelming calls and pressure from his own base. He must continue to exercise his authority … by subpoenaing Harlan Crow, holding the justices and their accomplices accountable, and unrigging a court that was packed by Trump and his Maga supporters.”
