eVille Times

Feb 20, 2024

All This Spy Crap

So, have we talked with the guys who know about this shit - Brennen and Haspel and Panetta and and and - there's lotsa people who know stuff.

Or do we just get to wonder what the fuck is going on, and hope the whole fuckin' thing doesn't blow up in our faces in the next 30 or 40 seconds?

Uncle Vlad To The Rescue (?)

Have you been wondering how and when the Russian &/or Saudi money was going to show up and pull Trump's fat outa the fire?

I have nothing but my own suspicions and speculation on this, but we're talking Donald-fucking-Trump here, and that should be enough to throw the rosiest-thinking Pollyanna into a deep and dark purple funk.

Maybe Trump did a deal on some of those state secret thingies before the feds caught him (?)

The stock linked to Donald Trump's Truth Social platform is flying high.

Read this before you invest.

You know you're buying a quality stock when the prospectus reads like a police blotter

Donald J. Trump has a long record of business failures and bankruptcies.

But after getting kicked off Twitter in 2021 he launched Truth Social, a social-media site.

Truth Social, his would-be Twitter rival, is a high-risk, speculative operation with few hard numbers behind it. It's already the subject of subpoenas, from regulators and a grand jury, even though it's barely off the ground. Oh, and Trump is not required to use the social-media site much - if at all - to communicate with the public, notably if voters were to return him to the White House. You buy the stock at your own peril.

That's not me talking. That's ... er ... the new stock-market prospectus for Truth Social. It has just been filed here with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In case you missed it, yes: Donald Trump is trying to come back to Wall Street.

He's in advanced talks to list Truth Social on the stock market by merging its parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, with a publicly traded shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC).

See: DWAC up over 15% as it moves to buy Trump Media & Technology Group - but here's a potential snag

Trump faces mounting legal woes, as well as having a presidential campaign to manage. Meanwhile, Digital World has been in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and recently agreed to pay $18 million to settle fraud charges relating to this potential merger.

But never mind all this. Digital World Acquisition Corp.'s stock is suddenly flying high, as Trump heads toward the presidential nomination for the Republican Party - for a third straight time. The stock has tripled in price since the Iowa caucuses in January to $48, potentially valuing the business at $6.5 billion.

Opinion: Cha-ching! Trump makes $4 billion from his election campaign

But the prospectus for the deal, which runs to nearly 600 pages, is a doozy.

It reveals all the reasons investors jumping on the MAGA train might want to think twice, or even three times, before taking the plunge.

"A number of companies that were associated with President Trump have filed for bankruptcy," the prospectus reminds investors. "There can be no assurances that TMTG will not also become bankrupt. ... A number of companies that had license agreements with President Trump have failed. There can be no assurances that TMTG will not also fail."

In case you've forgotten, "The Trump Taj Mahal, which was built and owned by President Trump, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991," recalls the stock-market prospectus. "The Trump Plaza, the Trump Castle, and the Plaza Hotel, all owned by President Trump at the time, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992."

Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, founded by Trump in 1995, "filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004," it continues. "Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., the new name given to Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts after its 2004 bankruptcy, declared bankruptcy in 2009."

You know what gamblers say, that the house always wins? Well, Donald Trump and his failed casino operation are your refutation.

Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts had trouble with the law on the way down, too. "On January 16, 2002, the SEC issued a cease and desist order against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Inc. (THCR) for violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the Exchange Act," the prospectus reveals.

I've written about Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts before. Ordinary investors, drawn to the stock by the perceived, by them, allure of the Trump name, ended up relieved of their shirts, pants and shoes and were left standing on the Atlantic City boardwalk in their undergarments.

Yes, Trump himself pocketed millions. Stockholders pretty much lost everything.

From the archives (July 2015): Donald Trump was a stock-market disaster

Also read (March 2016): Donald Trump's business disaster is worse than you think

"Trump Shuttle, Inc., launched by President Trump in 1989, defaulted on its loans in 1990 and ceased to exist by 1992," the prospectus continues, referring to the short-haul airline. "Trump University, founded by President Trump in 2005, ceased operations in 2011 amid lawsuits and investigations regarding that company's business practices."

This, let me remind you, is not the fake-news liberal media talking. It's the stock-market prospectus for Trump's own, current business.

"Trump Vodka, a brand of vodka produced by Drinks Americas under license from The Trump Organization, was introduced in 2005 and discontinued in 2011," it goes on. "Trump Mortgage, LLC, a financial services company founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased operations in 2007. GoTrump.com, a travel site founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased operations in 2007. Trump Steaks, a brand of steak and other meats founded by President Trump in 2007, discontinued sales two months after its launch." Two months.

But Truth Social will be different, right?

There is also a long section in the prospectus listing all of the former president's current legal troubles (while eschewing that word, former). You always know you're buying a quality stock when the prospectus reads like a police blotter.

Then there's the Truth Social deal itself.

Trump Technology & Media Group "aspires to build a media and technology powerhouse to rival the liberal media consortium and promote free expression," the prospectus reads.

Total Truth Social sign-ups to date? Er... 8.9 million people.

In the nine months to September 2023, the business suffered a $10.6 million operating loss on just $3.4 million in sales.

Meanwhile, somehow. it racked up $37.7 million in interest expenses.

If you want more financial details about Truth Social before investing, you are not alone. The board of Digital World, the would-be merger partner, admits that it, too, would like more financial details.

Alas, Trump's business "did not provide the Digital World Board with TMTG's financial projections in connection with the Digital World Board's bring-down due diligence process," the board reveals.

Oh, well. Can't have everything.

Some of this may be because the people running Truth Social - led by CEO Devin Nunes, formerly a Trump-aligned member of the U.S. House of Representatives from rural south-central California - don't actually have too much data. "[I]nvestors should be aware that since its inception, TMTG has not relied on any specific key performance metric to make business or operating decisions," the prospectus reports. "Consequently, it has not been maintaining internal controls and procedures for periodically collecting such information, if any." My italics.

The Trump operation has chosen not to track these metrics. It reports: "At this juncture in its development, TMTG believes that adhering to traditional key performance indicators, such as signups, average revenue per user, ad impressions and pricing, or active user accounts including monthly and daily active users, could potentially divert its focus from strategic evaluation with respect to the progress and growth of its business."

Which is to say Truth Social didn't want numbers distracting it from the business. You could call this the Alternative Facts School of Business Administration.

But the real peach here is that, although investors are buying this stock in the hope that Donald Trump will do for Truth Social what he did for Twitter, there is actually no guarantee he will use it much, or at all. Even if he is elected president.

That's because, the prospectus reveals, Donald Trump's agreement with Truth Social is limited. Yes, he is required to post certain of his social-media messages there first. But only nonpolitical ones, made from his "personal (i.e., non-business)" accounts. And the Truth Social exclusivity on each post only lasts for six hours.

Oh, and Trump can even cancel this agreement with 30 days' notice, "at any time on or after February 2, 2025." In other words, shortly after Inauguration Day.

And even until then, who is to decide which social-media posts are political, and therefore exempt from the exclusivity agreement? Guess.

"President Trump ... may post social media communications from his personal profile that he deems, in his sole discretion, to be politically-related on any social media site at any time," the prospectus warns. My italics.

It adds: "As a candidate for president, most or all of President Trump's social media posts may be deemed by him to be politically related."

As a result, it warns, investors "may lack any meaningful remedy if President Trump minimizes his use of Truth Social."

Trump will own at least 58% of the stock in the new company, giving him total control and minority investors nothing but hope. What could possibly go wrong?

Today's Beau

Daddy State Awareness Guide

THE BASICS:

The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating power.
The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
Lying about everything creates chaos, which helps condition us to stop thinking, and look to them for "guidance".
Once we're totally dependent on them, we'll accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

The goal is to dictate reality to us.

The Courts

Wealthy wingnuts have turned SCOTUS, especially, and some of the lower courts in general, into enclaves of paid political activists.

Opinion

Does it matter which party nominated a judge? Here’s why it does.

“Why does the media insist on identifying the president who appointed the federal judges who make a newsworthy decision? It feeds the misimpression that our courts are just partisan policy arms of the party of the president behind their nomination. Competing judicial philosophies are the source of differences, and one school tends to come from Republicans, the other from Democrats. But the courts are not partisan policy [forums] embracing and continuing the substantive issue fight between the two major parties.”

This email, from a federal appeals court judge, arrived in my inbox shortly after I wrote a column about the appeals court ruling denying former president Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity for his acts as president — an opinion, that, as I noted, came from two Biden appointees and a nominee of George H.W. Bush.

As it happens, the judge who emailed me was named to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, but in this situation his party affiliation isn’t relevant. Judges named by presidents of both parties bristle — equally and forcefully — at the journalistic practice of identifying judges this way, and I get that. No one wants to be thought of as a partisan hack, doing the bidding of political allies. And, as my judge friend noted, a big piece of the underlying reality — “competing judicial philosophies” — is far more subtle than hackery.

Still, as I replied to the judge, in the current environment, party is relevant. In a politically salient case, knowing the identity of the president who nominated a particular judge, as well as examining the partisan composition of a three-judge panel (the way federal appeals courts operate), is a reliable predictor of outcome.

Federal judges have argued passionately to me that it disserves the public to reinforce the notion of judges as political actors. I think it’s the opposite: It would be keeping relevant data from readers not to include this information. In recent years, as judicial philosophy has become an increasingly important factor in judicial selection for presidents of both parties, I have made it a practice to note the identity of the president who nominated the judge or judges involved. If judges are behaving in ways that could be predicted by their political affiliations, readers deserve to know. If they are ruling contrary to what might have been expected, that’s significant, too.

Now comes a groundbreaking study by a Harvard Law School professor that buttresses my point — if anything, it suggests we have underestimated the impact of party affiliation on judicial outcomes. Alma Cohen, whose training is as an economist, examined 630,000 federal appeals court cases from 1985 to 2020 and found that the impact of party affiliation went far beyond hot-button issues such as guns or abortion.

Rather, she wrote, “the political affiliations of panel judges can help predict outcomes in a broad set of cases that together represent over 90% of circuit court decisions. The association between political affiliation and outcomes is thus far more pervasive than has been recognized by prior research.” Note, Cohen isn’t contending that partisan affiliation affects 90 percent of cases — just that it has a statistically significant influence on outcomes in this large class of decisions.

Cohen’s hypothesis is that Democratic judges and Republican judges “systematically differ in their tendency to side with the seemingly weaker party.” For instance, in civil litigation between individuals and institutions, such as the corporations or the government, “panels with more Democratic judges are more likely than those with more Republican judges to reach a decision that favors the individual party.”

The same holds true for other types of cases. “In the categories of criminal appeals, immigration appeals, and prisoner litigation, increasing the number of Democrats on a circuit court panel raises the odds of an outcome favoring the weak party,” Cohen wrote. Overall, “switching from an all-Republican panel to an all-Democratic panel is associated with an increase of 55% in the baseline odds of a Pro-weak outcome.” In immigration cases, an all-Democratic panel was twice as likely to produce a finding for the immigrant as an all-Republican one during the 35-year period she studied.

One criticism of earlier examinations of partisan differences among judges has been that they do not take into account unpublished decisions, which account for the vast majority of appellate action. Another is that they focus on the subset of rulings that generate dissents, just a few percentage points of all decisions and around 10 percent of published opinions, those that are deemed to have precedential value. But Cohen’s work showed similar partisan effects among both published and unpublished decisions, and in both unanimous and divided panels.

Among other interesting findings, the impact of a panel composed of nominees of both parties was not symmetrical: “A lone Republican judge on a panel with two Democratic judges has a stronger ‘moderating’ effect on the panel majority than does a lone Democrat on a panel with two Republican judges.” And Democratic appointees seemed more inclined to reverse lower-court rulings than their Republican counterparts: “In civil litigation cases between parties of seemingly equal power, panels with more Democratic judges are less likely to defer to lower-court decisions.”

The real-world impact of these differences is striking. Had Al Gore become president in 2000 instead of George W. Bush, Cohen estimated that a two-term Gore presidency, and the judges he would have appointed, would have changed the outcome in about 10,000 cases over the next 20 years, including 2,500 improved outcomes for individuals in civil litigation, about 1,100 improved outcomes for private parties in civil suits against the government, about 2,500 improved outcomes for criminal defendants in criminal appeal, about 1,500 improved outcomes for immigrants in immigrations appeals and about 1,100 improved outcomes for prisoners in prisoner litigation.

“It’s important to know that this effect is not just in highly controversial cases,” Cohen told me. “It’s in almost all cases.”

All of which is to underscore not only why I identify judges by party, but, as the presidential election looms, how important it is for all of us to pay attention to the composition of the courts. Who becomes president makes a difference, not just for the Supreme Court, but for lower courts as well. As much we might prefer it to be otherwise, party matters.

Today's Keith

Joe Biden comes from good hero stock.

A Podcast

A clown with a flamethrower may look ridiculous and risible, and he may say and do stupid foolish things, but he's got a fucking flamethrower, and he's fucking dangerous.