Tag: harlan crow

Checks & Imbalances: How Ivanka Trump Lied

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As Don Jr. and Eric Trump take the stand, we continue our coverage of Donald Trump’s ongoing trial in New York. Follow along now with live updates from inside the courtroom.

Ivanka Trump Helped Her Dad Lie About His Net Worth

Ivanka Trump is expected to testify soon in a $250 million fraud case that the New York attorney general is waging against her father and his associates, reports Dan Alexander. That’s bad news for Ivanka, who tried to get out of taking the stand. But it might be even worse news for her father, who employed Ivanka in his years-long con to convince the world that he had more money than he actually did.

The attorney general will have plenty of questions for Donald Trump’s eldest daughter. Ivanka helped lead the acquisition of two assets at the center of the lawsuit, the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. and the Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami. She also lived in another property caught up in the proceedings, a condo building named Trump Park Avenue in New York City.

But to fully understand Ivanka’s involvement in her father’s deceit, it helps to get inside the room where the lying took place. That’s exactly where three Forbes journalists were in September 2015, when Donald Trump hosted them in Trump Tower as part of his quest to climb higher on The Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people. Trump spouted off all sorts of nonsense that day, claiming his properties were more profitable, spacious and valuable than they actually were. In the middle of his pitch, the Republican frontrunner received a phone call. “Ivanka,” said Trump, “my little Ivanka.”

Nine minutes later, she entered the room: “Hiiii!”

MORE FROM FORBESIvanka Trump Helped Her Dad Lie About His Net WorthBy Dan Alexander

Tracking Trump

Trump-Linked SPAC Spent $10.8 Million On Legal Fees Amid Regulatory Probes

The company planning to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Truth Social, spent $10.8 million on legal fees related to government investigations in 2021 and 2022, according to an amended financial statement Digital World Acquisition Corp. filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. Those legal fees comprise about 46% of the company’s total expenses over that two-year period.

MORE FROM FORBESTrump-Linked SPAC Spent $10.8 Million On Legal Fees Amid Regulatory ProbesBy Zach Everson

How Much Money Has Michael Cohen Made Hating On Trump?

Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified last week in the New York fraud case. Trump’s legal team immediately set out to discredit Cohen, asking him how much money he has made from hosting podcast episodes and writing books relentlessly criticizing Trump.

“It’s irrelevant,” Cohen said, clearly reluctant to get into specifics on his personal finances. But when asked whether he had monetary incentives to criticize his boss, Cohen conceded the point. “Yes,” he responded in open court.

How much money has Cohen earned from his media ventures? It’s hard to say exactly, but it does look to be a solid revenue stream.

MORE FROM FORBESHow Much Money Has Michael Cohen Made Hating On Trump?By Zach Everson

This Is What Trump Is Actually Like In The Courtroom When Cameras Aren’t Allowed In: Reporter

Forbes senior editor Dan Alexander, who was in a Manhattan courthouse covering the fraud case against former President Donald Trump, joins Brittany Lewis on “Forbes Newsroom” to discuss.

From The News Desk

Senate Democrats Plan To Subpoena GOP Megadonors—Including Harlan Crow—Over Reported Gifts To Supreme Court Justices

Senate Democrats announced plans to subpoena two GOP megadonors and a conservative judicial activist, seeking details about their reported role in paying for lavish gifts and luxury trips for conservative Supreme Court justices that triggered calls for an ethical code for the judges serving on the court, reports Siladitya Ray.

MORE FROM FORBESSenate Democrats Plan To Subpoena GOP Megadonors-Including Harlan Crow-Over Reported Gifts To Supreme Court JusticesBy Siladitya Ray

Billionaire Says Glenn Youngkin Could Declare Presidential Run Next Week

Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire founder of Interactive Brokers, has made no secret of his desire for Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to become president, reports John Hyatt. He has given $3 million to Youngkin’s political action committee since April and publicly urged Youngkin to enter the race.

Youngkin, a former private equity investor, has previously insisted he’s “wholly focused on the Commonwealth of Virginia.” But Peterffy, in an interview with Forbes, says Youngkin may reconsider if Republicans take control of Virginia’s senate in next week’s state election. “His hope is that…the Senate will flip Republican, and that would give him a platform on which we could say, “Look, I turned an all-blue state red, and I can do that nationwide. So please vote for me,’” says Peterffy.

MORE FROM FORBESBillionaire Says Glenn Youngkin Could Declare Presidential Run Next WeekBy John Hyatt

By The Numbers

$1,371,800

The sum that Nirmal Mulye, the CEO of Nostrum Laboratories, has donated to candidates for federal office since 2003. On Monday, Nostrum and Mulye agreed to pay the government at least $3.8 million in fines “to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly underpaying Medicaid.”

$15,000

How much Donald Trump has been fined for violating gag orders.

$2.6 billion

Donald Trump’s net worth, according to Forbes’ estimates.

Road To 2024

On “Forbes Eye on Iowa,” former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Larry Elder spoke with Sarah Muller about his endorsement of former President Trump, his campaign, the future of the Republican Party and more.

Quiz

Which of the following is not a figure Ivanka Trump gave for the amount of meeting space at Trump National Doral?

  1. “75,000 square feet”
  2. “over 90,000 square feet”
  3. “a hundred thousand square feet”
  4. “150,000 square feet”

Check if you got it right here.

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#Checks #Imbalances #Ivanka #Trump #Lied

Justice Clarence Thomas gets support from retired Justice Breyer and the Left can’t deal

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Sometimes when politics seems at its craziest, we see signs that sanity is possible. One of those signs came when retired Supreme Court Justice Breyer stood up for Justice Clarence Thomas:

From The Daily Caller:

As far as I’m concerned, I sat next to him on the bench for 28 years. I like him. He’s a friend of mine. I’ve never seen him do anything underhanded or say anything underhanded[.]

My personal point of view is he’s a man of integrity[.]

This gave us hope that perhaps a liberal center could assert itself and stop this latest weird and racist jihad against Thomas. Then the leftists began to screech, starting with Elie Mystal (who is a man):

Of course, Mad Scientist Fat Albert (as @redsteeze calls him) is killing a straw man, but that’s nothing new with him. Sadly, he goes on:

And Ian Milhouse Millhiser had to chime in:

As did others:

There were even accusations that Breyer was protecting for Thomas to cover for his own alleged ethical lapses:

Indeed, one man claimed he had the goods. But he didn’t make the point he thought he was making:

Of course, factually, there appears to be some evidence to support this claim:

Yet, there were no significant calls to impeach Breyer while he was serving on the Supreme Court, a point hammered home by another Tweeter:

Her numbers do not appear to be exact, but they are reasonably close:

And her point is that there is a clear double standard. Breyer’s conduct was more troubling than Thomas, but there were no serious calls to impeach him over it. So, to talk about impeachment with Thomas is unjustified discrimination.

Of course, the very same people who claim every criticism of George Soros is automatically Anti-Semitism or that any criticism of the totalitarian communist government of China is automatically racist against Chinese Americans will never admit their hatred of Clarence Thomas is racist. And it clearly is. What Democrats hate the most about Thomas is they feel like he betrayed them. He is black. They think, therefore, he is supposed to be on their side, automatically. Let’s not forget that Joe Biden told people that if they weren’t sure if they should vote for him, they aren’t black:

Or that he said that Latinos, unlike black Americans, had an incredible diversity of views:

These were only gaffes in the sense that Joe Biden accidentally said what Democrats really thought out loud. Thomas himself recognized it years ago:

And it still goes on today. Yes, his conservativism plays a crucial role in their hatred of him, but the most significant element is the color of his skin and the racist sense of betrayal that comes with it. ‘You’re black! You’re supposed to be on our side!’ is what they believe.

Good for Justice Breyer for rising above that racism and being able to disagree with Thomas without making it personal, and for defending Thomas. He didn’t just call Thomas a friend. He showed he was a friend in the truest sense of the word.



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There’s A Pube On Clarence Thomas’s Integrity (Again)

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Conscientious Americans who pay attention to the news know Clarence Thomas is probably the most corrupt and unethical piece of ass lint who ever sat on a Supreme Court throne and stank it up with his linty assfarts. And his wife? Fuuuuuuuuck that crazy batshit nutcase who’s on every “OK Boomer” right-wing chain email thread in high-powered Republican Washington.

Did she help behind the scenes in Donald Trump’s January 6 Insurrection Attack, and did she bring a crock pot full of Ro-Tel to any planning parties? And how much whispering does she do with her husband when the issues she’s doing activism on are ALSO in front of him on the entirely illegitimate partisan hack Supreme Court?

But sure, let’s pretend Clarence Thomas and Ginni Thomas don’t have any ethical issues. They just are a high-powered married Republican couple who happen to both be literal actual fucking monsters. And don’t you dare say Ginni Thomas’s power may be somewhat derived from the fact that her husband is Clarence Thomas, STOP IT YOU SEXIST.

NO IMPROPRIETIES, NO IMPROPRIETIES, YOU ARE THE IMPROPRIETIES!

But anyway, about that ProPublica piece about Clarence Thomas letting a Republican billionaire megadonor take him on mega-luxury yachting suck ‘n’ fucks around the globe for the past 20 years, without reporting any of these mega-trips as “gifts.” Hoo boy! (Obviously we use the term “yachting suck ‘n’ fucks” in its more proverbial sense. We don’t know if anybody literally sucked and fucked on any of those trips, one of which would have cost the justice over $500,000 had he paid for it himself.)

The billionaire megadonor’s name is Harlan Crow, and he is a real estate mogul dude from Texas. Clarence Thomas gets to take rides on Harlan’s 162-foot superyacht. (Does Clarence Thomas ever say “Harlan, there’s a pube on your super-yacht?” Don’t know, ProPublica apparently doesn’t even know which journalism questions to ask.) Clarence Thomas goes flying on Harlan’s private Bombardier Global 5000 jet. (“Harlan, there’s a pube on your Bombardier Global 5000 jet!” Has Thomas ever exclaimed that? Probably won’t ever know.)

Yachting around Indonesia for nine days in 2019. A river trip in Savannah, Georgia. Another cruise in New Zealand around 10 years ago. And more!

There are so many pictures:

ProPublica says Clarence goes all kinds of other fun places with Harlan, like the “all-male retreat” of Bohemian Grove in California. Also all Harlan’s houses and resorts.

And Clarence doesn’t report any of this as “gift.” He used to report this as “gift.” But then the LA Times wrote about it and he all of a sudden stopped reporting it as “gift”!

Look, it is a paint-by-numbers portrait of Clarence Thomas sitting with all his friends at Harlan’s place in the Adirondacks. Just Clarence, Harlan, Leonard Leo, the POS who runs the Federalist Society. (You know, where the 30-year-old white fascist partisan hack judges come from!)

“There’s a pube on our integrity!” That would be a good name for that painting. Also, just emphasizing that that is literally a painting that exists.

The ProPublica Twitter thread we’re using as the CliffsNotes for this — you know damn well ProPublica’s articles are 100,000 words long before you even get out of the prologue — notes that Clarence ‘n’ Harlan really are buddies, genuine-style, but these trips put him in contact with the biggest of the Republican bigwigs from corporations and think tanks. (See above.) Far be it from us to suggest that any of those men tell Clarence what to do, because again, we’re willing to allow for the possibility that he too is just an evil monster just like them. We’re not going to say they don’t do that, though.

It sounds like a nice private resort, the one that Harlan has and Clarence gets to go to without reporting it.

We’re just going to give you a moment to reflect on the man who Clarence Thomas is, sitting at a “1950’s-style soda fountain” with all his white fascist friends. Just let that mental image linger for a minute.

Anyway!

Here is a clip a lot of people are loving right now because it’s such a hilarious illustration of how hard Clarence Thomas should go fuck himself. It’s Thomas in a recent documentary talking about how he doesn’t even like traveling abroad, such a simple man is he. He is a salt-of-the-earth guy. He is a rural America guy. He is a guy who likes parking the RV in the Walmart parking lot. (If you are not initiated in RV culture, the Walmart parking lot is a thing with them. Walmart encourages them to just to come on in and park when they need to, and RV people all know this. The editrix of this site and her husband and their kids have done it many times and thought “boy what a smart thing to do Walmart,” not even being shitty and ironic. Like we said, it is a thing.)

Who NEEDS free trips on gabillion dollar yachts with Republican bigwigs who definitely have a stake in how Clarence Thomas votes? Not Clarence Thomas! “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that.”

We bet.

But he sure doesn’t seem to hate those sexy yachtfucker trips. And for some reason, again, he feels a need to hide them. ProPublica had to learn about all this shit from yacht employees and a scuba diving instructor.

Of course, hiding these free trips is against the fucking law.

Harlan Crow of course swears to Jesus that he ain’t never tried to make poor Clarence do nothin’ improper. He just loves sharing his yacht and plane with Clarence ‘n’ Ginni. Clarence Thomas didn’t deem these revelations to be worthy of a response. But ProPublica got comments from former federal judges like “It’s incomprehensible that someone would do this.”

Anyway, if you read the whole story, there are tons more little details that will make your jaw drop. Like this one, a picture of Clarence Thomas swearing in Trump-appointed Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho in Harlan’s library, and it looks like maybe Harlan flew Clarence there, and Ted Cruz tweeted this out, and good God this is all so incestuous:

Read the entire ProPublica piece when you have time, like maybe when you are summering on YOUR yacht and you’re waiting for your new butler to bring you your mid-afternoon fruity drink. (You threw your old butler overboard for failing to cut your lime the way you like. It happens, AMIRITE, JUSTICE THOMAS?)

(We don’t mean to imply that Clarence Thomas threw a specific butler overboard into the ocean for failing to cut a lime the way he likes. We are just talking shit.)

Now, in a sane and functional country, Clarence Thomas would be packing up his office and getting the fuck out right now, to save himself the humiliation of being impeached and forcibly removed from the Supreme Court. (Haha, in a sane and functional country, an unqualified right-wing hack like Clarence Thomas would never have been confirmed.)

And Senate Democrats do say they’re gonna do something.

Unfortunately, that’s as far as it’s likely to go, because an unprincipled power-hungry Republican slut named Kevin McCarthy runs the House of Representatives right now. But it’s not just that. Click on this thread and read the whole thing to see why:

“One Democratic House member” told Democratic strategist Max Burns that “Public trust in SC is already bad. A big circus would destroy it completely.”

Fuck OFF.

The Court is fully 1,000 percent illegitimate right now, a fascist activist partisan hack organ that only exists to impose the will of a rapidly dying minority of white supremacist Boomers on the rest of us who will have to live in this country once they’re all rotting corpses. Donald Trump and his loyal Republican string-pullers made sure of that. The only place the Supreme Court’s integrity can go is up.

If the Court is ever to be legitimate again, Thomas should either resign or be pushed out, and Joe Biden should get to select his replacement. And since Trump was an illegitimate president who likely wouldn’t have “won” the 2016 election had it not been for his own crimes, the crimes of Russia and whatever was happening at the FBI at the time, and who then incited a terrorist attack as part of his plan to overthrow the government and overturn the 2020 election, his justices should be told gently but firmly to GTFO.

Then pack the Court with only the most brilliant legal minds in America who also happen to be drag queens, trans folks, racial minorities and people who started drinking Bud Light this week.

It is the only way.

[ProPublica]

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#Pube #Clarence #Thomass #Integrity