First, you need to see this headline from Vanity Fair.
Let it not be forgot that Jared was the guy who killed a plan for the federal government to direct pandemic supplies like PPE to where they were needed. This was while covid was slamming New York City especially hard. Jared decided this was a good thing. From the Vanity Fair article:
Yes, in a February interview at Harvard that was posted online this month and uncovered by the Guardian on Tuesday, Kushner opined that the Gaza Strip could be “very valuable” from a real estate perspective, if Israel could forcibly remove everyone currently living there to develop “waterfront property.” Speaking to Harvard professor Tarek Masoud, Kushner said: “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.” Where does Kushner suggest these people go? Ivanka Trump’s husband explained that if he were in charge of Israel, his top priority would be removing the people living in Rafah—a Palestinian city in southern Gaza—and moving them into Egypt “with diplomacy.” And that wasn’t his only piece of advice: “In addition to that,” he said, “I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there…. I think that’s a better option, so you can go in and finish the job.”
Such a mensch. Come to think of it, we never did hear what Jared was doing with all the supplies he was confiscating from states during covid. Somebody should really follow up on that.
So it’s Thursday and Trump still hasn’t coughed up a bond. Bloomberg is reporting that Attorney General James may be planning to go after Trump’s Westchester properties first.
New York state’s $454 million judgment against Donald Trump in a civil fraud lawsuit was formally registered in Westchester County just outside Manhattan, a sign that his properties in the area may be at risk of being seized if the former president fails to post an appeal bond.
New York Attorney General Letitia James registered the judgment on March 6, according to the Westchester County Clerk’s online database. The filing didn’t give a reason for the registration or identify any Trump assets, but it will allow James to more easily secure liens, should she decide to do so, on two of the real estate mogul’s most valuable properties: Trump National Golf Club Westchester and the mostly undeveloped 212-acre Seven Springs estate.
The Golf Club is maybe a couple of miles from where I’m living now, which is why I think it would be fun if it became public property. But I guess that wouldn’t happen right away.
Seven Springs featured heavily in the trial, and Engoron ruled the property had been wildly overvalued for years. Trump purchased the estate in 1995 for $7.5 million. It consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. Trump valued the property at more than five times the appraised values in some years — as high as $291 million — often by including the value of mansions that didn’t exist.
This afternoon Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to inform his court-appointed financial watchdog about any future efforts to obtain an appeal bond.
In his order Thursday, Engoron told the Trump Organization it must tell its financial overseer, Barbara Jones, “in advance, of any efforts to secure surety bonds.”
The company must tell Jones about any claims the Trump Organization makes to obtain the bonds, any personal guarantees by Trump or other defendants, and any condition imposed on the company.
That level of disclosure would well exceed what Trump has disclosed about a $91.6 million appeal bond he recently received from a Chubb insurance subsidiary to secure a civil defamation judgment in favor of the writer E. Jean Carroll.
Jones, who is a retired federal judge, was appointed by Engoron as the financial monitor for the Trump Organization. The company has chafed under her oversight, complaining about her in filings with Engoron.
Memo to Trump: Nobody trusts you. But the Wall Street Journal is reporting (from what I read elsewhere; it’s behind a firewall) that Trump will soon enjoy a a $3.5 billion windfall for taking Truth Social public, or something This makes no sense to me; does anyone other than Trump post on Truth Social? But we’ll see.
In other weird criminal justice news, the Mar-a-Lago documents case seems to be going south on a freight train. See ‘Very, very troubling’: Judges, lawyers flummoxed by Judge Cannon at WaPo.
Right now, the special purpose acquisition corporation would be valued at $4 billion, so, that's the source of the funds. Trump has a 90% stake. However, Trump won't be allowed to sell shares for a while.
I don't know if there's a way for Trump to get around the "no immediate sales" rules, but, he'd then have to sell those shares, to people who know his situation.
Professional investors are canny (or "unlucky," "poor," "unemployed," etc.), and they know that if TS (which I think of as "tough sh*t" rather than "truth social") goes bankrupt, all of those shares are zeroed out. It would only be an attractive offering to unwitting investors. Kind of like the people who invested in Trump's casinos.
If the world were sane, TS would never become publicly traded. But if the world were sane, Hillary Clinton would have exposed the Trump Tower:Moscow scam he ran during his 2016 campaign, probably before the end of 2017.
For more background on this waterfront property see David Hare's play "Via Dolorosa".
re: the "$3.5 bn windfall for 'Truth' Social" – the Guardian has a good explainer. In essence, it's a meme stock, which means it's pumped up by amateurs / Trump supporters. The article notes that even if the deal goes through, Trump can't touch the stock / cash it in for six months.
MSNBC / Joy Reid did a segment on a fundraising dinner Trump is holding at MAL, a seat costs around $850,000 – Joy calculated that he only needs 557 takers to make the bond amount.
I've been looking for a "Trump Bond Countdown Clock" on the web, something that counts the time down to Monday, March 25, the day New York can seize assets, but I haven't found one yet. It's my belief if Trump can't make the nut, this will be a serious blow to his campaign. I'm told he could declare bankruptcy, which would get him off the hook, but he doesn't want to go that route, yet.
I'm delighted that the RNC and Trump are well behind their Democratic counterparts in fundraising. I'm ecstatic that the RNC is prioritizing paying Trump's legal bills over all other expenses, this means no help to other Republicans running for office. Besides the $454 million judgment, Trump is facing ongoing legal expenses in all the court cases his lawyers are fighting. I wonder how many of his uneducated supporters are aware of where their small-dollar donations are going to?
With Republicans starved for cash, and their leader flailing financially and legally – this is the opportunity of a lifetime for Democrats. I'm a senior on SS and a small pension, but I have a small surplus to donate strategically to influence this auspicious moment, because, strategically allocated, the effect will be maximal.
I've come to see that the best approach is not to donate to candidates directly, but to those grassroots orgs registering likely Democrats: students, people of color, LGBTQ and so on, in winnable battleground states where numbers could make the difference. In other words, get as many people to the polls as possible. Give Biden a Congress he needs to work with. And especially a Senate that will block the Federalist Society pipeline to the courts.
Toward this end, Movement Voter Project comes recommended by Robert Hubbell and Jessica Craven. There are many similar groups, and I need to do a bit more research. But that is my approach to taking advantage of this golden opportunity. I'm not about to let it pass.
Finally, my favorite psychic echoes a lot of what I've been thinking and takes a few steps further, in It's Over For 45, But MORE KARMA Arrives In The Coming Weeks & Then BOOM IN June!. It's kind of uncanny how she's a few steps ahead of where I've already been going / have realized. She emphasizes that it's over for Trump, but there's a huge mess to clean up, especially in the courts. Hence my approach with donations – winning the Congress is critical.
Kushner's comments underscore what the US position would allow Bibi to do in Gaza. Move the Palestinians out of Gaza and don't let them back in. Kushner never opened serious talks with the Palestinians. The "peace talks" were with Arab countries that have no border or beef with Israel. So the previous Trump admin was totally in the tank with a plan to force all the natives out of Israel.
I fully understand the frustration of any peace-loving person over the US support of genocide which has NOT been prevented by the US in any meaningful way. After entirely too long, the US is calling for elections in Israel that might produce a sane government. And we're taking action to prevent famine by building facilities to import aid to Gaza. So your choice isn't what you want but it's pretty clear.
Biden is slowly going in the right direction. He's calling for an independent Palestinian nation. He's sending food to Gaza and calling for Israel to stand down in the war. Kushner is the golden boy expert of the Trump admin and he's for moving the Palestinians out to develop a non-Muslim Gaza. That's your pick. Bernie Sanders has made his position clear – we aren't doing enough to end the conflict but Bernie will be voting for Biden.
I'm losing patience with prima-donas who are now totally opposed to Biden without considering that Trump will save Bibi and manufacture gas chambers to export to Israel. I'm being mildly hyperbolic but I'm not convinced there is ANY atrocity that Israel might commit that Trump would not fully endorse.
If Trump has an arrangement for a bond, he would keep it secret until the last minute because he wants the appellate court to reduce the bond. But the most recent instructions from the court require Trump to disclose bond negotiations. So if Trump pulls a rabbit out of the hat without the history of recent negotiations, then the court might well demand to know the exact text and timetable of those bond negotiations. (I think.) It might establish that Trump obtained a bond BEFORE he made the claim in a submission to the court that obtaining a bond would be impossible. And some lawyers might well be in hot water. An officer of the court can't submit falsehoods – if their defense is that they were deceived, the court can demand to know who told the lawyers the lies they submitted to the court begging for a bond reduction.
Re Truth Social: I don't think any major advertisers have or would touch it. (If I'm wrong, show me.) Much of the loss of Twitter's value post-Musk has been from an exodus of advertising revenue. (It's lost a third of its value.) TS has about 2 million active members compared to Twitter 450 million. So I don't get that TS is worth any more than a cup or warm piss. I've seen IPOs fail miserably – that's where the release of TS ought to go but what do I know.
Trump may be in much worse shape financially than we knew. If Trump gets caught trying to con the NY courts, it will go badly for him when he tries to appeal. If Trump is NOT trying to con the court, his empire may not survive many more financial hits. There are other civil proceedings in the wings that Trump wants to delay – I don't think he can. If they get before a jury this year, and the judgements are on a par wth the last two civil cases, Trump is going to look like a plucked chicken as more plaintiffs attach Trump's properties.
The money isn't the issue. Image is the issue. Trump wants to look like the bully – the instrument of vengeance for the right against the groups they resent. Women, Blacks, Hispanics, College students, liberals…. The list goes on. But as these people are perceived by Trump voters kicking the daylights out of Trump in court, stripping Trump of his empire, he looks like a weak victim – not an avenging superhero.
How cavalier of Jared to volunteer building valuable waterfront properties on Palestinian land!
Why not go over there, Jared, and explain your solution to the folks currently starving and dying in Rafah?
What a MFing bastard.
I was gonna say "sociopath", but "MFing bastard" has a better ring to it.
I'm hearing that if Trump tries to cash out his TS stocks that it will collapse the whole scam. But what do I know? I guess I'd have to talk to one of the investors who got in on the ground floor in purchasing his NFT's or his never surrender high top sneaker line to see how they fared with their financial investments. The little voice in my head is telling me that anybody would be wise to steer clear of anything that Trump has attached his name to. If you dance with the devil you're gonna get burned.
Take the money and run?
Think of it, a stock which has a controlling shareholder who has a credit rating so low that he can't get anyone to bond him out. Shares would come with a built-in liability, which is the empire the Trump apparent crime family controls. Only the biggest of fool would buy into this deal. Most people invest in a potential asset, here you get a proven liability.
This is so much the Trump reality. Turn what is real into the opposite, something fake with only a facade of reality.
He will be pushing the limits on the bigger fool theory with this plan. They say a big fool.is born every minute, and it seems Trump has acquired quite a cult of them. Can he march to victory on a road paved with their bones? Can he at least delay his eventual reality smack-down? I'll go with the psychic's timetable at this point. We are past the ides of March, and a rare solar eclipse is coming soon.
The scheming, always the scheming…
What's obvious – Rump's efforts to delay and disrupt (threats against judges, prosecutors, court personnel) all court actions, avoid jail, grab money however he can, keep the marks on the hook with "campaign" rallies.
What's not obvious – secretive planning to carry out a successful insurrection, if needed. I am thoroughly convinced that is well underway. His use of the word "bloodbath" recently was a bit of a reveal IMO. Just like continuing to defame Ms. Carroll after judgments that would have caused a normal person to shut their damn mouth and slink away in shame, he does not stop, he will be determined to succeed in his second insurrection attempt. Anybody seen Erik Prince lately?