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'Crypto Coins': Why Trump Never Stops Scamming His MAGA Flock

With the election upon us, many voters are focused on Donald Trump's unravelling mental state and his radical plans to kill off the democracy. But there should be space to recall his scams victimizing ordinary people and his joy in pulling them off. That speaks to character.

Trump's latest fishy deal involves a crypto operation. But let's start about three decades earlier, in 1995. Trump's Atlantic City casinos were going under, and he needed suckers to bail him out. He thus hawked shares of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts.

Sophisticated investors regarded a company built on two casinos that had already gone bankrupt as an obvious loser. And so Trump turned to the chumps who bought into his rich-man, spinner-of-gold act. They put $140 million into the company and became a joke on Wall Street.

Trump was stuck with a third casino that was also failing. He persuaded Trump Hotels & Casinos Resort to take it off his hands at a grossly inflated price. By 2004, the bankers had enough and sent the company into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For every $10 that his marks invested at that initial public offering, they had $1 left.

Trump's explanation for the collapse in stock price should sound familiar to anyone now listening to his usual excuses: "People don't understand this company."

You heard echoes when he recently appeared before the Economic Club of Chicago. The moderator, citing The Wall Street Journal, asked him about his growing pile of campaign promises that could add almost $8 trillion to the national debt. "What does The Wall Street Journal know?" Trump responded. "They've been wrong about everything."

The year Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy, Trump incorporated Trump University. Students fell for Trump's promise to share his tricks for building a real estate empire. (They presumably were not current on Trump's recent casino fiasco.)

Trump University was "a massive scam," according to the conservative National Review. First off, it wasn't a university. Rather it was a bait-and-switch scheme whereby students were conned into paying a typical charge of $20,000 — "ALL PAYMENTS MUST BE RECEIVED IN FULL" — for basically nothing. They didn't even have their picture taken with Trump, as promised. Instead, they were posed next to a cardboard cutout of him.

Trump was sued up and down and finally agreed to pay a $25 million settlement.

Trump is now trying to draw believers into his sketchy cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial. The clear objective is to raise a pile of money through unregistered securities offerings. The tokens are supposed to be sold only to accredited U.S. investors. But as a financial writer for New York magazine reports, "I received an email pushing me to buy them, despite having no accreditation whatsoever."

New cryptocurrency ventures put out what's called a "white paper" detailing their project. Trump calls his a "gold paper." Its cover features a portrait of a stern Donald surrounded by a blotch of what looks like melting gold.

In clear language, it piously notes that Trump, his family and Trump Organization employees may not serve as "an officer, director, founder or employee of, or manager, owner or operator of Word (they didn't bother to check for typos) Liberty Financial."

Under that is a complexly worded paragraph explaining that 75 percent of the crypto coin revenue goes to the Trump family. Trump's son Barron, who just entered NYU as a freshman, has been named one of its "Web3 Ambassadors."

If Trump has so much money, why does he run these grifts? There's a simple answer: It's a game. In his moral universe, a successful scam targeting the little people who buy your story is just good fun.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

These Republicans Know Harris Must Beat Trump To Save Democracy

Presidential elections of yore were not like this one. Would the media kindly get that into their collective skull? Many journalists seem to think that the reluctance of Kamala Harris to sit down for searing in-depth interviews on "the issues" is a major issue.

The one she did with CNN rested on the old gotcha questions. Harris said that she's now for fracking and that the border is orderly thanks to the president's executive order. Furthermore, she would sign the strict border bill that Donald Trump had killed to keep the issue alive. She's been saying this for months.

The only truly important issue in the presidential election of 2024 is existential. Can America survive as a democracy; that is, can it be saved from a mentally declining Donald Trump intent on falsifying vote totals, having already tried to do it through violence? He's already threatening to contest the election that hasn't happened. And the only way to put an end to that extortion is to beat Trump soundly in November.

Sure, we good-government types feast on detailed policy papers. But what we can gather about the vice president, much of it based on the Biden administration in which she serves, is that Harris is moderate on most things. Should she be elected, there will be reason to harp, make no mistake. (I look forward to that day.) Most important: We know that if she loses, she will concede.

In the meantime, our political traditions are facing code red.

What should bother us more than the price of hamburger is the prospect of ending four centuries of democracy dating back to the New England colonies. But if the economy is deemed all that matters, the indicators confirm far stronger economic growth under Biden.

Trump tells the MAGA masses they're not seeing what they're seeing — that dictators get the job done. On the contrary, democracies offer the best economies: Businesses need stable political institutions and the rule of law to flourish. And when the elected government pursues policies antithetical to economic prosperity, the voters can replace the leaders.

That's the argument advanced by "VCs for Kamala." These venture capitalists hold that strong, trustworthy institutions are a feature, not a bug, of American capitalism.

Growing numbers of smart conservatives now see MAGA as a threat, not only to democracy but to the survival of the Republican Party. A Republican hasn't won the popular vote in a presidential election since 2004. And the bizarre characters Trump foists on the party as down-ballot candidates — Kari Lake in Arizona, Mark Robinson in North Carolina — seem destined for easy defeat.

Leading conservatives are not only urging followers to withhold their vote for Trump but to vote for Harris. As former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger memorably told Democrats at their convention, "I am proud to be in the trenches with you as part of this sometimes awkward alliance that we have to defend truth, defend democracy and decency."

He hasn't given up the Republican label and told listeners that "Whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison with those fundamental matters of principle, of decency, and of fidelity to this nation."

A group called "Republicans Against Trump" is spending over $11 million on television ads and billboards reading, "I'm a former Trump voter. I'm voting for Harris."

What Harris can do for the country is take Trump off our backs, and it appears that she could do it. So what if she passes on interviews that distract from the one big thing, which is securing the democracy.

How one feels about gas prices might matter in normal elections. This election is not normal.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Likely Trump Treasury Appointee Would Wreak Havoc On World Economy

Many Democrats, political and legal experts have warned that a second Donald Trump presidency would likely mean the end of American democracy, based on his proposed policies like mass deportation through force of the National Guard, and using the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.

In a Sunday, August 4 report published by Politico, reporter Gavin Bade highlights another aspect of a second presidency that would also be a danger to democracy — former top Trump trade official, Robert Lighthizer.

Foreign Policy columnist Edward Alden, in May, wrote an article about Lighthizer, titled, "The Man Who Would Help Trump Upend the Global Economy, asserting: "As President Donald Trump’s trade representative, he turned the United States away from six decades of support for a rules-based, multilateral trading system and toward a robustly nationalist approach."

Alden added:

Even as most of Trump’s former officials have denounced him as unfit to be president again, Lighthizer has kept the faith—seeing in Trump, as many others do, a flawed vessel for some greater public good. He remains one of Trump’s top policy advisors in the 2024 campaign and would be set for a bigger job—likely Treasury secretary—if Trump wins in November. Lighthizer’s mission of transforming not just U.S. trade policy but broader U.S. international economic policy is just getting started.

Likewise, Bade warns in his article, "If Trump wins in November, Lighthizer is poised to pursue an even more disruptive set of policies next year, one that is already raising alarms in foreign capitals, on Wall Street and among many economists."

Additionally, Bade reports:

According to four former Trump officials, granted anonymity to speak about sensitive personnel issues, Lighthizer is a candidate for a number of senior roles in a second Trump administration, from Treasury or Commerce secretary to a second turn as USTR, or as an economic adviser or even White House chief of staff. His profile rose further last month with the selection of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as Trump’s running mate, a committed protectionist who aligns with Lighthizer ideologically.

The Politico reporter also notes that Lighthizer isn't only friends with Republicans.

"Even Democrats on Capitol Hill, who fought Trump doggedly on other policies, often found common ground with Lighthizer," Bade notes.

"But even some lawmakers who like Lighthizer personally, like [Rep. Richard] Neal (D-MA) and [Senate Finance Chair Ron] Wyden (D-OR), are wary of his more aggressive second-term agenda, which many economists warn could spike inflation and threaten the American economy’s leading role among world nations."

Neal told Politico, "Those plans, including higher tariffs across the board and moves to decrease the value of the U.S. dollar, entail 'an awful lot of risk without a proper assessment.'"

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

With Progressive Wins In UK And France, Liberal Democracy Is Far From Dead

French voters defied the expectations of pollsters on Sunday as a progressive alliance soared to victory over right-wing nationalists in the country’s legislative elections. On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron, whose own centrist party came in second, refused the resignation of France’s prime minister. A new government is expected to emerge from a coalition of the progressive New Popular Front, which took the greatest number of seats, and Macron’s Ensemble alliance. Forming that coalition government may not go smoothly, but the nationalist National Rally was relegated to a third-place finish.

Marine Le Pen, the de facto leader of National Rally, had promised to curtail French support of Ukraine, end birthright citizenship, block immigrants from accessing social services, and align France with Russia. But on Monday, National Rally leaders found themselves complaining that progressive parties had cheated as they faced another cycle in the political wilderness.

The result follows a landslide victory for U.K.’s center-left Labour Party, which sent the Conservative Party packing after a 14-year hold on the British government. Labour leader Keir Starmer was sworn in as the new prime minister shortly thereafter, and the more progressive leadership promises to repair more than a decade of damage done to the national health care system, raise the minimum wage, provide free meals to schoolchildren, improve environmental protections and public transportation, and create a new, publicly owned energy company.

In other words, despite the rising threat against democracy in many places around the world (and at home), liberal democracy isn't dead just yet.

There has been story after story suggesting that liberal democracy is on its last legs. That’s been particularly true over the last few years when authoritarian populists celebrated and supported by Russia have dominated reports on election cycles, both in America and Europe.

Stories continue to herald the rise of a new authoritarian right in Europe, but the nationalist leaders who often dominate headlines share one thing in common: They usually lose. Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform U.K. party, may have given a so-called “victory speech” following his country’s elections, but his party took just 14 percent of the vote. That’s more than Reform earned in previous elections, but the result earned them only five seats in the U.K.’s 650-seat House of Commons—five seats that are worth a lot less without a right-wing government in charge.

Germany’s far-right Alternatives for Germany party may have increased its support in the last round of elections, but it still earned less than 16 percent of the vote in the European Parliament elections held on June 9. That’s slightly below what polls showed a week from the election, and far below what they showed a few months earlier.

Outside of Europe, Mexico celebrated a substantial progressive victory last month, when Claudia Sheinbaum and her left-wing Morena party took the highest percentage of the vote in that nation’s democratic history. In India, parties on the left overperformed expectations, though they failed to displace a right-wing leader.

The pundits ready to play taps for democracy in Europe need to take off their funeral suits because it doesn’t seem like liberal democracy is going anywhere this week. If anything, it’s the right-wing parties that have emerged from recent elections rattled by voters who moved to install more progressive leadership. It seems like nationalists may have had their big moment in 2016 with the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the United States and the shocking vote for “Brexit” in the U.K.

Since then, Brexit has been recognized as a mistake, with recent polling showing that most Britons want to rejoin the European Union's single market, and now voters in the U.K. have kicked out the Tories, who were responsible for the Brexit vote. And in the U.S., voters held up their end in 2020.

Now we just have to do it again.

— (@)

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Start your day with The National Memo Newsletter

'Crypto Coins': Why Trump Never Stops Scamming His MAGA Flock

These Republicans Know Harris Must Beat Trump To Save Democracy

Likely Trump Treasury Appointee Would Wreak Havoc On World Economy

With Progressive Wins In UK And France, Liberal Democracy Is Far From Dead

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