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Walter Einenkel

Trump Family Wants A Piece Of Shady Binance Crypto Grift

Trump family representatives have been in discussions to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, whose founder served four months in prison for money laundering.

Binance, along with former CEO Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations in 2023.

A deal with the Trump family would allow the previously banned company to return to the United States.

Billionaire New York real estate developer and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has reportedly been involved in the talks with Binance.

This is just the latest example of President Donald Trump’s willingness to align himself with the shady—and often illegal—crypto world. Trump’s billionaires club is filled with tech bros who have both made and been floated by considerable amounts of money in the crypto space.

Trump has seen how much more lucrative a grift of the barely policed crypto world is in comparison to previous ventures, like selling shiny gold sneakers.

Trump launched his own meme coin $TRUMP shortly after inauguration in a clear money grab, pulling in millions while exploiting hundreds of thousands of suckers. But more importantly it was a naked pay-to-play scam, allowing foreign agents and fellow grifters to curry favor with the president—like Tron founder Justin Sun, who was facing a civil fraud case started under the Biden administration.

After Sun “invested” tens of millions into Trump’s meme coin, he was rewarded by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cutting a deal and dropping the case.

As the Trump family continues talks with Binance, the potential investment—and whether or not it would include one of Trump’s patented pardons—remains to be seen.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Senate Democrats Poised To Reject Plutocratic GOP Budget Bill

House Democrats are calling on their colleagues in the Senate to reject the GOP-passed spending bill—and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he’s got the votes to do just that.

“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input—any input from congressional Democrats,” Schumer said Wednesday. “Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House.”

The Republican-led House caved to President Donald Trump and co-president Elon Musk Tuesday, passing a spending bill that would force $880 billion over 10 years in cuts from social safety net programs like Medicaid. The move is a naked attempt to extend GOP tax cuts for the rich at the expense of working-class Americans.

While Republicans were able to pass the bill in the House with the vote of only one Democrat, it’s a different story in the Senate, where Republicans will need Democrats to help them. And so far, they’re not getting it.

“They should refuse to allow this bill to pass in the Senate,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, warned her Senate counterparts on Tuesday. “If they don't, I think there's going to be a huge backlash from across the country. And I think, all of them will, you know, will have to deal with the consequences of that.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was also clear about her feelings on the matter. “The Republicans have the White House, the Senate, and the House. If they want to do this, and if they want to screw over the American people, they can do this with their votes and their party. I do not believe that Democrats should participate.”

“Everyone needs to call their Dem Senator right now. They are starting to cave,” wrote Ocasio-Cortez on her social media account, adding that voters should “Tell them: 1. Vote NO on Cloture AND 2. Vote NO on the Republican spending bill. Don’t let them pivot to reconciliation. GOP doesn’t need Dem votes on that and they know it.”

Maybe Schumer and his fellow Senate Democrats have been getting those calls from voters—and at least for now, they seem to be listening.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Nepo Queen Lara: We 'Ought To Be Kissing The Feet' Of Musk And Trump

Lara Trump appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Monday to declare that “people ought to be kissing the feet of Elon Musk and Donald Trump” for the illegal dismantling of the U.S. government.

The nepo baby’s comments came as she and Hannity wrung their hands about the unfairness of protests against Musk at various Tesla locations.

President Donald Trump’s minions, for their part, are already doing a lot of ass-kissing, and Hannity told Trump’s daughter-in-law that he plans to buy his own Tesla in solidarity with the world’s wealthiest man.

And Trump himself announced that he will buy a Tesla to support Musk, adding to suspicion that the billionaire is pulling Trump’s puppet strings.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Tesla’s stocks have plummeted since Musk’s takeover of the U.S. government and threats to popular programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.

“Every time you hear these people on the left say Elon's enriching himself and his friends. This guy is losing money because of what he's doing,” Lara said.

But what she failed to address is how Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is clawing back existing government contracts and syphoning billions in taxpayer-funded deals into his own companies.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Too Little, Too Late: RFK Jr. Suddenly Is Promoting Measles Vaccination

In the wake of the growing measles outbreak in Texas, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published an op-ed on Fox News’ website over the weekend, urging Americans to … get vaccinated.

With the subhead “MMR vaccine is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease,” the infamous anti-vaxxer wrote, “Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons.”

Texas Health and Human Services first reported the outbreak in mid-January. The disease rapidly spread, reaching nearly 150 confirmed cases. The majority (if not almost all) of those cases are among children who have not received the MMR vaccine. Texas officials say the outbreak is the worst in almost three decades.

Last week, during Donald Trump’s bizarre Cabinet meeting, Kennedy glibly dismissed a measles-related death of a school-aged child as “not unusual.” It was the first measles fatality recorded in the U.S. in over a decade.

Kennedy has spent much of his career promoting anti-vaccine misinformation, notably amplifying debunked bad science connecting the MMR vaccine to autism rates in children. Kennedy, along with others in the anti-vaxx movement have contributed to declining vaccination rates, resulting in outbreaks like the one in Texas.

The Texas outbreak, which began in Gaines County and has now spread to eight more counties, had alarmingly low vaccination rates among its cases of school-aged children. This is not just by chance; It has been fomented by Mr. Measles and his anti-science allies for decades.

At the same time, the Children's Health Defense, the organization Kennedy founded and previously chaired, continues to promote false information about the Texas outbreak. On February 20, its official social media account blamed the outbreak on the MMR vaccine itself. Their claims have the same amount of evidence they have always had—zero.

Kennedy can write as many toothless op-eds as he likes, but as cases pile up Kennedy’s first order of business at the HHS was to gut the agency tasked with educating the public and preventing outbreaks like this one. Kennedy even abruptly canceled the FDA’s planned meeting for next flu season and paused multimillion-dollar efforts to develop a new COVID-19 vaccine to deal with new strains.

With the Trump administration’s history of mismanaging public health, and Elon Musk’s focus on destroying our government agencies, the future is only going to get more dangerous for Americans.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Justice Official Seeks To Intimidate Congressman Who Called Out Musk

A California congressman is finding out what happens when you dare to mock Elon Musk in Donald Trump's America.

Rep. Robert Garcia on Thursday posted a letter he received from the Department of Justice saying that billionaire co-President Musk and his minions in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are concerned that the outspoken Democrat is threatening them.

“So if you criticize Elon Musk, Trump’s DOJ will send you this letter,” Garcia wrote on Bluesky. “Members of Congress must have the right to forcefully oppose the Trump Administration. I will not be silenced.”

So if you criticize Elon Musk, Trump’s DOJ will send you this letter. Members of Congress must have the right to forcefully oppose the Trump Administration. I will not be silenced.

[image or embed]
— Robert Garcia (@robertgarcia.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 7:56 PM

The letter addressed to Garcia and signed by interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Edward R. Martin Jr. quotes the congressman’s February 12 appearance on CNN.

"What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight,” Garcia said when asked how Democrats can stop the unelected Musk’s takeover of the U.S. government. “This is an actual fight for democracy.”

The letter to Garcia appears to be an opening salvo in “Operation Whirlwind,” a new push to prosecute threats against public officials that Martin announced to DOJ prosecutors on Wednesday.

“This sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk,” the letter continues, “an appointed representative of President Donald Trump who you call a ‘dick’—and government staff who work for him. Their concerns have led to this inquiry.”

Martin appeared to be referring to the Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee’s first chaotic hearing, where Garcia chided chair Marjorie Taylor Greene’s previous antics.

“In the last Congress, Chairwoman Greene literally showed a dick pic in our Oversight congressional hearing. So, I thought I'd bring one as well,” Garcia said before proffering a picture of Musk.

During his CNN appearance, host Brianna Keilar asked Garcia a question: “Do you think that calling Elon Musk a ‘dick’ is effective messaging for confronting what is a potentially irreversible transformation of the U.S. government?”

The congressman pulled no punches in his response.

“Well, he is a dick, and I think he’s also harming the American public in an enormous way,” Garcia said. “What I think is really important and what the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy, for the future of this country, and it’s important to push back on the chairperson of this committee.”

Who is to say if Musk is indeed a “dick” or not? The fact of the matter is that calling the world’s richest man a “dick” isn’t a physical threat, and Garcia’s First Amendment rights allow him to use the descriptor.

So “dick” or not, self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk and the Department of Justice have no right to be threatening a congressman.

Martin previously sucked up to Musk by threatening legal action against people perceived to be harassing his anonymous and unvetted DOGE dorks as they gained access to Americans’ sensitive personal and financial information.

Garcia is one of six Democrats on the Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee. Under the leadership of infamous crackpot Greene, the committee’s first hearing went off the rails almost instantly.

The Southern California congressman has been vocal in demanding answers from Musk and Trump for their likely illegal efforts to dismantle government agencies. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace has also threatened to file a resolution to censure Garcia over his “bring actual weapons to a bar fight” figure of speech, which is a variation of “Never bring a knife to a gun fight.”

Here is the full text of Martin’s letter to Garcia:

As United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, I receive requests for information and clarification. I take these requests seriously and act on them with letters like this one you are receiving.

At this time, I respectfully request that you clarify your comments from February 12, 2025. During a live interview with CNN, when asked how Democrats can stop Elon Musk, you spoke clearly: "What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy."

This sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk - an appointed representative of President Donald Trump who you call a "dick" - and government staff who work for him. Their concerns have led to this inquiry.

We take threats against public officials very seriously. I look forward to your cooperation with my letter of inquiry after request. Thank you in advance for your assistance. Please respond by February 24, 2025. Should you have further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to call my office or schedule a time to meet in person.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Complains About Remote Work While Taking Extended Florida Golf Jaunt

President Donald Trump took time away from golfing to speak to a group of billionaires at the Saudi Public Future Investment Initiative Institute summit in Miami, during which he complained about remote work.

“All federal employees must once again show up to work. It's a new phenomenon. You know, since COVID. Show up to work in person like the rest of us. You can't work at home. They're not working. They're playing tennis, they're playing golf, or they have other jobs, but they're not working or they're certainly not working hard. You could never build a company or a country with that,” he said.

One of Trump’s first edicts was to issue a memo demanding all federal workers to return to the office while he went … golfing.

Since then, Trump’s itinerary has included trips to the Super Bowl, a publicity stunt at the Daytona 500, and a lot more golfing—all at taxpayers' expense.

It isn’t surprising. While billionaire Elon Musk is busy dismantling U.S. administrative functions, Trump is picking up where his first administration left off: spending time at his many estates and playing a lot of golf.

During Trump’s first go-around, his golf habit set historic records in costs to the U.S. taxpayer, and it looks like he’s on track to break that record. So far, it has been estimated that Trump’s golf game has cost Americans around $10.7 million, with Trump heading to the golf course at least 10 times in his first 31 days in office.

As for the federal workers who haven’t been fired or placed on administrative leave, research shows that remote work benefits both workers and employers. There is also evidence that women and minority groups are negatively impacted the most by a lack of remote or hybrid work options.

But as long as Trump’s golf game isn’t affected, why would he care?

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Musk's DOGE Gang Hit With Fresh Revelations Of Heinous Conduct

The aspiring young goons in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are being exposed as inexperienced and untrustworthy young Musk-o-lytes who have histories of posting racist and sexist things online.

One of Musk’s DOGE boys has a history of retweeting white supremacists and well-known misogynists. Gavin Kliger is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and possibly the “Special Advisor to the Director” at the Office of Personnel Management, Reuters reports, per his LinkedIn profile.

According to Reuters, between October 2024 and January of this year, Kliger shared posts by white supremacist Nick Fuentes and self-avowed misogynist Andrew Tate. The latter remains under criminal investigation by Romanian authorities for allegedly trafficking minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, and money laundering.

Bloomberg reports that another young member of Musk’s DOGE team,19-year-old Edward Coristine, was previously terminated from a job at an online security firm for “leaking internal information to the competitors.”A spokesperson for Path Network, an Arizona-based data security and hosting company, told Bloomberg that Coristine’s contract was terminated “after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure.”

Coristine’s connection to Musk comes from a brief stint working atMusk's brain-chip startup, Neuralink. According to the Washington Post, Coristine’s online name is “Big Balls.” All of this is the opposite of what you want to see on someone’s resume who is set to potentially access hundreds of millions of people’s private information.

Those two join 25-year-old Marko Elez, who resigned last week, after the Wall Street Journalexposed his racist history on social media. Elez was quickly rehired at the insistence of Musk, Vice President JD Vance, and Trump, cavalierly passing off Elez’s previous racist posts that went up just a few months ago as youthful indiscretion, while giving him access to the country’s most sensitive financial data.Coordinating all of the destruction for Musk is Steve Davis. Davis comes over from leading Musk’s Boring Company, an anti-public transportation company, that repeatedly makes deals with cities involving tunnels and delivers nothing, delaying public works for years. Davis is credited with helping Musk obliterate Twitter in order to turn it into the much-depreciated cesspool of right-wing bigotry and misinformation known as X.

Senate Democrats have opened up a whistleblower portal for federal employees, hoping to uncover some of the clandestine destruction being done by Musk, Trump, and their goons.

Fear Of Iran Plot Led Trump To Use Campaign Staff As 'Bait'

A new book details Donald Trump’s paranoia during his 2024 presidential campaign over a potential assassination threat from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Reports that Iranian operatives had access to surface-to-air missiles led Trump and his advisers to use his staff as a decoy in a plane switcheroo, according to Politico’s Alex Isenstadt.

The threat stemmed from Trump’s first-term decision to assassinate Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. The revelations are in Isenstadt’s upcoming book, Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power. The reporter was given access to the Trump campaign’s inner circle, and Isenstadt reveals that Trump was so afraid that he secretly switched planes to travel to an event—leaving some of his staff feeling like bait.

Trump’s fear was stoked by foiled assassination attempts at a Pennsylvania rally and at his Florida golf course. While neither of the incidents were linked to Iran, Trump’s security detail had him fly on billionaire buddy Steven Witkoff’s plane after the Florida attempt while the rest of his staff took his privately owned plane, dubbed Trump Force One. According to Isenstadt, staffers didn’t find out about the new security arrangement until they were on board Trump Force One:

Campaign leaders tried to assure Trump aides they weren't being used as bait. But if Iranian operatives had access to surface-to-air missiles, several aides wondered, why were they put on board?

Trump has a history of indifference when it comes to the security of friends and foes alike. He has revoked security details for a host of officials from his first administration who have found their way onto his “enemies list.” This includes people like former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and special envoy Brian Hook—all of whom face the same threat of assassination from Iran for their roles in Soleimani’s assassination.

Trump’s continuing paranoia and vengefulness were apparent as recently as last Tuesday, when he told reporters that Iran “would be obliterated” if he were to be assassinated.

“I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left,” Trump said.

Trump’s threat to destabilize the region even further has been reiterated by his very unqualified Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. During an interview on Fox & Friends, Hegseth said invading or attacking countries or regions that are home to “foreign terrorist organizations” is "on the table.”

Trump’s enemies list goes beyond former Cabinet members directly threatened with assassination by foreign adversaries. It also includes former Trump administration officials facing domestic threats due to Trump and the right wing’s increasingly dangerous lies.

The petty plutocrat has also revoked security details for former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, retired Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley, and former top U.S. health official Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Don Jr. Accused Of Killing Yet Another Protected Animal

Italian politician Andrea Zanoni accused Donald Trump Jr. of killing a protected species of duck while on a hunting trip near Venice in December.

Zanoni reportedly told authorities that a video shows Trump Jr. with what appears to be the dead body of a rare ruddy shelduck.

“This is actually a rather uncommon duck for the area. Not even sure what it is in English, but incredible shoot,” he says in the video.

“This is a species protected throughout Europe by the EU birds directive and of course by Italian law … [which] criminally punishes its killing and possession,” Zanoni said.

“The bird in the video is a female casarca, or ruddy shelduck. It’s highly protected and under Italian law you cannot hunt them,” Roberto Tinarelli, president of the Association of Ornithologists in Emilia-Romagna, told The Times of London.

Trump Jr. has a history of hunting questionable game. In 2019, he made headlines during a trip to Mongolia, where he shot an endangered argalis mountain sheep. It was later reported that U.S. taxpayers footed the bill for the rare animal hunting extravaganza.

The rich do not believe in laws—at least when applying them to themselves—and this clearly extends to recreational pursuits like hunting. Trump Jr.’s predilection for shady big-game hunting is shared by fellow Republican and former Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, who also has a history of dubious hunting practices.

The general irresponsibility of Trump Jr.’s actions are reminiscent of Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose bizarre bear “prank” epitomizes the kind of corrupt privilege and glib immorality embodied by the wealthy.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Hegseth Says Invading Mexico Is 'On The Table'

Donald Trump’s brand-new secretary of defense spoke with Fox News’ morning crew Friday and said that invading countries such as Mexico is a very real option.

“The drug cartels have been declared terrorist organizations,” “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade said, adding that invading countries such as Somalia, Sudan, and Syria would be prime for an American military strike if a terrorist organization such as al-Qaida was found there.

“As the secretary of defense, are you permitted now to go after them in Mexico or wherever they are?”

“Brian, I don't want to get ahead of the president and I won't, but that's ultimately going to be his decision,” Hegseth said. "But let me be clear. All options will be on the table.”

“The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border,” Hegseth continued. “That is something we will do, and do robustly.”

The conversation was ostensibly about fentanyl coming into our country and how serious the GOP is about using might to stop it. Of course, one of Trump’s first acts as president was to pardon infamous drug trafficker Ross Ulbricht. The idea that the GOP is serious about anything other than what the billionaire class, led by Elon Musk wants them to do is laughable.

The preoccupation with Mexico, and many non-white countries for that matter, has been a focus of the GOP for decades, which has only heightened under Trump. Trump and the GOP have routinely used Mexico as a xenophobic scapegoat for their failed economic policies. From calling Mexicans “drug dealers, criminals, and rapists” to telling ghost stories about a mythical “caravan” of immigrants winding its way through South America to invade the U.S. to changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, nothing is too low for Trump.

Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend host, squeezed through confirmation, even as allegations of sexual abuse, domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, and a deluge of general inadequacies as a person were revealed to the public.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

'A Clear Danger': Europeans Blast Musk's Neo-Nazi Crusade

The world’s richest broligarch Elon Musk made a virtual appearance Saturday at a rally for Germany’s far-right extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, during which he told a crowd of 4,500 people that Germans should not feel “guilty” about the country’s past.

“It’s okay to be proud to be German. This is a very important principle. It’s okay. It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” he said.

“I only hope that this leads to people realiz[ing] what kind of person he is,” Christiane Benner, the head of Europe’s largest industrial union, told the press. “As citizens in a democracy, we have to stand up against this."

“The remembrance and acknowledgement of the dark past of the country and its people should be central in shaping the German society,” Dani Dayan, chairman of Israel's official Holocaust memorial wrote on Musk’s X. “Failing to do so is an insult to the victims of Nazism and a clear danger to the democratic future of Germany.”

“The words we heard from the main actors of the AfD rally about ‘Great Germany’ and ‘the need to forget German guilt for Nazi crimes’ sounded all too familiar and ominous,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X. “Especially only hours before the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.”

Musk, who endorsed the neo-Nazi-friendly AfD on X last month, was introduced at the rally by AfD leader Alice Weidel, who has her own set of racist-scandals to contend with. Musk also hosted an interview with Weidel on X earlier this month, and he has had an op-ed published in Germany’s largest newspaper supporting the AfD.

Musk’s virtual speech comes just days after making not one but two Nazi salutes during the inaugural parade for Donald Trump last week. His oversimplified whitewashing of Germany’s history is a far cry from how Austrian-native Arnold Schwarzenegger has described the need for everyone—including Americans and Germans—to remember how the path of fascism ends.

“You will not find fulfillment or happiness because hate burns fast and bright. It might make you feel empowered for a while but eventually consumes whatever vessel it fuels,” he said in a video address in 2023. “It breaks you. It's the path of the weak.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Garland Will Release Special Counsel Report On Trump Coup Attempt

Attorney General Merrick Garland submitted a court filing Wednesday announcing his intention to release part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump relating to the 2020 election.

“The Attorney General intends to release Volume One to Congress and the public consistent with 28 C.F.R. § 600.9(c) and in furtherance of the public interest in informing a co-equal branch and the public regarding this significant matter,” the filing reads.

However, the filing includes the caveat that a second installment of the report—which includes Smith’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents—will not be available to the public as long as Trump’s co-defendants, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, remain in criminal proceedings.

Trump faced two separate federal indictments: The first included four counts connected to his attempt to steal the 2020 election, and the second included 40 felony counts associated with the mishandling of classified documents—31 of which were brought under the Espionage Act.

Garland’s court filing comes one day after the Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily blocked the report’s release and two days after Trump’s lawyers sent an overwrought and convoluted letter to the attorney general threatening legal action if he were to release any of the report.

Cannon tried to dismiss Trump’s classified documents case in July. Smith appealed the decision but moved to have all charges against Trump dismissed shortly after the 2024 election, citing a 2000 opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel, which asserted that sitting presidents cannot be indicted or prosecuted.

Unfortunately, Garland’s decision leaves it up to Trump’s incoming Department of Justice to make a final decision on whether or not to release the second report.

Considering there is a high likelihood that Trump’s DOJ will drop the cases against his co-defendants, maybe Smith should have also dropped his cases against them, allowing Biden’s DOJ to release the entire report for public consumption.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Cited For Contempt In Defamation Case, Rudy Continues Flaming Descent

New York Judge Lewis Liman found former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court Monday. He cited Giuliani’s failure to respond to requests for information as he turned over assets to satisfy a $148 million defamation judgement against him.

The former New York City mayor had finished two days of testimony in his contempt hearing, admitting to dragging his heels on requests for evidence to comply with the $148 million in damages he owes to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two Georgia election workers he defamed in his unfounded 2020 election denialism claims.

Giuliani filed for bankruptcy shortly after the decision, and he fought at every point to keep assets like a Mercedes Benz, a luxury New York City penthouse, and a whole lot of watches.

Attorneys for the two election workers told the court that Giuliani had exercised a pattern of half-steps in the process of turning over money and assets in compliance with the defamation judgement.

They said in court papers that he has turned over a Mercedes-Benz and his New York apartment but not the paperwork necessary to monetize the assets. And they said he has failed to surrender watches and sports memorabilia, including a Joe DiMaggio jersey, and has not turned over “a single dollar from his nonexempt cash accounts.”

In November, Giuliani’s lawyers filed a motion to withdraw as his counsel, citing their “fundamental disagreement” with their client and adding that Giuliani “fails to cooperate in the representation or otherwise renders the representation unreasonably difficult for the lawyer to carry out employment effectively.”

Giuliani has said he believes that his fall from grace—losing his New York law license, being disbarred in Washington, D.C., and his legacy of fraud and bankruptcy—will help him “in heaven.”

Maybe? Probably not.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Oligarch Trump Crams His Cabinet Full Of Self-Serving Billionaires

Donald Trump, supposed champion of the working class, is stocking his Cabinet with billionaires.

That’s a contrast with his first go-round, when he proposed only one billionaire Cabinet pick: Betsy DeVos, as secretary of education, who funneled public funds into private schools.

At the same time, Trump’s billionaire favoritism isn’t much of a surprise, since his campaign was largely funded by the billionaire class. Billionaires, on the whole, quickly forgave Trump after his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. After all, he promised to further lower their meager tax burden while reminding them of the $1 trillion increase in their wealth during his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here’s a breakdown of the monied people who will likely soon be in charge of our government.

Linda McMahon: Secretary of Education

A former professional wrestling magnate and billionaire, McMahon is Trump’s pick to run the Department of Education—something she has even less of a background in than DeVos did. However, considering that Trump and other Republicans have called for the dismantling of the department, putting the former WWE CEO in charge does follow a perverse kind of logic.

McMahon served in the first Trump administration’s Cabinet as small business administrator before joining the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.

Howard Lutnick: Commerce Secretary

A cryptocurrency enthusiast and investment banking billionaire, Lutnick is also a backer of Trump’s potentially disastrous tariff plans. He will oversee a department that includes the Census Bureau, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Patent and Trademark Office, among others. All of those agencies have been earmarked for destruction, slashing, or privatization by the authors of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan for a second Trump administration.

Lutnick, a transition co-chair for Trump, claimed he would not “take a list from [Project 2025],” and Trump spent weeks pretending he had never heard of the wildly unpopular and fascistic plan during his campaign. But now, after the election, things have changed.

Scott Bessent: Treasury Secretary

A billionaire hedge fund manager who openly pushes for austerity measures to reduce the deficit, Bessent was tapped to lead the Treasury Department. That’s likely because he supports Trump’s ill-advised tariff plans, even if those plans are incongruous with his supposed goal of reducing the deficit.

Steven Witkoff: Middle East Envoy

Witkoff made his billions as a New York real estate developer and has ties to oil interests in the region he will likely become a liaison to. Can you say “conflict of interest”?

Jared Isaacman: NASA administrator

Isaacman, a billionaire via a payment process firm he founded, is an advocate for privatizing space programs. He’s never worked for the government, much less NASA, which Trump tapped him to head up. But hey, he did pay an undisclosed amount of money to Elon Musk’s SpaceX to go to space twice, so that makes him an expert, right?

Warren Stephens: Ambassador to United Kingdom

Trump tapped Stephens, an investment banker and Republican megadonor (what a coincidence!), to be the next ambassador to the U.K. According to The Guardian, “Stephens held a 40% stake in a payday loan company, Integrity Advance, that the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) took action against in 2015 for allegedly employing predatory lending practices.” Sweet!

Charles Kushner: Ambassador to France

Charles Kushner (family net worth of over $7 billion) is the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump pardoned the elder Kushner, a tax fraud felon, and now gives the slumlord an ambassadorship—nothing corrupt to see here!

Elon Musk: Co-Chair of Department of Government Efficiency

What is there to say about the world’s richest mid-life crisis? Musk poured billions into buying Twitter, turned it into X, and made it a right-wing propaganda cesspool in service of Trump’s campaign. His wealth shielded him from meaningful consequences related to his unethical (and possibly illegal) voter-registration lotteries.

Along with tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk will head the “Department of Government Efficiency,” which will not officially be part of the government but is instead a planned advisory commission. (In other words, this is not a Cabinet position.)

Vivek Ramaswamy: Co-Chair of Department of Government Efficiency

Ramaswamy made his money by tricking big investors into believing in his burgeoning drug company Roivant Sciences and its miracle Alzheimer’s drug, intepirdine, which he bought at a bargain price from another company after the drug failed four trials. He then sold people on believing the risky reward would be worth it—but it wasn’t. Ramaswamy was able to secure big buyouts, becoming uber-rich while failing, and was free to pretend he was a special kind of businessman.

Ramaswamy does have one special talent that Trump cherishes: He’s a salesman.

Many of Trump’s rich-as-hell picks have embraced austerity policies that have already failed western democracies. Their disdain for government projects to help the non-rich is likely to lead to more boom for billionaires and more bust for the American people.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Peddling Still Another Crappy Novelty -- And This One Stinks

There’s a new stench wafting out of the Donald Trump factory of crap. Trump has a brand-new set of fragrances for men and for women, named “Fight Fight Fight,” in reference to the shooting event in Butler, Pennsylvania last July.

Trump announced the ad with a picture of him and first lady Jill Biden sitting next to each other during a ceremony to mark the reopening of the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. The caption read, “A fragrance your enemies can't resist!”

While Americans wait for Trump to formulate coherent “concepts of a plan” for the American health care system, they can spend $199 to buy a cologne for men or a perfume for women. What the two fragrances smell like hasn’t been reported. Maybe blood, sweat, and baby powder? Whatever bronzer smells like?

The image on the box of Trump’s “Fight, Fight, Fight” scent is a clear homage to the photo of Trump raising his fist after the assassination attempt that was used widely by his campaign during the election cycle, but it is not identical image. Gone is any strain on his face, any blood, and any Secret Service shielding him. Whether that is because the Associated Press fixed the licensing error on the images that Trump exploited to sell photo books, or simply a marketing decision, is hard to say.

Photographers of the event worried that the images of Trump and his bloody ear would become “photoganda” in the MAGA cult of personality. That’s exactly what has happened.

But Trump isn’t just selling stink. He’s gone into the mobile gaming realm. Last week, Trump’s son Eric promoted preorders for a new Trump Golf game set to drop in the summer of 2025. The game will reportedly offer in-app purchases of specialty virtual golf clubs ranging from the $9.99 Trump Gold club to the $99 Trump Noir club.

According to the creators of the game, you too can “Become Trump.” Maybe they mean you can waste millions of taxpayer dollars playing golf instead of helping the people that voted for you? One thing is for sure: Winning in Trump Golf will likely result in receiving the same kind of made-up trophies as Trump gets.

Add it to the list of gold-looking crap Trump sells and will continue to sell long past his mortal expiration date.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

DOGE Drama As CNN Unearths Tape Of Vivek Trashing Elon In 2022

Before billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy became co-chairs of Donald Trump’s bogus Department of Government Efficiency, Ramaswamy had all kinds of awful things to say about Musk, the Tesla CEO and world’s richest right-wing misinformation peddler. CNN’s KFile did a deep dive into Ramaswamy’s history of disparaging statements about his new co-chair.

“I think Tesla is increasingly beholden to China,” Ramaswamy opined during a podcast in 2023 in response to the company’s announcement that it would be building a new battery plant in Shanghai. "I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need."

Musk's reliance on China has only increased over the years, and he has been trying very hard to maintain a favorable relationship with the country that provides a large share of his company's profits as well as so much of the raw materials used in Tesla's EV batteries.

In May 2023, Ramaswamy wrote on X that while he appreciated Musk’s purchase of the social media platform, Musk and other “prominent business leaders” were “puppets” of the Chinese Communist Party.

Ramaswamy further criticized Musk in a subsequent post.

“Now the crusader for “free speech” (@elonmusk) kisses the ring of the world’s biggest censor: Xi Jinping,” he wrote.

Musk and Ramaswamy have promised to use DOGE to target hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending cuts by focusing on slashing funding to entities such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives $535 million a year. It is an interesting tactic for Musk, whose entire business empire was buoyed by billions (with a “B”) of taxpayer dollars.

“Both Tesla and SpaceX quite likely would not exist as successful businesses if it were not for the use of public funding,” Ramaswamy told a Fox News podcast in 2022. “[E]ither through subsidies, through the electric car industry, or through actual government contracting in the case of SpaceX."

“Elon Musk has, I think, demonstrated his willingness to change his political tunes based on the favors that he gets to be able to do business in China,” Ramaswamy said in the same Fox News interview.

The increasingly tense trade battle over technology ramped up on Tuesday when China announced a ban on the exporting of rare minerals to the U.S. When you factor in Trump’s promises to add hefty trade tariffs to Chinese imports, Ramaswamy’s last claim is sure to be tested in the coming weeks and months.

Predictably, Ramaswamy has changed his tune toward Musk and is now even promising to use DOGE to harass and possibly extinguish Musk’s domestic EV rivals.

According to Ramaswamy, he now has heart eyes for Musk.

“I love him and respect the hell out of him, and I’m proud to call him a friend,” a smarmy Ramaswamy told CNN. “The only country he puts first is the same one I do: the United States of America.”

It’s easy to see how they’re now simpatico, since they both have the same obsessions: money and power.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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