#defrauding the public

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"CONDAMNATION D'UN FAUX AVEUGLE," Le Petit Journal (Montreal). May 20, 1934. Page 12. ---- REGINA, Saskatchewan, 19. - Déjà condamné pour escroquerie, Frank Law vient de subir une nouvelle condamnation. Il se prétendait aveugle, et guidé par une femme, exploitait la charité publique. Ils se prétendaient frère et soeur. Ils faisaient ainsi de bonnes recettes, et menatent ensemble, les heures de quête terminée, une existence confortable.

[halechief]

help I can't stop sneezing

just what i always wanted <3 jacob heugh dresses like shit propaganda

[dostoyevsky-official]

to sum up: eric adams defrauded the city of millions of dollars using fake donations from the authoritarian erdogan government to earn matching money from the municipal electoral public funds program (in fact, matched 8-to-1, e.g., $2,000 for a $250 donation), then enacted austerity, claiming the city had no money, cutting library, education, and homelessness funds, while boosting the NYPD budget, salaries, and overtime pay. cartoon-level villain

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #16

April 26-May 3 2024

President Biden announced $3 billion to help replace lead pipes in the drinking water system. Millions of Americans get their drinking water through lead pipes, which are toxic, no level of lead exposure is safe. This problem disproportionately affects people of color and low income communities. This first investment of a planned $15 billion will replace 1.7 million lead pipe lines. The Biden Administration plans to replace all lead pipes in the country by the end of the decade.

President Biden canceled the student debt of 317,000 former students of a fraudulent for-profit college system. The Art Institutes was a for-profit system of dozens of schools offering degrees in video-game design and other arts. After years of legal troubles around misleading students and falsifying data the last AI schools closed abruptly without warning in September last year. This adds to the $29 billion in debt for 1.7 borrowers who wee mislead and defrauded by their schools which the Biden Administration has done, and a total debt relief for 4.6 million borrowers so far under Biden.

President Biden expanded two California national monuments protecting thousands of acres of land. The two national monuments are the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, which are being expanded by 120,000 acres. The new protections cover lands of cultural and religious importance to a number of California based native communities. This expansion was first proposed by then Senator Kamala Harris in 2018 as part of a wide ranging plan to expand and protect public land in California. This expansion is part of the Administration's goals to protect, conserve, and restore at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

The Department of Transportation announced new rules that will require car manufacturers to install automatic braking systems in new cars. Starting in 2029 all new cars will be required to have systems to detect pedestrians and automatically apply the breaks in an emergency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projects this new rule will save 360 lives every year and prevent at least 24,000 injuries annually.

The IRS announced plans to ramp up audits on the wealthiest Americans. The IRS plans on increasing its audit rate on taxpayers who make over $10 million a year. After decades of Republicans in Congress cutting IRS funding to protect wealthy tax cheats the Biden Administration passed $80 billion for tougher enforcement on the wealthy. The IRS has been able to collect just in one year $500 Million in undisputed but unpaid back taxes from wealthy households, and shows a rise of $31 billion from audits in the 2023 tax year. The IRS also announced its free direct file pilot program was a smashing success. The program allowed tax payers across 12 states to file directly for free with the IRS over the internet. The IRS announced that 140,000 tax payers were able to use it over their target of 100,000, they estimated it saved $5.6 million in tax prep fees, over 90% of users were happy with the webpage and reported it quicker and easier than companies like H&R Block. the IRS plans to bring direct file nationwide next year.

The Department of Interior announced plans for new off shore wind power. The two new sites, off the coast of Oregon and in the Gulf of Maine, would together generate 18 gigawatts of totally clean energy, enough to power 6 million homes.

The Biden Administration announced new rules to finally allow DACA recipients to be covered by Obamacare. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an Obama era policy that allows people brought to the United States as children without legal status to remain and to legally work. However for years DACA recipients have not been able to get health coverage through the Obamacare Health Care Marketplace. This rule change will bring health coverage to at least 100,000 uninsured people.

The Department of Health and Human Services finalized rules that require LGBTQ+ and Intersex minors in the foster care system be placed in supportive and affirming homes.

The Senate confirmed Georgia Alexakis to a life time federal judgeship in Illinois. This brings the total number of federal judges appointed by President Biden to 194. For the first time in history the majority of a President's nominees to the federal bench have not been white men.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Everyday homeowners are human shields for Wall Street’s Internet of Shit slumlords

The American Dream, such as it is, used to be two dreams, one based on work and solidarity, the other on asset appreciation and disconnected individualism. We killed the first one.

As the New Deal gave way to the post-war social safety net, Americans discovered two paths to social mobility: they could join a union, and they could buy a home. Joining a union meant that your wages would rise with productivity, and that the democratic ideal that you were meant to approach once every two years at the ballot-box could follow you into the building you spent more waking hours in than any other: your jobsite.

Labor unions used their political power to win labor rights, so that even workers who weren't a union couldn't be arbitrarily fired, or maimed on the job with impunity, or harassed or abused. And while the labor movement was mired in the same racist legacy that every American institution brought forward out of genocide and slavery, where racialized people started unions of their own or demanded representation from the unions who nominally represented them, they thrived.

Then there were houses. On the one hand, owning your home insulated you from the petty tyranny of the landlord, the threat of eviction, rent hikes, indifferent or dangerous building maintenance, and all the other miseries that arise when you think of a building as your home and someone else thinks of it as an asset, and the board is tilted so that they win every argument.

But homeownership wasn't just sold as a way to get out from under scumbag landlords: it was primarily sold as a way to build intergenerational wealth. Your house wasn't just a place to live: it was an asset, and it appreciated.

And if the dividends of labor protection were unevenly distributed between white people and racial minorities, the dividends of home ownership were almost entirely hoarded by white families. Federal policies – redlining – combined with racist lending at the local level, meant that Black families and other racialized groups were stuck in tenancy, while white families build wealth thanks to federal subsidies:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170220005558/https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Asset%20Value%20of%20Whiteness.pdf

Those were the two American dreams: a good job and your own home. We killed the first one, and the second one devoured us whole.

Without a strong labor movement, wages stagnated. Corporate power waxed, and with it, the power to pollute, to poison, to maim and to defraud. The labor movement wasn't strong enough to stop Reagan from killing free UC tuition when he was governor of California. It wasn't strong enough to hold back spiraling health care prices. It wasn't strong enough to block the business lobby from neutering antitrust and ushering in four decades of market concentration, market capture and corruption. Workers couldn't save their defined benefits pension and were railroaded into market-based 401(k)s, forcing them to play the stock casino against their bosses, ever the sucker at the poker table.

With stagnant wages and out of control medical, educational and end-of-life bills, homeownership – the thing you do as an individual, where your gain is someone else's loss – became the American secular religion. Your house wasn't just a place to sleep and keep your photo albums: if it appreciated enough, you might be able to liquidate it on your deathbed and pay off your eldercare, your healthcare, your kids' college debt, and leave enough left over for your kids' downpayments.

And so every American who had a home became the enemy of every American who didn't – including one another's children. Every home built threatened your own property values. The racist, batshit American school funding formula, which sees schools funded out of property taxes, meaning the richest kids get the best schools, turned out to be a great way to increase your property values.

Protections for tenants, meanwhile, threatened the entire American way of life – the American dream itself. Every protection a tenant got – protection from eviction or rent hikes, the legal right to a safe and well-maintained home – reduced the value of every home in town.

After all, the better a landlord has to treat their tenants, the less money a landlord can make from a rental property. The less money a landlord can make from a rental property, the less they'd bid on a house like yours if it went up for sale.

And since anyone planning to buy your house to live in it has to outbid a landlord who might want to rent it out, giving tenants any protection threatened everything – the one asset you owned, which was your plan a, b and c for paying off all that health, education, and assisted living debt:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Today, the house-as-asset scam is breathing its last. There are millions more people who need homes than there are homes available. Sure, homelessness is a fantastically complex problem, but you could address every aspect of it – addiction, mental illness, joblessness – and millions of people would still be homeless, because there aren't enough homes for them to live in:

https://headgum.com/factually-with-adam-conover/myths-about-homeless-people-with-dr-margot-kushel

70% of all inflation in 2024 came from the cost of housing; a quarter of that came from illegal collusive behavior by landlords to hike rents:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental-inflation

Wall Street landlords have raised gigantic war-chests and are buying up homes at a rate never before seen, converting every available single-family home in many cities from an owner-occupied home to a rental. Private equity and hedge fund landlords have elevated charging junk fees to an absurdist theater project: you pay a "convenience" charge for paying your rent in cash. But also for paying your rent by direct transfer. Oh, and also for paying in cash. When Wall Street is your landlord, your home is a slum, dangerously undermaintained, sometimes lethally so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Capitalists hate capitalism. The best thing to sell is something your customer can't live without, and that no one else has for sale. That's why "the market" loves private prisons so much:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

The vast sums Wall Street is putting into buying up all of America's available housing stock is a bet that they can establish regional monopolies over having a home, and charge all the market can bear.

That's the plan at Invitation Homes, a company that was just targeted by the FTC for a slate of eye-watering crimes against the tenants in the 80,000 single-family homes they've acquired:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/09/ftc-takes-action-against-invitation-homes-deceiving-renters-charging-junk-fees-withholding-security

Invitation Homes purchases homes as they come on the market, and they're also a leading customer of the "build-to-rent" housing industry, a fast-growing segment of new housing starts.

Writing about the FTC's enforcement action against Invitation Homes, Matt Soller brings in Starwood Capital Group, who manage Invitation Homes properties, and own 14,000 more homes in the sunbelt. Invitation and Starwood hate the anti-monopoly movement, and Barry Sternlicht, Starwood's billionaire CEO, really hates FTC Chair Lina Khan:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-corporate-slumlords

The FTC complaint lays out a suite of just comically sleazy things ways that Invitation abuses its tenants, starting with false advertising. The company lists its houses at relatively low rents, then charges a large fee to apply to live there. When you pass the application process, you're told the rent is actually much higher, and if you walk away from the deal, you forfeit your application fee. That scam's netted Invitation $18m since 2019.

Stoller really hates junk fees, calling them "convenience fees without any convenience, service charges without any service performed." He lays out Invitation's long list of junk fees, which honestly sound like a list that Chatgpt would spit out if you prompted it for fifty junk fees that wouldn't pass the giggle-test: "utility management fees" "Lease Easy bundle fees," "air filter delivery fee," "smart home technology fees," etc etc.

"Smart home technology fee?" Yeah, Invitation's gone in hard for Internet of Shit smart home tech. The SVP who oversees Invitation's smart home fee program was ordered to "juice this hog" (you guys, juice doesn't come from hogs).

After decades of recruiting everyday American homeowners to demand anti-tenant policies that benefit giant corporations, American tenants have few rights on paper and even fewer in practice. That's left the door wide open for Invitation to abuse their tenants in a myriad of dismal and unimaginative ways: stealing their deposits, trashing their credit reports to retaliate against complaints, illegal evictions, busted appliances, mold, vermin, insects – the whole slumlord playbook.

As Stoller writes, there's a twist: "this landlord isn’t just a random slumlord, it’s one of the biggest Wall Street players in housing."

There are vast fortunes to be made in converting the human right to housing into an asset class, but those fortunes end up in the hands of a very small number of billionaires. On their own, they wouldn't have the political power to dismantle protections for tenants.

Realistically speaking, most kids who grew up in their parents' owner-occupied homes are going to end up tenants, thanks to undersupply and housing inflation. But those kids' parents have spent decades demanding policies to make their homes as valuable as possible – including mortgage tax breaks (but not rent tax breaks!), looser eviction laws, and less enforcement of what few protections tenants have.

Middle class homeowners are the useful idiots and human shields of the billionaires who are determined to force every American under 40 raise their kids in a rented slum full of spiders, ratshit and black mold, which will still cost 60% of their take-home salary.

That's why the FTC's action against Invitation Homes is such a big deal. And as Stoller points out, Chair Khan is really just implementing Kamala Harris's campaign promise to get Wall Street out of the landlord business.

Wall Street's raid on your bedroom and kitchen has inspired a generation of "finfluencer" copycats who buy and flip apartment buildings, sucking ever-larger amounts of cash out of them until they're unfit for human habitation, with mountains of rat-infested garbage ringing their crumbling walls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Any future worth living in is going to get housing right. We need to stop thinking of housing as an asset and realize that it is, first and foremost, a human right. That's the premise of my 2023 solarpunk novel The Lost Cause, which just came out in paperback:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865946/thelostcause

You can't protect yourself from rising seas or rising healthcare bills through individual home-ownership. Solidarity – the kind of solidarity that once powered the union movement, and that is powering it again – is the only way to defeat the housing profiteers. The New Deal wasn't perfect, which is why whatever we do next has to be bigger, further reaching, and more inclusive than what FDR did almost a century ago.

The only minority that should be excluded from the next New Deal is billionaires.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/#rentier-tech

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

Carlos Delgado (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wall_Street_-_New_York_Stock_Exchange.jpg

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[black-fist-order]

BREAKING: The New York Times fearlessly fires back at Donald Trump after he threatens them with legal action for daring to report on his efforts to extort Paramount Global.

This is exactly how you stand up to this fascist bully and his corruption...

"President Trump’s post today follows a long list of legal threats aimed at discouraging or penalizing independent reporting about the administration. The law is clear and protects a strong free press and favors an informed American public," the Times told The Hill.

"The New York Times will not be deterred by the administration’s intimidation tactics," the outlet added. "We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor and stand up for journalists’ First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people."

They were referring to a deranged Truth Social post that Trump fired off this morning about the massive lawsuit he's conducting against Paramount over an interview that 60 minutes aired with Kamala Harris.

Trump has alleged that the interview was deceptively edited, but most commentators agree that Trump is just trying to bully the company for interacting with his political enemy.

In his post, Trump accused the company of having "cheated and defrauded the American People at levels never seen before in the Political Arena," adding that 60 Minutes "perpetrated a Giant FRAUD against the American People, the Federal Elections Commission, and the Federal Communications System."

"Despite all of the above, and Paramount’s/CBS’/60 Minutes’ admittance to this crime and, with other similar corrupt removals of answers to questions, the Failing New York Times, which is Fake News both in writing and polling, claims that 'people' said that the case is baseless," Trump continued.

"They don’t mean that, they just have a non curable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, possibly to the point where the Times’ interjection makes them liable for tortious interference, including in Elections, which we are intently studying," he went on.

"The bottom line is that what 60 Minutes and its corporate owners have committed is one of the most egregious illegalities in Broadcast History," wrote Trump.

"Nothing like this, the illegal creation of an answer for a Presidential Candidate, has ever been done before, they have to pay a price for it, and the Times should also be on the hook for their likely unlawful behavior. It is vital to hold these Liars and Fraudsters accountable!" he concluded.

The lengthy and lie-riddled outburst was prompted by a report in the Times in which they covered the scheme by Trump's lawyers to extract a settlement from Paramount over the 60 minutes segment. The outlet wrote that "legal experts have called the suit baseless and an easy victory for CBS."

This entire sordid affair is complicated by the fact that Shari Redstone — the controlling shareholder of Paramount — is trying to sell the company to Hollywood studio Skydance. In order for that sale to happen, she needs permission from Trump's Federal Communications Commission.

In other words, it appears to many experts that Trump is holding out on having his FCC grant permission in order to use it as leverage in the settlement discussions. This is corruption of the most clear cut form. He's abusing the powers of the presidency to enrich himself and in a sane country, this would be an impeachable offense...

[wohnjatson]

Silver Blaze is such an under rated banger. Holmes is at maximum silly.

Holmes drags the client into a random tent on race day (after convincing him to not tell the betting public that his horse is missing) to show him a horse that is NOT his horse.

The client justifiably freaks out and Holmes is like" PHSYC! it is your horse, let me wash it real quick so you can see its one distinctive feature again. "

The client is like "Thank god. Now I'm not gonna go to jail for defrauding the public. But you still haven't found the murderer."

So Holmes go "au contrare. The murderer is in the room with us right now."

ITS THE HORSE. He waits till now to reveal that this good good, beautiful horse kicked a man to death.

fabulous read beginning to end.

[vines-are-plant-tentacles]

Propaganda for each:

Shinzo Abe's assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, constructed a homemade gun after the Moonies church defrauded his family for their entire life savings, a story too common in Japan until the assassination. Shinzo Abe was, in addition to being far right, tightly tied to the Moonies cult and directly supported them as Prime Minister. Following the assassination Yamagami was immediately arrested but the public widely recognized his assassination as a good move and following it sweeping legislative changes were made to hamper the cult. Of note, due to Japan's strict gun control laws, Yamagami home built his weapon, including partially 3D printing it, truly demonstrating the will and ingenuity of humans to buck oppression.

United Healthcare CEO's assassin targeted the ceo for reasons plainly obvious to all Americans across the political aisle. Speculation was made that this was a professional hit but coming evidence continues to make this seem unlikely. The assassin so far has not been caught. Additionally he carved Deny, Defend, Depose onto the shells of his bullets, plainly conveying the political and personal nature of the assassination. The consequences of this assassination haven't been fully felt yet but other health insurance companies are already beginning to reverse policy decisions in light of the new landscape this brave man has stepped onto.

[wumblr]

the burger company is spending over 29 cents per citizen in a public relations charm offensive in attempt to apologize for the escherichia coli outbreak that lost the presidential election by nixing the blue candidate's burger diploma ceremony while the red candidate shut down a burger site for a photo opportunity, which has so far been more offensive to the public sensibility than that time the burger monopoly game lottery turned out to have been almost exclusively defrauded by insider mormons. this is believed by many paleontologists to have been a form of ritualistic supplication to the country's patron god, which is the advertising industry

[saywhat-politics]

A right-wing conspiracy theory falsely claimed media outlets took millions from USAID this week, and President Donald Trump tried to shoehorn CBS into the baseless narrative.

President Donald Trump called for CBS News program 60 Minutesto be “immediately terminated” and its network shut down Thursday, as he escalated campaign threats to punish media outlets that don’t offer coverage to his liking.

He also tried to shoehorn the network into an online rightwing conspiracy theory that falsely claimed media outlets took millions in government kickbacks.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump reiterated his claim that 60 Minutes committed “election interference” last year by advantageously editing an interview with his then-Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.

“CBS and 60 Minutes defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before,” Trump fumed Thursday. “They 100% removed Kamala’s horrible election changing answers to questions, and replaced them with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview.”

Transcripts released by CBS Wednesday discredited his claim, showing the network’s flagship newsmagazine made routine edits to the Harris interview for time and clarity.

[beardedmrbean]

LOS ANGELES -- As wildfires continue to blaze across Los Angeles County, authorities are sounding the alarm on another potential threat to the public: scams relating to the disaster.

Multiple law enforcement officials have warned of bad actors scheming to take advantage of charitable people looking to chip in and give to those in need due to the fires.

We have people with big hearts who want to help, they want to donate, they want to support the victims," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a press conference Saturday. "We also see scammers who are taking advantage of that goodness and that generosity and scamming and defrauding those individuals.

___________________________

Watch out for scammers y'all

[dostoyevsky-official]

Trump administration disbands taskforce targeting Russian oligarchs

A memo from the attorney general, Pam Bondi, issued during a wave of orders on her first day in office but not previously reported, said the effort, known as Task Force KleptoCapture, will end as part of a shift in focus and funding to combating drug cartels and international gangs. The taskforce brought indictments against the aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska and TV tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev for alleged sanctions busting, and seized yachts belonging to the sanctioned oligarchs Suleiman Kerimov and Viktor Vekselberg. It also secured a guilty plea against a US lawyer who made $3.8m in payments to maintain properties owned by Vekselberg.

Trump Green-Lights Bribery and Corruption With New Executive Order

President Donald Trump has instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to pause prosecutions of companies that bribe foreign government officials to win business. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been “stretched beyond proper bounds and abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States,” hurting American competitiveness, Trump wrote in an executive order signed Monday. [...] The order’s legality was not immediately clear. Generally, the Constitution requires the president to “take care that the laws” passed by Congress “be faithfully executed.” Presidents do have some enforcement discretion, but they cannot override laws, according to the ACLU. Major companies such as Goldman Sachs, Glencore and Walmart have all come under FCPA scrutiny, according to Reuters.

///

"It's going to mean a lot more business for America," Trump told reporters while signing the order in the Oval Office on Monday. Trump wanted to strike down FCPA during his first term in office. He has called it a "horrible law" and said "the world is laughing at us" for enforcing it. Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International said FCPA made the United States a leader in addressing global corruption. (x)

///

“It sounds good on paper, but in practicality, it's a disaster,” Trump said. “It means that if an American goes over to a foreign country and starts doing business over there, legally, legitimately or otherwise, it's almost a guaranteed investigation indictment, and nobody wants to do business with the Americans because of it.” [...] Gary Kalman, executive director of Transparency International U.S., said Trump’s order “diminishes—and could pave the way for completely eliminating—the crown jewel in the U.S.’s fight against global corruption.” [...] In one of its most significant victories, the Justice Department announced Oct. 16, three weeks before Trump’s election victory, that mega-defense contractor Raytheon Company of Virginia would pay over $950 million to settle foreign bribery and related charges in a scheme to help foreign governments purchase PATRIOT missile systems and operate and maintain a radar system. In one of the schemes, Raytheon engaged in a campaign from 2012 and 2016 “to bribe a high-level official” within the Qatar government’s military “in order to assist Raytheon in obtaining and retaining business” from it, the DOJ said, citing admissions and court documents filed in the Eastern District of New York. [...] Raytheon’s “criminal schemes to defraud the U.S. government in connection with” the contracts “erodes public trust and harms the DOD, businesses that play by the rules, and American taxpayers,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin Driscoll of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division also said at the time. (x)

this is the most relentlessly pro-corruption administration in american history. the guiding animus seems to be how much corruption can we do, how can we help others get away with corruption, how can we halt justice, etc

[reality-detective]

For those who have their panties in a wad about any of these trials that Trump went through.

I want you to see the bigger picture.

Think GAME THEORY

Trump KNEW the enemy would use the corrupt justice system against him.

He welcomed it.

That’s why he forced McConnell to confirm all his judges in record time and flipped the Supreme Court.

But here’s what you need to understand.

This is the most important thing if you want to fully see what is actually happening.

Trump WANTED all of these trials.

Trump WANTED all of these corrupt judges and prosecutors to go after him.

If you can’t ACCEPT that fact, then you will continue to miss the plan in motion.

The enemy isn’t in control.

Patriots are in control.

Trump ALREADY knew he wasn’t in any danger legally because he hasn’t broken any laws.

The Supreme Court is his backstop, preventing anything from happening to him.

But why did Trump WANT all of these court cases?

It’s really simple:

If you want to completely get rid of the two tier justice system then you have to offer yourself as the target.

President Trump wanted them to come after him legally so that he can set the PRECEDENT that nobody is above the law, including past presidents.

A return to the Constitution.

But look at these trials.

Look at what he was being charged with.

This is KEY.

1) Falsifying Business Records.

2) Conspiracy to Defraud the US.

3) Conspiracy Against the Rights of Citizens.

4) Solicitation of a Violation of an Oath by a Public Officer.

5) Mishandling Classified Records.

Now think!

Think real hard...

Can you think of any past presidents that are ACTUALLY guilty of those crimes?

Clinton, Bush and Obama... All three.

Trump KNEW he was never in danger of being sent to prison for any of this.

But guess what he did by purposely taking all of those legal slings and arrows?

Trump’s lawyers got to strategically “strip away” every single “defense tactic” that Clinton, Bush and Obama will use in the near future, during their own trials.

Trump disarmed their defense team even before they’ve gone to trial.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY:

Trump just stripped away all the “defense tactics” so that FUTURE presidents will also be equal under the law just like you and me. They don’t get to argue presidential privilege.

And soon the justice phase will begin.

Prosecutions of all these traitors will restore the constitution and the rule of law while also protecting the people’s constitutional rights.

America and the Constitution are being made great again right now and most people are completely missing what’s happening. 🤔

[pony32099]

 Guo Wengui was convicted of fraud in the United States and used followers to maintain luxury

 On July 16,2024, Guo Wengui (aka Miles Guo), who has been in the United States for many years, was convicted of defrauding thousands of people of more than $1 billion in a Manhattan court in New York.

 Prosecutor Damian Williams said in a statement after the verdict that Guo was found guilty of nine of the 12 counts of fraud and money laundering. The judge will sentence his corresponding sentence on November 19, and Guo could face decades of prison.

 Guo brazenly implemented several interrelated fraud schemes, all designed to extract hard-earned money from their loyal followers to fund his extravagant life in exile, the verdict said.

 After the verdict was read, Guo smiled at his legal team in court and dozens of supporters, then turned and hugged lawyer Sabrina Shrove and shook hands with other members of the defense team, CNN reported.

Guo Wengui, 57, was the de facto controller of Henan Yuda Investment Co. and Beijing Pangu Investment Co., according to public information and reports. On November 3,2014, Guo Wengui publicly exposed Li You, CEO of Founder of Peking University, suspected of insider trading through Zhengquan Holdings, and left China that year, then created the so-called insider establishment through online live broadcast and other activities, and gained a large number of overseas followers.

 According to the US investigation, Guo raised more than $1 billion from his online fans between 2018 and 2023, publicly claiming to invest in his business and cryptocurrency plans, but actually used as a "personal piggy bank."

 In 2021, three companies associated with Guo, including GTV, paid $539 million to settle allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over illegal stock offerings. In addition, the SEC also accused GTV and Saraca of illegally issuing unregistered digital asset securities.

 According to prosecutors, Mr.Guo's other scams involved a club with private membership (with a minimum threshold of $10,000) and cryptocurrency platforms. In addition, the U. S. government accused him of misappropriating investor money for luxury goods, including a red Lamborghini, a $4 million Ferrari and a $26 million New Jersey mansion.

 Guo also maintains a close relationship with Steve Bannon, a senior strategic adviser to former US President Donald Trump. Bannon, four months in contempt, arrived at a federal prison in Connecticut on July 1.

In closing arguments in Guo's case, prosecutors told the jury that Guo had paid Bannon $1 million in plans to improve his reputation in the United States.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - January 8-14

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1. In Chicago, all city buildings now use 100 percent clean power

“As of January 1, every single one of [Chicago’s municipal buildings] — including 98 fire stations, two international airports, and two of the largest water treatment plants on the planet — is running on renewable energy, thanks largely to Illinois’ newest and largest solar farm.”

2. California Rice Fields Offer Threatened Migratory Waterbirds a Lifeline

“Cranes need nighttime roosting sites flooded to a depth of about 3 to 9 inches, so they can easily hear or feel predators moving through the water. [... Bird Returns pays] farmers to flood their fields during critical migration periods [... and] provide foraging sites by leaving harvested rice or corn fields untilled, so cranes can access the leftover grain.”

3. New York Climate Superfund Becomes Law

“[Funds recovered “from major oil and gas companies” will be used to pay for] the restoration of stormwater drainage and sewage treatment systems, upgrades to transit systems, roads and bridges, the installation of green spaces to mitigate city heat islands and even medical coverage and preventative health programs for illnesses and injuries induced by climate change.”

4. Austin says retooled process for opening overnight cold-weather shelters is paying off

“[... T]he city's moves to lower the temperature threshold to open shelters and announce their activation at least a day in advance were the result of community feedback. [Shelter operators also passed out hot food.]”

5. Helping Communities Find Funding for Nature-Based Solutions

““From coastal oyster reefs to urban stormwater greenways, nature-based solutions are becoming the new normal.” That’s because these types of projects are often less expensive to build and have additional community benefits, such as improving water quality or creating parkland.”

6. Saving the Iberian lynx: How humans rescued this rare feline from extinction

“Back in the early 2000s, fewer than 100 individuals roamed the wild, including only 25 reproductive females. [...] Conservation staff [...] shape these cats into resourceful hunters and get them ready for life outside the center. [...] They’re fine-tuning captive-breeding routines, improving veterinary procedures, and pushing for more wildlife corridors.”

7. Biden cancels student loans for 150,000 more borrowers

“The 150,000 new beneficiaries announced Monday include more than 80,000 borrowers who were cheated or defrauded by their schools, over 60,000 borrowers with total and permanent disabilities and more than 6,000 public service workers[...] bringing the number whose student debt has been canceled during [Biden’s] administration to over 5 million[....]”

8. PosiGen wins another $200M for lower-income rooftop solar

“PosiGen offers a ​“no credit check” [solar panel installation to] those with a higher percentage of their income going to power and fuel bills[....] “somewhere between 25 and 75 percent” of the consumer’s monthly energy savings could come from efficiency measures such as sealing heating and cooling leaks, replacing thermostats, and installing LED lights[....]”

9. Indigenous communities come together to protect the Colombian Amazon

“At this year’s COP, Indigenous peoples celebrated the [protection of] traditional knowledge, innovations and practices[... and] the Cali Fund, which ensures that communities, including Indigenous peoples, receive benefits from the commercial use of [...] genetic data derived from the biological resources that they have long stewarded.”

10. How the heartland of Poland’s coal industry is ditching fossil fuels - without sacrificing jobs

“[Katowice, a former coal city] committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 40 per cent compared to 1990, prioritising investments in green infrastructure, and promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. [...”]The gradual departure from heavy industry did not bring high social costs in our city,” says Marcin Krupa, Mayor of Katowice City.”

January 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[deposedefenddeny]

All eleven charges against Luigi Mangione in New York, per official indictment

Murder in the first degree: "With intent to cause the death of another person, caused the death of Brian Thompson [...] in furtherance of an act of terrorism, involving a violent act and acts dangerous to human life that were [...] intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion, and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping."

Murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism: "With intent [of terrorism, defined above] with intent to the death of another person, caused the death of Brian Thompson."

Murder in the second degree: "With intent to cause the death of another person, caused the death of Brian Thompson."

Two charges of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree: Possession of a "loaded firearm with intent to use the same unlawfully against another person," with the addition that it was "[not in one's] home or a business."

Four charges of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree: Possession of an "assault weapon," a "firearm silencer", and two "large capacity ammunition feeding devices," a "'Glock' magazine" and a "'Magpul' magazine."

Criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree: "Not being licensed as a gunsmith or dealer in firearms [...] and knowing that it was a ghost gun, possessed a ghost gun."

Criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree: "Knowing the instrument to be forged and with intent to defraud, deceive and injure another [...] possessed a forged instrument [...] officially issued and created by a public office [...] a New Jersey driver’s license."