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ElwoodBlues · M
"If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."
Mon Oct 23 2023:
During his speech, Trump said he would have “plenty of votes”—enough that instead of voting, his fans should “get out there and watch those voters,” presumably referring to supporters of his eventual opponent. “You don’t have to vote, don’t worry about voting. The voting, we got plenty of votes.”
Mr. Christie, who as a U.S. attorney prosecuted Mr. Kushner’s father, singled out the business dealings of the former president’s son-in-law.
“Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund,” he said. “What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo as secretaries of state. We didn’t need Jared Kushner. He was put there to make those relationships, and then he cashed in on those relationships when he left the office.”
While in the White House, Mr. Kushner bolstered ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia, convincing his father-in-law to make the kingdom his first foreign destination as president, helping broker billions of dollars in arms sales and forging a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Mr. Kushner defended Prince Mohammed after Saudi operatives murdered Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Post and United States resident. The C.I.A. concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the 2018 killing. In 2021, Prince Mohammed’s sovereign wealth fund approved the $2 billion investment in Mr. Kushner’s new firm despite objections from the fund’s own advisers.
Letter from the SouthGeorgia’s Broad Racketeering Law May Now Ensnare Donald Trump
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, often relies on Georgia’s capacious rico statute—though critics say that she has stretched it past the law’s intentJuly 31, 2023
In 2013, Fani Willis served as the lead prosecutor in what is still the longest criminal trial ever held in Georgia. Teachers and administrators in Atlanta public schools had been accused, a few years before, of cheating on standardized tests. A special report commissioned by Georgia’s governor concluded that a hundred and seventy-eight educators—including more than three dozen principals and a superintendent—had participated in “organized and systemic misconduct” since at least 2001. Teachers were giving children answers and altering incorrect responses, investigators reported; administrators were offering financial incentives to those who abetted the cheating and punishing those who did not. One teacher, who admitted to changing test answers, told investigators, “APS is run like the Mob.”
The Fulton County district attorney’s office agreed: the county indicted thirty-five educators and administrators for conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or rico—a statute that, historically, is associated with the prosecution of Mafia figures. Willis, in her opening statement, explained how such charges could be applied in the case. “You don’t, under RICO, have to have a formal, sit-down dinner meeting where you eat spaghetti,” she said, seemingly invoking a scene from “Goodfellas.” “But what you do have to do is all be doing the same thing for the same purpose. You all have to be working towards that same goal. In this case, the goal—inflate test scores illegally.”
. . .
Georgia created its rico statute in 1980, less to target the Mafia than to go after Black street gangs and “nontraditional conspiracies,” as Norman Eisen, a former trial lawyer and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, put it to me. (The Georgia Assembly cited the need to address “the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements.”)
But the Georgia law didn’t require prosecutors to demonstrate an underlying criminal enterprise, only the commission of a range of illegal acts that furthered a single criminal goal. “Because of its breadth,” Eisen said, “Georgia prosecutors are more prone to utilize their criminal rico provision as a vehicle for major cases.” It’s one of the best places in the country for deploying such a provision, he added. Volkan Topalli, a professor of criminology at Georgia State, told me that the state’s generous statute helps create a “whirlpool effect” in the prosecution of criminal conspiracies: “If you capture one person in the whirlpool, everyone else gets sucked in along with them.”
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
In the statement, Kelly is confirming, on the record, a number of details in a 2020 story in The Atlantic by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, including Trump turning to Kelly on Memorial Day 2017, as they stood among those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, and saying, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
... in which Trump, after a separate trip to France in 2017, tells Kelly he wants no wounded veterans in a military parade he’s trying to have planned in his honor. Inspired by the Bastille Day parade, except for the section of the parade featuring wounded French veterans in wheelchairs, Trump tells Kelly, “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade.”
“Those are the heroes,” Kelly said. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are – and they are buried over in Arlington.”
“I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
Mon Oct 23 2023:
During his speech, Trump said he would have “plenty of votes”—enough that instead of voting, his fans should “get out there and watch those voters,” presumably referring to supporters of his eventual opponent. “You don’t have to vote, don’t worry about voting. The voting, we got plenty of votes.”
Mr. Christie, who as a U.S. attorney prosecuted Mr. Kushner’s father, singled out the business dealings of the former president’s son-in-law.
“Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund,” he said. “What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo as secretaries of state. We didn’t need Jared Kushner. He was put there to make those relationships, and then he cashed in on those relationships when he left the office.”
While in the White House, Mr. Kushner bolstered ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia, convincing his father-in-law to make the kingdom his first foreign destination as president, helping broker billions of dollars in arms sales and forging a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Mr. Kushner defended Prince Mohammed after Saudi operatives murdered Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Post and United States resident. The C.I.A. concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the 2018 killing. In 2021, Prince Mohammed’s sovereign wealth fund approved the $2 billion investment in Mr. Kushner’s new firm despite objections from the fund’s own advisers.
Letter from the SouthGeorgia’s Broad Racketeering Law May Now Ensnare Donald Trump
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, often relies on Georgia’s capacious rico statute—though critics say that she has stretched it past the law’s intentJuly 31, 2023
In 2013, Fani Willis served as the lead prosecutor in what is still the longest criminal trial ever held in Georgia. Teachers and administrators in Atlanta public schools had been accused, a few years before, of cheating on standardized tests. A special report commissioned by Georgia’s governor concluded that a hundred and seventy-eight educators—including more than three dozen principals and a superintendent—had participated in “organized and systemic misconduct” since at least 2001. Teachers were giving children answers and altering incorrect responses, investigators reported; administrators were offering financial incentives to those who abetted the cheating and punishing those who did not. One teacher, who admitted to changing test answers, told investigators, “APS is run like the Mob.”
The Fulton County district attorney’s office agreed: the county indicted thirty-five educators and administrators for conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or rico—a statute that, historically, is associated with the prosecution of Mafia figures. Willis, in her opening statement, explained how such charges could be applied in the case. “You don’t, under RICO, have to have a formal, sit-down dinner meeting where you eat spaghetti,” she said, seemingly invoking a scene from “Goodfellas.” “But what you do have to do is all be doing the same thing for the same purpose. You all have to be working towards that same goal. In this case, the goal—inflate test scores illegally.”
. . .
Georgia created its rico statute in 1980, less to target the Mafia than to go after Black street gangs and “nontraditional conspiracies,” as Norman Eisen, a former trial lawyer and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, put it to me. (The Georgia Assembly cited the need to address “the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements.”)
But the Georgia law didn’t require prosecutors to demonstrate an underlying criminal enterprise, only the commission of a range of illegal acts that furthered a single criminal goal. “Because of its breadth,” Eisen said, “Georgia prosecutors are more prone to utilize their criminal rico provision as a vehicle for major cases.” It’s one of the best places in the country for deploying such a provision, he added. Volkan Topalli, a professor of criminology at Georgia State, told me that the state’s generous statute helps create a “whirlpool effect” in the prosecution of criminal conspiracies: “If you capture one person in the whirlpool, everyone else gets sucked in along with them.”
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
In the statement, Kelly is confirming, on the record, a number of details in a 2020 story in The Atlantic by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, including Trump turning to Kelly on Memorial Day 2017, as they stood among those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, and saying, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
... in which Trump, after a separate trip to France in 2017, tells Kelly he wants no wounded veterans in a military parade he’s trying to have planned in his honor. Inspired by the Bastille Day parade, except for the section of the parade featuring wounded French veterans in wheelchairs, Trump tells Kelly, “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade.”
“Those are the heroes,” Kelly said. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are – and they are buried over in Arlington.”
“I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
MarthannBann888 · 70-79, F
@ElwoodBlues I don’t have time for all that. If you think Mar-a-Lago is worth eighteen million there is nothing to say.
Why don’t you answer some of your misdeeds kkkdem?
You know, like why you are trying to destroy the country?
What is so bad about people wanting to be free?
Why don’t you answer some of your misdeeds kkkdem?
You know, like why you are trying to destroy the country?
What is so bad about people wanting to be free?
ElwoodBlues · M
@MarthannBann888 So you don't have time for the facts. Good to know!
The judge never said Mar-a-Lago was worth $18 million; nor did I.
"Valuing occupied residences as if vacant, valuing restricted land as if unrestricted, valuing an apartment as if it were triple its actual size, valuing property many times the amount of concealed appraisals, valuing planned buildings as if completed and ready to rent, valuing golf courses with brand premium while claiming not to, and valuing restricted funds as cash, are not subjective differences of opinion, they are misstatements at best and fraud at worst," the judge wrote.
The judge never said Mar-a-Lago was worth $18 million; nor did I.
"Valuing occupied residences as if vacant, valuing restricted land as if unrestricted, valuing an apartment as if it were triple its actual size, valuing property many times the amount of concealed appraisals, valuing planned buildings as if completed and ready to rent, valuing golf courses with brand premium while claiming not to, and valuing restricted funds as cash, are not subjective differences of opinion, they are misstatements at best and fraud at worst," the judge wrote.
MarthannBann888 · 70-79, F
@ElwoodBlues
Valuing a residence for its tax value is at best a misstatement and at worst a criminal abuse power aimed at undermining the integrity of private property rights.
Valuing a residence for its tax value is at best a misstatement and at worst a criminal abuse power aimed at undermining the integrity of private property rights.
ElwoodBlues · M
@MarthannBann888 So you don't have time for the facts. Good to know!
The judge never said Mar-a-Lago was worth $18 million; nor did I.
The judge never said Mar-a-Lago was worth $18 million; nor did I.
MarthannBann888 · 70-79, F
@ElwoodBlues well, we will see how you feel when they take your property. That will happen. Before now, people had the freedom to value their own property as they chose. If they were idiots, nobody did business with them. Now, we don’t have the freedom to do that. So now, some government person tells us that they will value our property. If we get on their bad side they take what we have away. What we have is no longer inviolate. I now have the freedom to think what you want me to think. If I don’t you call me names and ruin me. So, you have all the power. Right and wrong don’t matter. All that stuff you put up there shows me you don’t respect the time other people have to read it all. And, like the liberal judge, it’s all their opinion. They don’t think my property is mine.
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ElwoodBlues · M
