A quick 3:30 video discussing how Vivek Ramaswamy made his fortune through a pump-and-dump scheme based on a bargain-basement purchase of an Alzheimer's drug that had already failed 4 clinical trials. 

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...   and https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0...  for more details. 

Walker and Trump: federal prison's future Idiots of the Year.

Emails Reveal ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Herschel Walker Money Scandal

Emails show Herschel Walker solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars for his own business from a billionaire donor, with the donor believing he was giving to Walker's campaign.

When Herschel Walker emailed a representative for billionaire industrialist and longtime family friend Dennis Washington in March 2022, he seemed to be engaging in normal behavior for a political candidate: He was asking for money.

But unbeknownst to Washington and the billionaire’s staff, Walker’s request was far more out of the ordinary. It was something campaign finance experts are calling “unprecedented,” “stunning,” and “jaw-dropping.” Walker wasn’t just asking for donations to his campaign; he was soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars for his own personal company—a company that he never disclosed on his financial statements.

Emails obtained by The Daily Beast—and verified as authentic by a person with knowledge of the exchanges—show that Walker asked Washington to wire $535,200 directly to that undisclosed company, HR Talent, LLC.

And the emails reveal that not only did Washington complete Walker’s wire requests, he was under the impression that these were, in fact, political contributions.

In the best possible circumstances, legal experts told The Daily Beast, the emails suggest exponential violations of federal fundraising rules; in the worst case, they could be an indication of more serious crimes, such as wire fraud.

But Walker—who had been schooled on campaign finance rules since his campaign launched in Aug. 2021, according to a person involved in those conversations—appears to have dismissed the Washington team’s concerns that the money may have gone to the wrong place. When a third party informed a Washington Company executive that the money couldn’t be used for political purposes, they raised the issue with Walker, asking at one point whether the funds should be redirected to a super PAC supporting his candidacy.

Walker never contributed any of his own money to his campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings, and it’s unclear what happened to these particular funds. Walker may have ultimately returned the money to Washington, but he did not reroute the money to the super PAC, according to FEC filings and a person with direct knowledge of the events.

....

According to the legal experts who spoke to The Daily Beast for this article, this scheme appears to not just be illegal—it appears to be unparalleled in its audacity and scope. The transactions raise questions about a slew of possible violations. In fact, these experts all said, the scheme was so brazen that it appears to defy explanation, ranking it among the most egregious campaign finance violations in modern history.

Saurav Ghosh, director of federal reform at Campaign Legal Center, called the arrangement “jaw-dropping.” Jordan Libowitz, communications director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said if Walker “used the campaign to funnel money into his own business, that’s one of the biggest campaign finance crimes I’ve ever heard of.” Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer and deputy executive director of Documented, remarked that the exchanges were “stunning and, to my knowledge, without parallel in recent history.”

“Campaign finance laws are designed to prevent massive under-the-table payments like those described here,” Fischer said. “While we don’t have all the facts, these emails point to highly illegal, potentially even criminal activity.”

Paul S. Ryan, a campaign finance specialist and deputy executive director at the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation, said the situation suggests a “criminal violation” that is “extraordinary and unprecedented in my 25 years of campaign finance watchdog work.”

“There’s no legal way that this could have played out,” Ryan said.

....

Federal law prohibits candidates from converting campaign donations to personal use. The law also limits how much money individuals can contribute to a campaign, as well as how much candidates can solicit from donors. Candidates also cannot solicit, accept, or facilitate contributions in the name of another person.

According to legal experts, campaign finance violations become criminal if the violation was “knowing and willful”—essentially, if the person understands the laws.

At the time of the first email, Walker had already been a candidate for half a year, raising millions of dollars along the way. And he was repeatedly coached on fundraising limits and restrictions since the beginning of his campaign, according to a person involved in those conversations—a fact that is demonstrated in the emails when Walker provides a breakdown of federal donation limits.

 rgio wrote:

Probably saved the government money. Instead of hiring people on staff who then go into consulting for the government after a couple of years, just cut out the first step. Might even avoid a lot of pension payments.

 ColdMiser wrote:
She wasn't elected for her first term; she succeeded Cuomo when he resigned.  She was elected for her next term by a narrow margin - unusual for a historically Democratic state like NY.  Maybe she needed better writers then.

 rgio wrote:
Isn't that why folks voted for her, because she hired the best speech writers? 

 black321 wrote:
As if on queue...

Hochul Paid $2 Million for Outside Help on State of the State Speeches

https://archive.is/5aYuU

Instead of hiring 2 full-time, well-educated staff members for $100k/each...they spend $2M for them to work a few months.

 rgio wrote:

Well said...and neither side gets the bold. 
It's all about politics, and less and less about effective governing. 

 kcar wrote:
Here's the link outside the firewall...  https://archive.is/Xocqh

So the real kicker to me...what the f@!% is the point of filing annual statements if they don't mean anything?  In particular... Thomas files for years as the 1/3rd owner of a rental property.  One year, the asset disappears.  Nobody ever looks at the forms and asks the question?  What's the point of filing paperwork if nobody ever looks at it?  All form...no substance.

Trump doesn't file mandatory candidate financial disclosures....no big deal...

The conversation about government is all wrong.  It shouldn't be about big government or small government, it should be about effective and efficient government.  The reason the government is such a shit show now is that the people who used to work for the government now consult to it.  Instead of making $80k/year and getting a pension, they make $480k/year and buy vacation homes they can work from.  The right is all worked up about hiring 88,000 IRS agents... but doesn't seem bothered that so many people don't pay what they owe (as calculated...not a comment on the tax code itself).

We need the US government to be better, yet do everything in our collective power to destroy their competency.  

The experiment is coming to an end.  It's time to look for someplace a bit more rational and socially oriented.  Selfishness and stupidity keep punching holes in the boat that those bailing can't keep up with.  

The Right is correct that government is broken, but instead of trying to fix it they keep chipping away to prove their right.  

We've known Clarence Thomas had questionable ethics 30 years ago thanks to (in retrospect) one of the bravest people ever to testify to Congress.  How can anyone be surprised that after gaining more power his ethics wander to places a Justice shouldn't tread?  Not holding him accountable is just one more example that the Right only cares about winning, even if the country dies in the process.  

How the hell did Thomas think he could keep those real estate sales out of the news? Did he seriously think this wouldn't blow up in his face? 

Ruth Marcus, associate editor at WaPo, makes it pretty clear in an op-ed that Thomas knew that he was required by the Ethics in Government Act to report these transactions. He was also required to report sale of assets. Thomas in fact had earlier listed the house he sold to Harlan Crow as an asset. He did not report the sale of that asset for $133,000. 

Thomas used to comply with reporting laws quite well early in his career, so he knew the laws. But he stopped. He also failed to disclose his wife's income which over time amounted to $1.6 million. 

Abe Fortas was forced to resign from the Supreme Court in 1969 for far less. 


Opinion:  Clarence Thomas enters the danger zone

...

But Thomas’s obligation to report the real estate deal couldn’t be clearer. He had reported the property as an asset. Selling it was a transaction that necessitated disclosure.

The Ethics in Government Act requires judges, like other senior officials, to file annual financial reports, and sets out the consequences for failing to comply. It further provides that the relevant party, which in the case of judges is the Judicial Conference, “shall refer to the Attorney General the name of any individual which such official or committee has reasonable cause to believe has willfully failed to file information required to be reported.” A violation can result in a fine under the criminal code.

Did Thomas act “knowingly and willfully” in failing to report the property sale? One relevant consideration: The Judicial Conference has seen this kind of nondisclosure from Thomas before.

Like other senior officials in government, justices must disclose their spouses’ sources of income, although not the dollar amounts. On his financial disclosure forms, Thomas simply marked the box labeled “NONE” for noninvestment income earned by his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. In fact, she was employed by the House Republican leadership, Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation, earning more than $1.6 million from those sources, according to separate records compiled by Common Cause and the Alliance for Justice.

Thomas’s explanation — a “misunderstanding” of the reporting rules — was unconvincing then, and relevant to the situation now. As the instructions for “filer’s spouse” state, “Report only the date(s) and source of earned income from any source that exceeds $1,000.”

Second, Thomas had complied with those rules for the previous decade, reporting the source of his wife’s income during his years as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, when he was a judge on the D.C. Circuit, and for the first five years of his tenure on the Supreme Court.

The justice is a repeat offender. Judges aren’t eager to police their own — especially not a sitting justice. Human nature and history suggest the Judicial Conference won’t do a thing. But the Georgia real estate deal will make that dodge harder. And the law requires otherwise.

I'm waiting for some high stakes donor to line my pocket with millions of dollars in order to secure my support for their interests. 
Still waiting...

 kcar wrote:

All three branches of our federal government are now owned by monied interests. Gods help us.

Thomas has to go.

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.

In 2014, one of Texas  billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.

The purchase put Crow in an  unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.

A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. Thomas never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties. That appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica.

...

The disclosure form Thomas filed for that year also had a space to report the identity of the buyer in any private transaction, such as a real estate deal. That space is blank.

“He needed to report his interest in the sale,” said Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer now at the watchdog group CREW. “Given the role Crow has played in subsidizing the lifestyle of Thomas and his wife, you have to wonder if this was an effort to put cash in their pockets.”

There are a handful of carve-outs in the disclosure law. For example, if someone sells “property used solely as a personal residence of the reporting individual or the individual’s spouse,” they don’t need to report it. Experts said the exemptions clearly did not apply to Thomas’ sale.

...

It’s unclear if Crow paid fair market value for the Thomas properties. Crow also bought several other properties on the street and paid significantly less than his deal with the Thomases. One example: In 2013, he bought a pair of properties on the same block — a vacant lot and a small house — for a total of $40,000.

 Lazy8 wrote:

See, since I'm from southern Louisiana, the "median" is what Yankees call the neutral ground. Words suck. Math, not so much.

 Steely_D wrote:
I insist on everyone getting to vote. The key to preventing the tyranny of the majority is putting some things off limits to voting.

And you're thinking of the median voter. The distribution of intelligence can be skewed by very stupid or very smart people: in a population of four where intelligence is measured on a scale of 0-1, with three being 1s and one being a 0, the average is .75. Three out of four are, in this case, above average.

Sorry, reflexive math mansplaining.

 Steely_D wrote:

Thank you!

 Isabeau wrote:

Brian Fellows

 Steely_D wrote:

  "There will always be 35% of America that are batshit crazy."  — can't identify who said.

 Lazy8 wrote:
As soon as you start insisting that "Everyone" gets to vote, you start encourage the folks who don't really understand what they're doing (which frequently includes me).

I'm not in favor of a theocracy or whatever, but democracy isn't all that. Like they say, "think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half the population is - by definition - stupider than they are."

 Lazy8 wrote:

Suppressing the vote is undemocratic, no matter how you got into the position to do it.