• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • Comment
  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

“woke” is the new caravan.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Mobile Menu

  • Four Directions Montana
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2024 Elections
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / 2024 Elections / Late Night Open Thread: Will Nobody Spot TFG A Few Hundred Million?…

Late Night Open Thread: Will Nobody Spot TFG A Few Hundred Million?…

by Anne Laurie|  March 21, 20243:01 am| 96 Comments

This post is in: 2024 Elections, Foreign Affairs, Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Schadenfreude

FacebookTweetEmail

So, Trump asked Javanka to cover the bond, right? Why haven’t they? Not enough cash? Or they know it’s a bad deal?

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 19, 2024

Guess we can assume the Saudis have made it pretty clear they’re not riding to the rescue, but Trump has other foreign ‘friends’…

#BrokeDonald
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them." ?? pic.twitter.com/1yV084EgTG

— Aibo – Zonny (@AiboSony1) March 18, 2024

Absolutely, Agent Orange is a national security risk. pic.twitter.com/SSJe1ymWC3

— Austin Powers (@rockanroll1967) March 18, 2024

FOX NEWS: Is there any effort on the part of your team to secure this money through another country, Saudi Arabia or Russia?

HABBA: I can't speak about strategy pic.twitter.com/G0Ns1lqXJH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 20, 2024

There’s one longstanding Trump tactic that, for whatever reason, isn’t on the table just yet…

As Trump faces dwindling options to pay off a massive fine imposed as a result of losing a fraud case in New York, financial experts say filing for bankruptcy would provide a way out of his financial jam. People close to Trump say he is not considering it. https://t.co/z1wzG3jZjg

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 20, 2024

… Trump is not considering that approach, partially out of concern that it could damage his campaign to recapture the White House from President Biden in November, according to four people close to the former president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions about Trump’s finances. Even though bankruptcy could alleviate his immediate cash crunch, it also carries risks for a candidate who has marketed himself as a winning businessman — and whose greatest appeal to voters, some advisers say, is his financial success…

Trump does not have the cash to secure a bond that would delay enforcement of the $464 million judgment while he appeals, his lawyers say. No bonding company will accept real estate — which accounts for most of Trump’s wealth — as collateral. If no bond is posted by Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) could move to seize his assets, including bank accounts or properties such as Trump’s Manhattan office tower at 40 Wall Street.

“He’d rather have Letitia James show up with the sheriff at 40 Wall and make a huge stink about it than say he’s bankrupt,” one of the people close to Trump said. “He thinks about what is going to play politically well for him. Bankruptcy doesn’t play well for him, but having her try to take his properties might.”

Yet filing for bankruptcy is a maneuver Trump has used before — six times, when extricating himself from a tumultuous foray into the Atlantic City casino business decades ago. On the campaign trail, Trump in years past explained away those corporate bankruptcies, saying he used a tool many savvy investors have employed — and noting that he never had to file personally…

lol Fox basically now holding a telethon to raise $464M bond for Trump.
Hope billionaires and other Viewers Like You at least get a free tote bag https://t.co/9cHuDHSTjl

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) March 20, 2024

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Wednesday Night Open Thread
Next Post: On The Road – Paul in Jacksonville – Sunrise, Sunset On The Road - Paul in Jacksonville - Sunrise, Sunset 3»

Reader Interactions

  • Commenters
  • Filtered
  • Settings

Commenters

No commenters available.

  • A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
  • Ancien Regime
  • Baud
  • BellyCat
  • Betty
  • Betty Cracker
  • Bex
  • Bruce K in ATH-GR
  • catclub
  • Chetan Murthy
  • chopper
  • ColoradoGuy
  • comrade scotts agenda of rage
  • different-church-lady
  • Eyeroller
  • Geminid
  • hueyplong
  • Jay
  • Kay
  • Ken
  • lgerard
  • LiminalOwl
  • Matt McIrvin
  • Misterpuff
  • moonbat
  • mrmoshpotato
  • NotMax
  • Paul in KY
  • piratedan
  • Princess
  • Quadrillipede
  • Queen of Lurkers
  • sab
  • Sanjeevs
  • sanjeevs
  • satby
  • scav
  • SFAW
  • Soprano2
  • Splitting Image
  • TBone
  • The Lodger
  • The Thin Black Duke
  • Tony Jay
  • Uncle Cosmo
  • WaterGirl
  • wu ming
  • yellowdog

Filtered Commenters

No filtered commenters available.

    Settings




    Settings are saved immediately; press X to close the box.

    96Comments

    1. 1.

      NotMax

      March 21, 2024 at 3:09 am

      Burned through that $375 million from the (overpriced) sale of the D.C. hotel right quick, didn’t ya?

      Reply
    2. 2.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 3:19 am

      Billionaires are not cheap nor foolish. That is how they got to be billionaires.

      They also aren’t very virtuous. Money grubbing is very much what and all they do. Even when they are charitable there is a business purpose behind it.

      Reply
    3. 3.

      scav

      March 21, 2024 at 3:24 am

      Who among us — meaning all mere mortals — doesn’t know of someone who’s quick to talk of his newest toy but inevitably slowest to pull out their wallet when the bill comes and somehow always run a little short those weeks it’s their round.  Come on minions!  Tighten up those belts and look under the sofa cushions. Daddy Bigbucks can’t be expected to pay for his own misdeeds and finance his way to another self-serving tax break. Make Crime Pay Again.

      Reply
    4. 4.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 3:27 am

      @scav: ?///?

      Reply
    5. 5.

      ColoradoGuy

      March 21, 2024 at 3:29 am

      So let’s see if Elon Musk rides to the rescue. He may be as high as a kite on designer drugs, but he’s not that stupid. Nor the billionaires that swarm around Clarence Thomas. And the North Koreans don’t have that kind of cash, leaving just one Russian Tsar to lend the loot … but how do they get the money to him? New York State won’t take rubles, and a plane carrying 7 tons of gold might raise awkward questions.

      Reply
    6. 6.

      piratedan

      March 21, 2024 at 3:31 am

      despite all of the crazy shit happening at the SCOTUS level and in various courtrooms under MAGA control, I adore the fact that the GOP is proving to be as nimble as a moose in a swamp when they have to act in the moment.  There’s only so much doubling down on insanity can do.  I watch the GOP driven Biden Impeachment investigation and we get Lev Parnas speaking plainly that all of their shit that they’re trying to hang on Joe and his kid started as a Russian OP and here’s the guys that were involved and oh heya Sean Hannity and Devin Nunes and Senator Graham and Senator Johnson and how you guys doing?

      No one tries to challenge him because its all fucking true so they just pretend that he never spoke and trudge on with their bullshit while the Dems mock them mercilessly so that Faux News has to cut away from the carnage.

      While Trump wants to have someone else pony up his fine money, the fact that he doesn’t have it and the means that people would normally use to launder it to him are under observation makes it a mite tricky to receive it from his fellow fascists overseas.

      Plus the party is incredibly cash poor right now and they keep nominating crazy people and saying shit as public policy that makes us all wonder how long have they been off their meds since they’re going after recreational sex, imposition of a church state and going full fascist.  Even the media (NYT and WaPo) are having a hard time trying to normalize all of this shit because anyone else paying attention makes them question just what drugs they’re on.

      Reply
    7. 7.

      Chetan Murthy

      March 21, 2024 at 3:37 am

      Over at dailykos, someone writes to warn us to not count our chickens just quite yet …. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/20/2230577/-TFG-will-make-bond-but-not-yet?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

      Basically, it’s only natural that anybody willing to put up the $$ will demand eye-watering compensation and surety, and that TFG will wait on that until the literal last minute.  So sometime Sunday is when we’ll find out if he can actually assemble the bond or not: until then, what we’re seeing is still theatrics.  I tend to agree with this assessment: I suspect TFG has the wealth to pay the bond, but it’s tied up in N different properties.  Some bond insurer could take those properties (literally take ownership) and give him the bond, with the codicil that TFG can get back the properties if he repays the bond within N Days/weeks/months/etc.  I imagine something like how the repo market works in finance: you borrow money by staking some instruments (bonds/stocks); those instruments are pledged in a non-repudiable manner so that the counterparty can unilaterally take them if you don’t pay up.  That means that they’re actually not accessible to other creditors if you go bankrupt — that’s how close they are to being really owned by the counterparty already.

      Anyway, it’s only a few days, so we’ll see what happens.  Of course, he might get the $$ from some foreign government.  Gotta wonder if that’s what Manafort is there for.

      Reply
    8. 8.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 3:45 am

      @piratedan: Nimble moose! I have seen moose in the wild. Large, potentially scary but they are not nimble. Could be but can’t be bothered unless you threaten baby moose.

      Reply
    9. 9.

      lgerard

      March 21, 2024 at 3:45 am

      I think what O’Leary was suggesting by the Supreme Court getting involved is that Clarence Thomas call on his Dear Friends Club to put up the cash

      Reply
    10. 10.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 3:46 am

      @ColoradoGuy: Musk has no money anymore.

      Reply
    11. 11.

      mrmoshpotato

      March 21, 2024 at 3:49 am

      Aww, brokeass, Soviet shitpile mobster conman!  Awwwww!

      Reply
    12. 12.

      mrmoshpotato

      March 21, 2024 at 3:50 am

      @sab: Sad!

      Reply
    13. 13.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 4:00 am

      4 am. Why am I up? Old or on the autism spectrum.

      ETA Dog woke me up two hours ago because she had to pee. She went back to bed. Why am I up?

      Reply
    14. 14.

      Betty Cracker

      March 21, 2024 at 4:23 am

      @sab: I am also awake thanks to a dog. He stepped on my head. Rude!

      Reply
    15. 15.

      satby

      March 21, 2024 at 4:32 am

      @Betty Cracker: @sab: Well, no dogs anymore and the cats aren’t allowed in my bedroom, so I don’t know what my excuse is.

      I hope they’ve got tfg, Manafort, and all the international contacts under such tight surveillance between our spooks and our allies that when *somebody* tries to trade more secrets for cash they get him red handed. Smith supposedly already has evidence of that, but fresh evidence and a new charge might help wake a few more “patriots” up.

      Reply
    16. 16.

      satby

      March 21, 2024 at 4:39 am

      @Chetan Murthy: The only flaw in your reasoning is the likelihood that his properties are mortgaged to the hilt; he lost the case due to lying on the valuations in the first place. He may very well come up with the bond, but he’s going through some pain right now to do it.

      And am I the only one who think it’s weird that a Fox mouthpiece would openly suggest that tfg would try to get it from a foreign country like that’s a normal, ok thing??

      Reply
    17. 17.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 4:42 am

      @Betty Cracker: My dog just whined. Cats routinely step on my head while I am sleeping. I want to force them to revert to a feral life (outside our house) but my husband says No! because he likes all of the obnoxious litle critters.

      We have five cats. I love two of them. I am okay with most of them. But two are slashy little monsters.

      Reply
    18. 18.

      Splitting Image

      March 21, 2024 at 4:50 am

      What’s twenty quid to the bloody Midland bank?

      Reply
    19. 19.

      The Thin Black Duke

      March 21, 2024 at 4:57 am

      @satby: Once you get people to believe that 2+2=5, they’ll believe anything. In the GOP universe, Rationality has left the building.

      Reply
    20. 20.

      Quadrillipede

      March 21, 2024 at 4:58 am

      I for one, were I a squillionaire, would be perfectly happy to throw money at a disaster of a human being who has screwed every single person who ever made a deal with him, and then live with the global public knowing that I tried (and failed) to help end democracy in the US (and probably also the rest of the world).

      It’s a much better use of the money than setting it on fire, and there’s just no downside to that investment whatsoever.

      //

      Reply
    21. 21.

      Quadrillipede

      March 21, 2024 at 5:01 am

      Looking forward to the next round of “DJT has us just where he wants us this time for sure…”

      Reply
    22. 22.

      satby

      March 21, 2024 at 5:12 am

      @The Thin Black Duke: Agree for most of them. But his initial attraction was his (fake) successful businessman persona, and each successive blow to that has peeled a little support away. They can buy “fake news, unfair prosecution”, but not having the $$ to pay a bond when you’re a billionaire who testified he keeps $400 mil, give or take, in cash on hand?? Yeah, that leaves a mark on the marks.

      Reply
    23. 23.

      satby

      March 21, 2024 at 5:20 am

      Heather Cox Richardson recaps yesterday’s House hearing for us:

      Every person pushing “the Biden corruption rumors” knew they were “baseless,” Parnas said. And then he named names: “Then-Congressman Devin Nunes [R-CA, who at the time chaired the House Intelligence Committee], Senator Ron Johnson [R-WI], then chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee], and many other individuals understood that they were pushing a false narrative. The same goes for John Solomon [of The Hill], Sean Hannity, and media personnel, particularly at FOX News, who used that narrative to manipulate the public ahead of the 2020 election. They are still doing this today, as we approach the 2024 election.”

      Reply
    24. 24.

      Geminid

      March 21, 2024 at 5:49 am

      An Al Jazeera article about the holiday of Nowruz told me that as many as 300 million people celebrate the Persian New Year. I knew about the ~85 million Iranians, but not about tbe others in countries like Kazakhstan, Turkiye and Iraq.

      Kurdish people celebrate Nowruz. It is an ancient Zoroastrian tradition and while most Kurds practice Islam, they say they are descended from the Medians who partnered with their Persian cousins to create the Persian-Median empire 2600 years ago. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the ancient Persians and Medians, and a few Iranians still practice it.

      Reply
    25. 25.

      sanjeevs

      March 21, 2024 at 5:51 am

      WSJ has this story

      Donald Trump’s supporters are pushing to hand him a nearly $3.5 billion windfall by driving up the value of his also-ran social-media platform, which is on the cusp of getting approval to list on the stock market.
      Trump’s winning lottery ticket would come from Truth Social, the social-media platform he launched in 2021. After a twisted path that included tens of millions of dollars in losses and insider-trading convictions, the shell company taking Truth Social public became the market’s latest meme stock. Trump’s supporters banded together to push up the stock, valuing Truth Social to a staggering $6 billion.

      The 6 billion is nuts. Truth Social’s total revenue is $5m in total over 3 years.
      For comparison, Reddit will IPO at a similar valuation and it has annual revenues of over $800m.

      Reply
    26. 26.

      Jay

      March 21, 2024 at 6:03 am

      @sanjeevs:

      pump and dump scam.

      Reply
    27. 27.

      BellyCat

      March 21, 2024 at 6:27 am

      @sanjeevs: Are the rubes gullible enough to buy soon-to-be-worthless stock to save Dear Leader? (Rhetorical question, I realize)

      Reply
    28. 28.

      Quadrillipede

      March 21, 2024 at 6:31 am

      Ooh, I just found an article entitled The Golden Age of Both-Siderism is Upon Us, which I think quite a few here would agree with:

      But widespread disgust for Trump is not the both-sides story the press wants to sell. They prefer you to believe that Trump “crushed” Haley in every state. The inconvenient truth — that the GOP is currently on track to lose twenty to thirty percent of its own party — does not fit that narrative.

      • http://www.leftjabs.com/2024/03/the-golden-age-of-both-siderism-is-upon.html
      Reply
    29. 29.

      Princess

      March 21, 2024 at 6:37 am

      @sanjeevs: I find this confusing and I must be missing something. How do you drive up the value of a stock that isn’t publicly traded? Is it a liquid asset or not? Assuming it is, I guess he could pledge his own shares, if he has enough of them. I wonder if he does -/ how much of the company he owns. He’s not a guy who usually bets using his own money. I personally would not take a pledge of worthless shares as collateral. If he has to sell them to raise the funds, the share price will collapse, and he’ll owe big capital gains.

      Reply
    30. 30.

      Tony Jay

      March 21, 2024 at 6:40 am

       Transcript of call #774-4702 – intercepted by Guatemalan Intelligence – 03/21/24

      “‘I’m NOT Bankrupt! YOU’RE Bankrupt!”

      “You’re either bankrupt, you’re owned by whichever Vladdie Bigbucks picks up your tab, or you’re going to jail after having it all taken off you anyway.”

      “Biggest fraud EVER! Crooked Joe is out to get me. LIES and CONSPIRACIES!”

      “Daddy, I’m going to put this phone down now, we’ve got a showing of Barbie Learns A Lesson to attend at the Saudi Embassy. Bye now. Safe kisses.”

      “Ask the Bonesaw guy if he wants to invest in sneakers. Each pair comes with a declassified document. Vannie? Vannie? V-Double-D? Hello?

      ………………….,….,,

      You’ll sleep with your Mother. Ungrateful bitch.”

      Call ends – forwarded to Junk Pile

      Reply
    31. 31.

      BellyCat

      March 21, 2024 at 6:47 am

      @Tony Jay: Guatemalan Intelligence doing yeoman’s work. Why is cancel culture silencing them? LOL

      Reply
    32. 32.

      Soprano2

      March 21, 2024 at 6:48 am

      @lgerard: I think he’s suggesting that they somehow intervene to stop the court from requiring TFG to post the bond. They think he should be able to appeal without it. It tells you something about how they view the Supreme Court.

      Reply
    33. 33.

      TBone

      March 21, 2024 at 6:51 am

      @lgerard: good eye.

      https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/leonard-leo-billion-donation-real-problem.html

      Reply
    34. 34.

      Soprano2

      March 21, 2024 at 6:52 am

      @satby: No, you’re not the only one. Talk about a national security risk….😱😱

      Reply
    35. 35.

      BellyCat

      March 21, 2024 at 6:52 am

      @Soprano2: It tells you something about how they view the Supreme Court.

      Not unreasonably given its current posture.

      Reply
    36. 36.

      Geminid

      March 21, 2024 at 6:55 am

      @Geminid: I have a few branches I was going to toss into the woods, but now I think I’ll make a small fire and jump over it. That’s a Nowruz tradition.

      I’ll have to wait until tomorrow evening when it starts to rain. We have a ban on open burning in effect because it’s been so dry and windy.

      Reply
    37. 37.

      Ken

      March 21, 2024 at 6:58 am

      @Chetan Murthy: A flaw with that theory is:

      those instruments are pledged in a non-repudiable manner

      Trump never saw an agreement he couldn’t repudiate, or at least tie up in court until the other party gave up.

      Reply
    38. 38.

      TBone

      March 21, 2024 at 7:00 am

      @Ken: all those disclaimer clauses add up 🤣

      Reply
    39. 39.

      LiminalOwl

      March 21, 2024 at 7:03 am

      @Geminid: Northampton (anbout 45 minutes away from us) had a Nowruz celebration yesterday.  It sounded lovely, but we were too tired to go anywhere (as is usual in the evenings these days).  I was especially interested because of recently reading The Stationery Shop for a book club.

      And a high-school classmate told me his family was Zoroastrians. Yes, Iranian emigrés.

      Reply
    40. 40.

      BellyCat

      March 21, 2024 at 7:08 am

      @TBone:
      Leo justifies the secret millionaire donors that support him with claims that this is good for democracy. As he once told the Washington Post:

      Let’s remember that in this country, the abolitionist movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the American Revolution, the early labor movement, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were all very much fueled by very wealthy people, and oftentimes wealthy people who chose to be anonymous. I think that’s not a bad thing. I think that’s a good thing

      A patriot as fine and upstanding as Mitch McConnell. // (Asshole…)

      Reply
    41. 41.

      Bruce K in ATH-GR

      March 21, 2024 at 7:08 am

      @Princess: I can’t help but think that the undertone to the Truth Social buyout offer is that the prospective buyers wouldn’t be investing in the social platform so much as they’d be investing in a second Trump presidency, and the returns would come in the form of extraordinary largesse and favors from the Trump Administration at the taxpayer’s expense. I don’t think first-generation plutocrats who amassed their own fortunes (however crookedly) would trust that logic, but it might make sense to second-generation or later plutocrats who inherited their fortunes; Trump being a second-generation plutocrat himself, plus a narcissist, I imagine he’d consider that logic to be unassailable.

      And of course, it all depends on him winning. My gut says the chances of that have dropped in the past year from two-in-five to one-in-three, but he’s entirely dependent on that now. Getting a temporary cash infusion to stave off the judgment is just buying time until he has access to Fort Knox as his own personal piggy bank (assuming he wins).

      It’s like the story of the horse thief who staved off execution by promising the king that he’d teach the horse to sing in a year. “It buys me a year. Maybe by then I’ll be dead, or the horse will be dead, or the king will be dead. And even if none of those things happen, just maybe the horse will sing.”

      Reply
    42. 42.

      Ken

      March 21, 2024 at 7:10 am

      @satby: And am I the only one who think it’s weird that a Fox mouthpiece would openly suggest that tfg would try to get it from a foreign country like that’s a normal, ok thing??

      Twenty, or even ten, years ago, it would have been weird. Now it’s normal for Fox, and for a large chunk of the Republican party.

      Meanwhile, their Biden impeachment case is that he somehow profited from his son’s business dealings with foreign countries.

      Reply
    43. 43.

      Ken

      March 21, 2024 at 7:22 am

      He’d rather have Letitia James show up with the sheriff at 40 Wall

      I was thinking it couldn’t possibly work that way with commercial real estate, but I guess James might stage such an event for press purposes. What would be the real activity involved in the seizure, though? Papers delivered to the Trump corporate offices, with copies to the court?

      Reply
    44. 44.

      Eyeroller

      March 21, 2024 at 7:28 am

      @Geminid: The largest number of Zoroastrians are the Parsis of India. Their name means “Persians” and they are the descendants of religious refugees as Islam spread through Persia.  The most famous Parsi was probably Freddy Mercury, though he was born in Zanzibar to Parsi parents.

      Reply
    45. 45.

      Sanjeevs

      March 21, 2024 at 7:34 am

      @Princess: It’s not an IPO ( which would invite SEC scrutiny )

      Instead a publicly traded shell company (SPAC), Digital World Acquisition will purchase Truth Social.

      Reply
    46. 46.

      BellyCat

      March 21, 2024 at 7:35 am

      @Ken: A press event for the ages would involve the relocation of a gold toilet to a public bathroom in Times Square.

      Reply
    47. 47.

      hueyplong

      March 21, 2024 at 7:36 am

      Seems like the thing they’re begging for now (rich foreigners giving Trump a shitload of money he didn’t earn) is what the GOP congress has invented and is trying to sell about the Bidens.

      This shit literally doesn’t have to make sense.  Apparently, it’s best if it doesn’t.

      Reply
    48. 48.

      Princess

      March 21, 2024 at 7:41 am

      @Sanjeevs: Ah, so it’s the price of the shell company that has skyrocketed. Thanks. I wonder how much of that he owns.

      Reply
    49. 49.

      moonbat

      March 21, 2024 at 7:43 am

      To me the reason that no one with real money, foreign or domestic, have ridden to the rescue yet is that they don’t think Trump will win re-election. Despite our media’s desperate attempts to keep the horse race narrative alive, the smart money thinks he’s toast. Because there is no doubt that he’d sell the bust of Lincoln in the Oval Office given the chance.

      Reply
    50. 50.

      Betty

      March 21, 2024 at 7:44 am

      @Princess: So no one investigates a shell company suddenly worth that much money?

      Reply
    51. 51.

      BellyCat

      March 21, 2024 at 7:56 am

      @Betty: Investor’s Business Daily sheds some light on this. The vote is tomorrow. More questions raised than answered though. Seems like a Hail Mary attempt.

      Reply
    52. 52.

      Baud

      March 21, 2024 at 7:56 am

      Remember when Obama said Citizens United would allow foreign actors to influence US elections and Alito shook his head?

      Pepperidge Farm remembers.

      Reply
    53. 53.

      Quadrillipede

      March 21, 2024 at 7:58 am

      @moonbat: they don’t think Trump will win re-election. Despite our media’s desperate attempts to keep the horse race narrative alive, the smart money thinks he’s toast.

      All signs point toward “yes”. Surely a more patient investor would be looking for a younger, less overtly demented, more transactional kakistocrat. Maybe one that isn’t a stone-cold loser rinsed in loser stink, deep into advanced stages of losing…

      Reply
    54. 54.

      BellyCat

      March 21, 2024 at 7:59 am

      @Baud: Alito was just disagreeing with Obama’s word choice. Alito felt that “allow” should have been more accurately stated as “require”.

      Reply
    55. 55.

      Geminid

      March 21, 2024 at 8:02 am

      @LiminalOwl: I read about the about small Iranian Zoroastrian community that survived the Muslim conquest of Persia. I was a little surprised the Isamic Republic did not eradicate them, but I guess they have been around so long the other Iranians are used to them. And unlike the Bahais, they’re not exactly heretics because Zoroastrianism predates Islam.

      The Druze are another non-Muslim minority that survived in the middle of a Muslim area. There are about 150,000 Druze living in Israel, even more in Syra, and the most in Lebanon. It’s a closed community that has not accepted converts since the a generation after its founding in Cairo, 1000 years ago. When the authorities in Cairo cracked down the Druse fled to the mountains of the Levant and kept to themselves; fierce hillbillies with a syncretic religion which they are very secretive about.

      There is also a small, ~4000 member community of Samaritans living in Israel and the West Bank. A couple years ago, someone published a Samaritan cookbook featuring various combinations of chickpeas, yoghurt and bread.

      Reply
    56. 56.

      Baud

      March 21, 2024 at 8:09 am

      @Geminid:

      A couple years ago, someone published a Samaritan cookbook featuring various combinations of chickpeas, yoghurt and bread.

       

      How good of them.

      Reply
    57. 57.

      Tony Jay

      March 21, 2024 at 8:10 am

      @BellyCat:

      They time-share on the bugs with Liberian Special Investigations and Bureau Sexy of the French Foreign Service.

      Reply
    58. 58.

      NotMax

      March 21, 2024 at 8:11 am

      @Geminid

      Trivia:

      Iconic disc jockey Casey Kasem was Druze.

      Reply
    59. 59.

      Soprano2

      March 21, 2024 at 8:16 am

      @Geminid: The Iranian boyfriend I had when I was a freshman in college told me he thought having the new year start in the middle of winter was dumb, and that having it start at the beginning of spring like they did in Iran was more logical. I couldn’t disagree with that.

      Reply
    60. 60.

      Soprano2

      March 21, 2024 at 8:19 am

      @Ken: Papers delivered to the Trump corporate offices, with copies to the court?

      Probably. If she’s smart she won’t do anything that he can stage as some kind of persecution.

      Reply
    61. 61.

      Matt McIrvin

      March 21, 2024 at 8:20 am

      @moonbat: Or they figure that even if he does win, he’s too unreliable and dishonest to deal with. His fanatic supporters, however, have no such concern.

      Reply
    62. 62.

      comrade scotts agenda of rage

      March 21, 2024 at 8:21 am

      @Geminid:

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/ancient-but-small-in-number-zoroastrians-confront-depletion-of-their-faith

      I had a gamer acquaintance who painted a beautiful Achaemenid Persion army in 25mm.  He really got into the period in all it’s forms to include the religion.  He eventually dropped out of the hobby, sold the army but I have no idea if the religion stuck with him.

      Reply
    63. 63.

      Matt McIrvin

      March 21, 2024 at 8:23 am

      @Geminid: During the Lebanon Civil War I recall Western media calling the Druze a Muslim group, but now they’re usually described as something else entirely. Maybe they just figured that if they’re not Christian or Jewish they must be Muslim.

      Reply
    64. 64.

      catclub

      March 21, 2024 at 8:25 am

      putting in a comment to get -reregistered on new computer

      Reply
    65. 65.

      catclub

      March 21, 2024 at 8:30 am

      @Betty: So no one investigates a shell company suddenly worth that much money?

       

      The ‘worth’ is the stock price times the number of shares outstanding.  Since it is a place where you can explicitly bet that Trump is a huge winner, lots of gullible rubes have done just that and bought shares and they went up.  So no.

       

      The stock going up is also a bet that the trnasaction happens. If it does not, the value of the stocks falls back to the offer price which was $10/share.

      I do not know the stock price now.  Maybe $40?

      It was up to $90 at some point.

      Reply
    66. 66.

      moonbat

      March 21, 2024 at 8:31 am

      @Matt McIrvin: Oh I don’t think anyone had any illusions about his honesty. And he’s so easy to manipulate he’s the perfect candidate for puppet dictator. They just don’t think he’s getting back in there.

      Reply
    67. 67.

      different-church-lady

      March 21, 2024 at 8:36 am

      “He’d rather have Letitia James show up with the sheriff at 40 Wall and make a huge stink about it than say he’s bankrupt,”

      We find your offer acceptable.

      Reply
    68. 68.

      Geminid

      March 21, 2024 at 8:36 am

      @NotMax: More trivia: Lawrence Welk, Tom Daschle and Bob Denver were Volga Deutsch.

      Reply
    69. 69.

      Geminid

      March 21, 2024 at 8:40 am

      @Matt McIrvin: Druze are Arab speakers which may account for the confusion. Their religion is said to combine elements similar to Greek Pythagorean mysticism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.

      Reply
    70. 70.

      different-church-lady

      March 21, 2024 at 8:41 am

      @sanjeevs: Pretty sure you can’t pay bail with stocks either.

      Reply
    71. 71.

      TBone

      March 21, 2024 at 8:42 am

      @BellyCat: asshole that has $1.6 billion that we know about.  Many more secret funds is my wager.  Who TF is gonna bail out Rump at the last possible minute is anyone’s guess.

      Reply
    72. 72.

      different-church-lady

      March 21, 2024 at 8:45 am

      @sab: First rule of pets and children: never let them outnumber you.

      Reply
    73. 73.

      different-church-lady

      March 21, 2024 at 8:47 am

      @BellyCat: The only way to stop a good guy with a billion dollars is a bad guy with a billion dollars.

      Reply
    74. 74.

      Geminid

      March 21, 2024 at 8:51 am

      @Matt McIrvin: We were talking about large scale battery storage last week, and yesterday I saw this article on the Electrek news site:

      US battery storage smashes deployment records in Q4 2023

      According to Wood MacKenzie and the American Clean Power Association, the US battery storage sector saw 4,235 megawatts (MW) installed in the 4th Quarter of last year, a 100% increase from the previous quarter.

      Electrek also has new articles about advances in battery technology and battery recycling.

      Reply
    75. 75.

      Kay

      March 21, 2024 at 8:51 am

      Republicans have now been promising a replacement for Obamacare for 14 years. The people who were infants when they began promising it are now high school freshman.

      Trump still says it at rallies.

      Reply
    76. 76.

      Quadrillipede

      March 21, 2024 at 8:54 am

      @Kay: He just needs two more weeks!

      Reply
    77. 77.

      Kay

      March 21, 2024 at 8:55 am

      Democrats should take a little of their massive war chest and find someone really creative to do a great, fresh campaign supporting Social Security. Alongside the Biden and Congressional campaigns, but apart from them. A “special”. It’s just a great issue for us.

      Also- the GOP proposal completely privatizes Medicare – turns it into a voucher where one buys insurance with everyone else, which is going to dramatically increase costs for everyone else because adding 50 million heavy users of healthcare to the existing system will just shift costs to younger people.

      Reply
    78. 78.

      Kay

      March 21, 2024 at 8:57 am

      If you want to bring out people between 30 and 45 tell them the GOP wants them to pick up the bill for senior citizens health care with Medicare privatization. They’ll blow the doors off.

      Reply
    79. 79.

      Kay

      March 21, 2024 at 8:59 am

      The campaign could touch on the history. I bet very few young people know Democrats invented the social safety net. We’ve never bragged about it enough. Start bragging.

      Reply
    80. 80.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 9:06 am

      @different-church-lady:Lol.  I cannot remember a year when we didn’t break both rules. Husband just went off to walk the dog of his  (oldest) 40 year old child who is out of town.

      Reply
    81. 81.

      sab

      March 21, 2024 at 9:09 am

      @Kay: We do warn them that Social Security is the only thing that keeps us from moving in to their homes. But you are right. The Dems don’t take enough credit for its existence.

      ETA My parents were wealthy. Mom used to complain that she couldn’t start to save  any year until Dad’s earnings went over the Social Security tax cut-off. I would annoyingly remind her that for most people that never happened.

      Reply
    82. 82.

      A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)

      March 21, 2024 at 9:10 am

      @Splitting Image: MP reference FTW

      Reply
    83. 83.

      SFAW

      March 21, 2024 at 9:22 am

      @Quadrillipede: ​
       

      He just needs two more weeks!

      Sounds like he used to be a software developer.

      Reply
    84. 84.

      SFAW

      March 21, 2024 at 9:25 am

      @Kay: ​
       
      So it’s because of Dems that there are so many moochers allowed to live semi-comfortably in the US, rather than earning their keep? Make American Geriatrics Answer for their crimes/laziness!!

      Reply
    85. 85.

      Bex

      March 21, 2024 at 9:38 am

      Reply
    86. 86.

      yellowdog

      March 21, 2024 at 9:39 am

      @moonbat: They certainly won’t  get paid back if he wins. He’ll just cancel the debt. If TIFG is returned to office he will be unsuppable against his enemie.

      Reply
    87. 87.

      WaterGirl

      March 21, 2024 at 9:45 am

      @piratedan: I want to marry that comment.

      Reply
    88. 88.

      Queen of Lurkers

      March 21, 2024 at 9:56 am

      @Soprano2: New Year used to be celebrated in the spring only a few hundred years ago. It changed in the mid-18th century after Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian.

      https://libguides.ctstatelibrary.org/hg/colonialresearch/calendar#:~:text=The%20Julian%20Calendar%20was%20replaced,the%20month%20of%20September%201752.

      Reply
    89. 89.

      Ancien Regime

      March 21, 2024 at 10:30 am

      @Princess: How do you drive up the value of a stock that isn’t publicly traded?

      2 ways:

      1.  Have someone buy a few shares from the company at a very high valuation that you then multiply by the total number of outstanding shares to get a hypothetical valuation.

      2.  Estimate the valuation based on market “analysis” done by the company or its bankers or consultants hired to give you the number you want.

      Neither of these result in anything realistic, and the numbers thrown around by the WSJ and others are absurdities.  Even if the estimates reflect current market conditions, the price will crash once Trump sells any significant number of shares.  Which he’s not supposed to do for six months after the IPO, though that’s waiveable by the company.

      Within a year, Trump Social will be worth $100M or less, and it’s very unlikely Trump can take out more than a couple of hundred million between now and then, since there’s a finite supply of MAGA morons with money.

      Note that buying Truth Social shares is about the worst way possible for a billionaire to funnel money to Trump, since public stock transactions are extremely transparent and unusual price moves are investigated by various state and federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies, particularly when the case is high visibility.  Deliberately paying an above-market price in order to bail out a major shareholder would violate numerous laws, many of them enforceable by people who hate Trump.  That’s not going to happen.

      This is a pump and dump scam, similar to various other Trump schemes.  It won’t end well for the small money investors, but Trump won’t make billions at it because he’s not very good at cheating investors at scale.  Not even Enron-level good, and those people were certifiable morons.

      Reply
    90. 90.

      Eyeroller

      March 21, 2024 at 10:40 am

      @Queen of Lurkers: It’s been variable (as is noted in your link) — the Julian calendar initially moved the date to 1 January.  But historically sometime in spring or near the beginning of spring was widespread in Europe as well as other areas.  I was amused by the “double dating” in England, comparable to the “double units” we use in the US.  Caesar seems to have chosen 1 January in part due to introducing several additional days to the previous year to sync up with the tropical (solar) year.

      Googling around for the reason for 1 January led me to the question being asked at Quora.  Every answer had something wrong in it, most notably when several said that Julius Caesar was concerned about Easter falling in the right season.  Do people not even think for a second when they write stuff like that?  Apparently not.

      Reply
    91. 91.

      Uncle Cosmo

      March 21, 2024 at 12:16 pm

      @Geminid: I was a little surprised the Islamic Republic did not eradicate ]the small Iranian Zoroastrian community that survived the Muslim conquest of Persia], but I guess they have been around so long the other Iranians are used to them.

      My guess (and it’s not much more than a SWAG) is that the surviving community stays pretty much to itself and doesn’t threaten the Islamic Republic at all. Look back at the treatment of Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, which IIUC was less onerous than national minorities in Christian states until a couple centuries ago: They were not allowed significant weaponry and had to pay a special tax in lieu of providing troops to the Sultan, and there were certain restrictions (e.g., the village church could not be larger or taller than the local mosque). But other than that…

      And unlike the Bahais, they’re not exactly heretics because Zoroastrianism predates Islam.

      Mmm, don’t think that pertains. Islam claims descent through the Old and New Testaments, which are considered partial but incomplete revelations compared with that set forth in the Koran. Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are prophets but Mohammed is the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., the transcriber of Allah’s last and final revelation.  Once conquered by the forces of Islam. pagans were effectively given the choice of “convert or die,” whereas Jews and Christians are considered “People of the Book” and were allowed to continue practicing their religion so long as they didn’t get “uppity” about it. In particular any Muslim who converted to a different religion risked execution. This suited the Jews just fine, as they strongly discourage any Gentile from trying to become a Jew, but Christianity is inherently proselytizing (Matthew 28:19 – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”), and any of the faithful actively trying to “win souls for Christ” in a Muslim country would quickly find themselves in mortal peril.

      IMO you’d have to squint rather hard to toss Zoroastrianism in with the Abrahamic faiths; it seems rather that the old faith hunkers down and doesn’t threaten the primacy of Islam in the state and the authorities therefore choose to look the other way. But as always, I could be wrong…:^D

      Reply
    92. 92.

      Paul in KY

      March 21, 2024 at 1:59 pm

      @Soprano2: Does have a certain logic.

      Reply
    93. 93.

      Misterpuff

      March 21, 2024 at 2:31 pm

      @Princess:  Well you drive up the price of the spac Digital World Acquisition from the initial spac price of $10/share to $40 and intice the suckers to approve the merger with Trump’s Truth Social holding company.

      Upon merger, Trump will have bazillions of shares that will have a value, now he’s probably locked in to a holding time before he can sell, but he may convince some one to foot his current bills with a promise of the shares.

      Still once he cashes in that stock will plummet and the other shareholders will take the hit as well as the leinholder on the pledged shares.

      Reply
    94. 94.

      chopper

      March 21, 2024 at 2:36 pm

      @Geminid:

       

      being volga deutsch myself i had no idea bob denver was part of the tribe

      Reply
    95. 95.

      wu ming

      March 22, 2024 at 9:08 am

      @Uncle Cosmo: As the early caliphates rapidly expanded and took in large populations with preexisting organized religious traditions, pragmatic Islamic governments often proclaimed them People of the Book even when they had no connection to the Abrahamic traditions. Both the Zoroastrians in Persia and Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains in India fell under this category at times.

       

      It’s one thing to force small bands of pagans to convert at swordpoint, but vast urbanized populations are easier to creatively categorize, leave in place, and tax, lest one provokes rebellion.

      Reply
    96. 96.

      The Lodger

      March 22, 2024 at 7:17 pm

      @Princess: I just want to know how to short this stock.

      Reply

    Leave a Comment

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    If you don't see both the Visual and the Text tab on the editor, click here to refresh.

    Clear Comment

    To reply to more than one person, click the X to save & close the box.

    Primary Sidebar

    Recent Comments

    • NotMax on COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: April 17, 2024 (Apr 17, 2024 @ 6:33am)
    • raven on COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: April 17, 2024 (Apr 17, 2024 @ 6:25am)
    • ColoradoGuy on Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Fading Neom Dreams (Apr 17, 2024 @ 6:24am)
    • NotMax on Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Fading Neom Dreams (Apr 17, 2024 @ 6:20am)
    • p.a. on On The Road – BillinGlendaleCA – The Milky Way Reimagined. (Apr 17, 2024 @ 6:11am)

    🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

    Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
    Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

    Balloon Juice Posts

    View by Topic
    View by Author
    View by Month & Year
    View by Past Author

    Balloon Juice Meetups!

    All Meetups
    Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning
    Proposed BJ meetups list from frosty

    Fundraising 2023-24

    Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8
    Virginia House Races
    Four Directions – Montana
    Worker Power AZ
    Four Directions – Arizona
    Four Directions – Nevada

    Featuring

    Medium Cool
    Artists in Our Midst
    Authors in Our Midst
    Positive Climate News
    War in Ukraine
    Cole’s “Stories from the Road”
    Classified Documents Primer

    Calling All Jackals

    Site Feedback
    Nominate a Rotating Tag
    Submit Photos to On the Road
    Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
    Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
    Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

    Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

    Balloon Juice for Ukraine

    Donate

    Twitter / Spoutible

    Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
    WaterGirl (Spoutible)
    TaMara (Spoutible)
    John Cole
    DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
    Betty Cracker
    Tom Levenson
    David Anderson
    Major Major Major Major
    ActualCitizensUnited

    Political Action 2024

    Postcard Writing Information

    Balloon Juice for Four Directions AZ

    Donate

    Balloon Juice for Four Directions NV

    Donate

    Site Footer

    Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

    • Facebook
    • RSS
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
    • Comment Policy
    • Our Authors
    • Blogroll
    • Our Artists
    • Privacy Policy

    Copyright © 2024 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

    Insert/edit link

    Enter the destination URL

    Or link to existing content

      No search term specified. Showing recent items. Search or use up and down arrow keys to select an item.
        Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

        Email sent!