Last Call For The End Of A Taxing Explanation

As expected, new House Republican Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer has tossed the investigation into Trump's taxes with no explanation as to why, in favor of issuing multiple subpoenas for Hunter Biden's business associates instead. Ranking Democratic member Rep. Jamie Raskin is letting everyone know what Comer is trying to hide.

 

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, says Republican chairman Rep. James Comer has abandoned efforts to get the financial documents of former President Donald Trump while quietly digging into the finances of the current president's son.

In a letter to Comer released on Monday, Raskin, D-Md., said it had come to his attention that the Kentucky Republican had coordinated with Trump's lawyers in an effort to block the committee from receiving documents from Mazars USA, the president's former accounting firm.

Raskin argued Comer's alleged decision to halt the execution of the production of documents was hypocritical because he had also issued a subpoena related to an investigation into President Joe Biden's son Hunter.

"You appear to have engaged in these efforts to prevent the production of evidence of former President Trump’s misconduct during his time in office while simultaneously issuing an invasive and overbroad subpoena to private individuals as part of an investigation targeting the business dealings of family members of President Biden who have never held public office," Raskin said.

Comer's office denied working with Trump's lawyers.

Raskin alluded to documents that the committee received from Mazars under the Democratic majority last fall that revealed authoritarian governments like China and Saudi Arabia spent hundreds of dollars at Trump-owned properties while he was president.

"In the face of mounting evidence that foreign governments sought to influence the Trump Administration by playing to President Trump’s financial interests, you and President Trump’s representatives appear to have acted in coordination to bury evidence of such misconduct," said Raskin.

Raskin said he learned that Trump attorney Patrick Strawbridge wrote to Mazars in January stating that it was his understanding that the committee, now under Republican control, had no interest in completing the production of documents under the original subpoena. "When counsel for Mazars sought clarification, Mr. Strawbridge confirmed that this direction had been provided to him, twice, by the Acting General Counsel of the House of Representatives, in his capacity as counsel to the Committee," Raskin said. 

 

So yes, the SCOTUS gambit here worked. The Roberts Court made the determination that the House Oversight Committee could have Trump's tax returns, but wasted two years in doing so. As such, Comer is dropping the investigation.

 

But it means that Hunter Biden's tax information -- and Joe Biden's, eventually -- will be fast-tracked for Comer's abuse later on.  Count on that.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Donald Trump's legal team is smart enough to talk Trump out of testifying before Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's grand jury convened to investigate the Stormy Daniel hush money scandal as Bragg's decision to charge him looms.

 

Former President Donald Trump has "no plans" to participate in a Manhattan grand jury investigation into a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told George Stephanopoulos Monday on ABC's Good Morning America.

"We have no plans on participating in that proceeding," Tacopina said. "Decision needs to be made still. There's been no deadline set, so we'll wait and see."

The Manhattan district attorney's office has been investigating whether Trump falsified business records in connection with a $130,000 payment Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen made to Daniels before the 2016 election, which prosecutors allege was to keep her from talking about a long-denied affair, sources familiar with the matter have told ABC News.

Cohen was scheduled to testify before the grand jury on Monday, ABC News previously reported.

The DA's office informed Trump last week of his right to testify before a grand jury in the probe, a possible signal that the DA is moving toward a charging decision.

Tacopina said another Trump attorney, Susan Necheles, who is leading the case, has met with prosecutors.

Asked if he expects an indictment for Trump, Tacopina said, "I expect justice to prevail. If that's the case, George, there shouldn't be an indictment."

 

Me, I'll believe Bragg or any DA or federal prosecutor will announce an indictment against Donald Trump when I actually see it done. Jack Smith is running out of tiem, if not running out the clock, and Fani Willis will be removed from office by Georgia Republicans if she dares to follow through, so that leaves Bragg as the best shot at an indictment right now.

 

We'll see.

 

The Revenge Of 2008, Con't

A lot has happened over the last 48 hours pertaining to not one but two more crypto venture capital banks collapsing over the weekend and the fate of some $300 billion in deposits.

Federal regulators announced on Sunday that another bank had been closed and that the government would ensure that all depositors of Silicon Valley Bank — which failed Friday — would be paid back in full as Washington rushed to keep fallout from the collapse of the large institution from sweeping through the financial system.

The Federal Reserve, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced in a joint statement that “depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13.” In an attempt to assuage concerns about who would bear the costs, the agencies said that “no losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.”

The agencies also said that they would make whole depositors at Signature Bank, which the government disclosed was shut down on Sunday by New York bank regulators. The state officials said the move came “in light of market events, monitoring market trends, and collaborating closely with other state and federal regulators” to protect consumers and the financial system.

President Biden said on Sunday evening that the actions were taken at his direction and that he would deliver remarks about the banking system on Monday morning.

“I am pleased that they reached a prompt solution that protects American workers and small businesses, and keeps our financial system safe,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “The solution also ensures that taxpayer dollars are not put at risk.”

He added: “I am firmly committed to holding those responsible for this mess fully accountable and to continuing our efforts to strengthen oversight and regulation of larger banks so that we are not in this position again.”

The collapse of Signature marks the third significant bank failure within a week. Silvergate, a California-based bank that made loans to cryptocurrency companies, announced last Wednesday that it would cease operations and liquidate its assets.

Amid the wreckage, the Fed also announced that it would set up an emergency lending program, with approval from the Treasury, to funnel funding to eligible banks and help ensure that they are able to “meet the needs of all their depositors.” 

 

Now why does Signature Bank of New York sound familiar? Oh, because it had some very famous New York clientele. 

Signature was a commercial bank with private client offices in New York, Connecticut, California, Nevada and North Carolina, and had nine national business lines including commercial real estate and digital asset banking.

As of September, almost a quarter of its deposits came from the cryptocurrency sector, but the bank announced in December that it would shrink its crypto-related deposits by $8 billion.

Signature Bank announced in February that its chief executive officer, Joseph DePaolo, would transition into a senior adviser role in 2023 and would be succeeded by the bank’s chief operating officer, Eric Howell. DePaolo has served as president and CEO since Signature's inception in 2001.

The bank had a long-standing relationship with former President Donald Trump and his family, providing Trump and his business with checking accounts and financing several of the family's ventures. Signature Bank cut ties with Trump in 2021 following the deadly Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill, and urged Trump to resign.

Yep. This used to be Donald Trump's bank. It cut ties with Trump after January 6th, but let's imagine what kind of bank it had to be in order to do business with Trump in the first place, and to do so throughout his term in office. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen isn't about to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, and the only question now is if the political pressure grows quickly and powerfully enough to force her hand.

 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that the federal government would not bail out Silicon Valley Bank, but is working to help depositors who are concerned about their money.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures deposits up to $250,000, but many of the companies and wealthy people who used the bank — known for its relationships with technology startups and venture capital — had more than that amount in their account. There are fears that some workers across the country won’t receive their paychecks.

Yellen, in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” provided few details on the government’s next steps. But she emphasized that the situation was much different from the financial crisis almost 15 years ago, which led to bank bailouts to protect the industry.

“We’re not going to do that again,” she said. “But we are concerned about depositors, and we’re focused on trying to meet their needs.”

With Wall Street rattled, Yellen tried to reassure Americans that there will be no domino effect after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

“The American banking system is really safe and well capitalized,” she said. “It’s resilient.”

Silicon Valley Bank is the nation’s 16th-largest bank. It was the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008. The bank served mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies, including some of the industry’s best-known brands.

 

Meanwhile, SVB's assets are being unwound and the newly created National Bank of Santa Clara will begin operating on Monday.  We'll see if the Trump regime weakened FDIC powers enough to cause problems today, but I'm thinking that Yellen will hold firm for now.

Besides, she's doing the opposite of what Larry Summers wants, and that's good enough for me.

But all this depends on the FDIC finding a buyer for the bank's assets, and nobody has stepped up to play ball yet.

Federal authorities are seriously considering safeguarding all uninsured deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, weighing an extraordinary intervention to prevent what they fear would be a panic in the U.S. financial system, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations.

Officials at the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation discussed the idea this weekend, the people said, with only hours to go before financial markets opened in Asia. White House officials have also studied the idea, per two separate people familiar with those discussions.

The plan would be among the potential policy responses if the government is unable to find a buyer for the failed bank. The FDIC began an auction process for SVB on Saturday and hoped to identify a winning bidder Sunday afternoon, with final bids expected by 2 p.m. Eastern time, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Selling SVB to a healthy institution remains the preferred solution, officials have told members of Congress. Most bank failures are resolved that way and enable depositors to avoid losing any money.

In calls with federal banking regulators late Saturday and Sunday, Democrats said they were “praying for a buyer,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee. “Big buyer, small buyer, fat buyer, skinny buyer — we need a buyer,” he said. “If they have a bunch of buyers, I would argue you take the best offer,” he said, noting then they can “quibble about which offer to take.”

Although the FDIC insures bank deposits up to $250,000, a provision in federal banking law may give them the authority to protect the uninsured deposits as well if they conclude that failing to do so would pose a systemic risk to the broader financial system, the people said. In that event, uninsured deposits could be backstopped by an insurance fund, paid into regularly by U.S. banks.

 

The techbros who spent years lobbying for faster, looser capital requirements because "People learned their lesson 15 years ago" are the first people warning that unless these same techbros get back every dime of their billions that they will have no choice but to help collapse more banks until Yellen surrenders.

 

That's the real problem, and everyone knows it.

As far as the bailout of rich depositors and corporations went, late Sunday, Yellen gave in.

Banking regulators devised a plan Sunday to backstop depositors with money at Silicon Valley Bank, a critical step in stemming a feared systemic panic brought on by the collapse of the tech-focused institution.

Depositors at both failed SVB and Signature Bank in New York, which was shuttered Sunday over similar systemic contagion fears, will have full access to their deposits as part of multiple moves that officials approved over the weekend. Signature had been a popular funding source for cryptocurrency companies.

Those with money at the bank will have full access starting Monday.

The Treasury Department designated both SVB and Signature as systemic risks, giving it authority to unwind both institutions in a way that it said “fully protects all depositors.” The FDIC’s deposit insurance fund will be used to cover depositors, many of whom were uninsured due to the $250,000 cap on guaranteed deposits.

Along with that move, the Federal Reserve also said it is creating a new Bank Term Funding Program aimed at safeguarding institutions affected by the market instability of the SVB failure.

A joint statement from the various regulators involved said there would be no bailouts and no taxpayer costs associated with any of the new plans. Shareholders and some unsecured creditors will not be protected and will lose all of their investments.

“Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system,” said a joint statement from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg.

So the investors are losers as they should be, but not the cryptobros who had their unsecured deposits in the bank. They're going to get billions back. Lobbyists during the Trump years begged for less oversight and to take greater risks with tech billions. Supposedly this will all be covered by the FDIC as systemic risk. That's the bailout.

But a quarter-trillion plus doesn't go belly up without consequences. Signature Bank is going to bring the total to well over $300 billion. Maybe this all stops Monday.

President Biden spoke earlier this morning to calm the markets.

US President Joe Biden on Monday addressed the nation after the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and said, "Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe."

"Your deposits will be there when you need them. Small businesses across the country that have deposit accounts at these banks can breathe easier knowing they'll be able to pay their workers and pay their bills," he said in his Monday address.

 

Which is the right message, but why did this bank run happen in the first place?

Because Republican mega-donor techbros made it happen.

The run was sparked by a letter that Silicon Valley Bank Chief Executive Officer Greg Becker sent to shareholders Wednesday. The bank had suffered a $1.8 billion loss on the sale of US treasuries and mortgage-backed securities and outlined a plan to raise $2.25 billion of capital to shore up its finances.

Customers immediately tried to pull their money, including many of the venture-capital firms the bank had cultivated over decades. Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Coatue Management, Union Square Ventures and Founder Collective all advised their startups to pull their cash from the bank, people familiar with the matter said.

The withdrawals initiated by depositors and investors amounted to $42 billion on Thursday alone, according to the regulator. Despite being in sound financial condition prior to Thursday, the California watchdog said the run “caused the bank to be incapable of paying its obligations as they come due,” and it was now insolvent.

The bank was then closed by the California DFPI and placed into FDIC receivership, marking the biggest failure of a US bank since the financial crisis.

They pulled their money on purpose to collapse the bank and to force the Biden administration to give them 100% of any losses back, and they collapsed SVB because otherwise they were going to have to pay up for their risky mortgage investments.

This was deliberate sabotage, the fiduciary equivalent of burning down a building to collect the insurance, so these donors turned a $1.8 billion loss that would have shut down one techbro startup and made the rest of Silicon Valley suddenly aware of being on the hook for their own bad investments into a $42 billion bank run that wiped out their creditors and assured that the feds would pay them back for any losses, with the threat of economic destruction if they didn't.

Because if these assholes can collapse one bank in order to avoid losses, they can do it to anyone.

The game is now fully on.

A Pence-ive Turn

If Mike Pence is to have any hope in the 2024 primary, he had to make his turn against Donald Trump, and as possible state-level indictments in New York and Georgia draw closer, Trump's former VP is finally making his move.

 

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday harshly criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, widening the rift between the two men as they prepare to battle over the Republican nomination in next year’s election.

“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said during remarks at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner attended by politicians and journalists. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Pence’s remarks were the sharpest condemnation yet from the once-loyal lieutenant who has often shied away from confronting his former boss. Trump has already declared his candidacy. Pence has not, but he’s been laying the groundwork to run.

In the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, Trump pressured Pence to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory as he presided over the ceremonial certification of the results. Pence refused, and when rioters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to “hang Mike Pence.”

The House committee that investigated the attack said in its final report that “the President of the United States had riled up a mob that hunted his own Vice President.”

With his remarks, Pence solidified his place in a broader debate within the Republican Party over how to view the attack. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, for example, recently provided Tucker Carlson with an archive of security camera footage from Jan. 6, which the Fox News host has used to downplay the day’s events and promote conspiracy theories.

“Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace,” Pence said in his Gridiron Dinner remarks. “And it mocks decency to portray it any other way.”

 

This comes about two years too late, frankly.

 

I wonder then if Pence will cooperate with Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith's grand jury subpoena, which he was trying to block as recently as last week.

If Pence actually believes any of the the things he said last night, then he should be more than willing to cooperate with Smith.

Of course, that's not what's going to happen.  But notice if Trump lays into Pence on social media this week or not. If Trump manages to hold his tongue, maybe it's because Pence's grand jury testimony could really damage Trump if Smith can work out a deal with Pence.

We'll see.

Sunday Long Read: On Like Pong

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes from Charles Russo at SFGATE as he covers the oral history of the first mass market video game ever made: the ubiquitous Pong, the creation of video game company Atari as it celebrates its 50th anniversary, and the world that changed as a result.

 

Nolan Bushnell had a glimpse of the future on his hands.

So in a savvy marketing maneuver, he decided to package it in a 6-foot-tall shell of amorphous yellow fiberglass. It smelled of noxious chemicals but exuded science fiction. He called it Computer Space.

Bushnell and his business partner Ted Dabney had created the world's first coin-operated video game as a side hustle while working in Silicon Valley for electronics heavyweight Ampex. They completed a prototype in the spring of 1971, a decade before arcade classics like Donkey Kong, Frogger and Ms. Pac-Man would fully capture America’s imagination (and quarters). In fact, at the time that Bushnell and Dabney wheeled a working version of Computer Space into Stanford University hangout the Dutch Goose, very few Americans had ever seen a video game before.

"We just had one little rocket ship on the screen, but it was impressive," Bushnell told SFGATE. "I thought we had a huge win on our hands."

Computer Space never quite took off into the stratosphere, but the two aspiring entrepreneurs knew they were on to something. They had formed a futuristic-sounding startup named Syzygy and departed Ampex in pursuit of an industry that did not yet exist. Informed that a candle-making company on a hippie commune in Mendocino was already operating under the name Syzygy, Bushnell rebranded with a Japanese term akin to the phrase "check" in chess. Their scrappy Silicon Valley startup was now known as Atari.


After soon setting up shop in a small facility in an industrial section of Santa Clara, Atari created a new game that was as captivating as it was simple — and that would effectively launch the modern video game industry to the world.

Aiming for a name that was catchy and succinct, the innovators at Atari simply called it Pong.

It’s easy to underestimate just how massively lucrative the video game industry is today. A recent New York Times report stated that it was worth “nearly $200 billion in 2021 — more than music, U.S. book publishing and North American sports combined.” If that seems hard to fathom, consider that Microsoft is right now trying to acquire A-list video game company Activision for the colossal sum of $69 billion. The sheer size of the proposed purchase price is staggering, going well beyond — for comparison's sake — what Elon Musk spent to purchase Twitter ($44 billion) or what Disney paid to acquire the Star Wars and Marvel franchises ($4 billion each).

This month marks 50 years since Atari released Pong as an arcade game nationally to the American public. It was created and first released months earlier here in the Bay Area, before quickly having a much wider cultural and economic impact.

“Pong proved that there could be a market for a video game industry,” author and pop culture historian Tim Lapetino told SFGATE. “It demonstrated that there could be companies and whole ecosystems based around video games.”

In many ways, Pong was the big-bang moment that occurred after early gameplay pixels had begun to form together for years prior. A key pioneering moment in that regard occurred at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961, shortly after Digital Equipment Corporation gifted the school its latest state-of-the-art computer, the Programmable Data Processor-1. Weighing over 1,500 pounds and taking up the space of a small automobile, the PDP-1 boasted a whopping 9 kilobytes of memory. Yet its most notable characteristic was that it operated through a monitor, a new and innovative feature that made for a uniquely user-friendly interface.

A few of the bookish (read as: nerdy) members of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club immediately began experimenting with the PDP-1. Underclassman Steve Russell, an avid science fiction reader, suggested that they design a game that could play out on the monitor. By January 1962, Russell had finished his prototype of Spacewar, a two-player game in which a pair of rocket ships battled in a cosmic landscape. His classmates improved upon the gameplay with their own design upgrades, and before long, Spacewar was so popular that the faculty had to limit the hours that students were allowed to play it.

“Spacewar was just one of those things that captured the imagination of what could be,” says Lapetino. “It caused a shift in the understanding of what computers can do.”

More than just creating one of the very first video games, Russell and his classmates had developed a template for video game systems. Beyond the game itself, they had designed an external handheld control pad so they no longer had to bang endlessly on a keyboard. Better yet, they realized that the code for Spacewar could be copied and played on other computers, so it soon spread to other elite computer science programs around the country.

"If you were going to play Spacewar in the '60s," Bushnell explains, "there were four places in the world you could do it: MIT, Champaign-Urbana, Stanford and the University of Utah."

 

Having grown up on the venerable Atari 2600 as a kid in the early 80's, I was there when Atari became a home console behemoth, and then burned itself out, leaving the market open for a new path as Apple and Commodore joined the fray, and then Nintendo and Sega years later. I've always been a gamer, and none of it would have started without Bushnell and Pong. 

Here's to the oldest of the old school.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead Goes Through Texas, Con't

If red states like Texas can't end the availability of abortion medication as a criminal matter, they'll do it as a civil court matter instead.

 

A Texas man is suing three women under the wrongful death statute, alleging that they assisted his ex-wife in terminating her pregnancy, the first such case brought since the state’s near-total ban on abortion last summer.

Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general and architect of the state’s prohibition on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. The lawsuit is filed in state court in Galveston County, where Silva lives.

Silva alleges that his now ex-wife learned she was pregnant in July 2022, the month after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and conspired with two friends to illegally obtain abortion-inducing medication and terminate the pregnancy.

The friends texted with the woman, sending her information about Aid Access, an international group that provides abortion-inducing medication through the mail, the lawsuit alleges. Text messages filed as part of the complaint seem to show they instead found a way to acquire the medication in Houston, where the two women lived.

A third woman delivered the medication, the lawsuit alleges, and text messages indicate that the wife self-managed an abortion at home.

The defendants could not immediately be reached for comment. Silva’s wife filed for divorce in May 2022, court records show, two months before the alleged abortion. The divorce was finalized in February. They share two daughters, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit relies heavily on screenshots from a group chat the ex-wife had with two friends seemingly seeking to help her terminate her pregnancy. Her friends expressed concern that Silva would “snake his way into your head.”

“I know either way he will use it against me,” the pregnant woman said, according to text messages attached to the complaint. “If I told him before, which I’m not, he would use it as [a way to] try to stay with me. And after the fact, I know he will try to act like he has some right to the decision.”

“Delete all conversations from today,” one of the women later told her. “You don’t want him looking through it.”

The lawsuit alleges that assisting a self-managed abortion qualifies as murder under state law, which would allow Silva to sue under the wrongful death statute. The women have not been criminally charged. Texas’ abortion laws specifically exempt the pregnant person from prosecution; the ex-wife is not named as a defendant.

 

Now maybe this gets thrown out as unconstitutional, and  maybe it doesn't. And maybe Texas women won't try to get an abortion anymore because they don't want their friends get sued. Or maybe, just maybe, Texas wants to end the availability of medicinal abortion in the US, period.

Mitchell and Cain intend to also name the manufacturer of the abortion pill as a defendant, once it is identified.

“Anyone involved in distributing or manufacturing abortion pills will be sued into oblivion,” Cain said in a statement.

Silva is asking a Galveston judge to award him more than $1 million in damages and an injunction stopping the defendants from distributing abortion pills in Texas.

 

If no drugmaker will manufacture or sell abortion medication in the US because of the possibility of crushing litigation, then it goes away for everyone.

That's the point.

Black Coffee Still Matters

A Virginia bakery gave free coffee to Black Lives Matter vigil keepers last month, and as a result, the bakery has been systematically targeted for absolute destruction by obnoxious white Karens.

Brian Noyes and Josephine Gilbert agreed to sit down on March 1 and talk it out. Noyes, founder of the celebrated Red Truck Bakery, and Gilbert, the leader of a loose coalition that demonstrates under the banner of All Lives Matter, wanted to reach an accord before events spun out of control in the usually restful town of Warrenton, Va.

The issue was coffee — and the weekly demonstrations on Courthouse Square in downtown Warrenton, where two groups have been trying to poke and prod the conscience of the city.

Since June 2020, not long after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, a handful of organizations have hosted a Black Lives Matter Vigil For Action on Saturday mornings when, for 45 minutes, dozens of people quietly hold up signs to remind locals about racial injustice and institutional racism. The demonstrations eventually led to counterprotests across the street, aimed at shutting down the vigils that All Lives Matter activists see as destructive to this conservative community in Fauquier County, a traditional Republican stronghold.

Red Truck got dragged into this drama on the last Saturday in February when a relatively new member of the ALM group entered the bakery, camera phone in hand. Jennifer Blevins Ragle asked a young employee why the shop was giving out free coffee to participants at the BLM vigil, but not others on the square. She implied Red Truck was discriminating against ALM.

“I just don’t understand giving free coffee to some people, but not others. I mean, that makes your store very political,” Ragle said to the 17-year-old employee behind the counter. “I’ll make sure it gets to the paper and everything else.”

Ragle’s video was posted on a YouTube channel called Singing Patriot, where it gained little traction. But it was also posted on a TikTok account, named crossstitch1954, where it has racked up more than 21,000 views and generated more than 800 comments, many of them calling for boycotts of Red Truck. Or worse.

“Hope this place burns to the ground,” wrote one commenter. “Close the place down! Let those black lives keep the place open. All the other lives don’t matter,” wrote another. “Someone please put a pallet of bricks in front of that store so we can protest against Red Truck Bakery,” added a third.

Negative reviews started appearing on Red Truck’s Yelp and Google pages, sometimes from people far from the streets of Warrenton. The bakery began receiving harassing phone calls, too. “Threats of damage and injury,” Noyes told The Washington Post.

One caller said, simply, “we are watching you,” Noyes said. “Picture a young girl answering the phone at a small bakery and hearing that.”

 

So when Brian Noyes agreed to meet with Josephine Gilbert, the ultimatum was made: Noyes needed to convince BLM vigils to end. Noyes of course said no. Noyes closed his bakery location last weekend in order to protect his employees. This weekend, the bakery is open, and both sets of protesters continue to show up on the square.

Gilbert insists that the bakery isn't being targeted, but the closures and additional security have already cost Noyes tens of thousands of dollars over the last two weeks. My guess is that Red Truck Bakery will be closed by this summer.

All over a couple of cups of coffee.

The Revenge Of 2008

That clearly audible, season-ending, ligament-tearing pop you heard on Friday morning was the last of the crypto tech bubble disintegrating as California's favorite unicorn VC bubble factory Silicon Valley Bank died a rapid death.

Financial regulators have closed Silicon Valley Bank and taken control of its deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Friday, in what is the largest U.S. bank failure since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.

The collapse of SVB, a key player in the tech and venture capital community, leaves companies and wealthy individuals largely unsure of what will happen to their money.

According to press releases from regulators, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation closed SVB and named the FDIC as the receiver. The FDIC in turn has created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara, which now holds the insured deposits from SVB.

The FDIC said in the announcement that insured depositors will have access to their deposits no later than Monday morning. SVB’s branch offices will also reopen at that time, under the control of the regulator.

According to the press release, SVB’s official checks will continue to clear.

The FDIC’s standard insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, for each account ownership category. The FDIC said uninsured depositors will get receivership certificates for their balances. The regulator said it will pay uninsured depositors an advanced dividend within the next week, with potential additional dividend payments as the regulator sells SVB’s assets.

Whether depositors with more than $250,000 ultimately get all their money back will be determined by the amount of money the regulator gets as it sells Silicon Valley assets or if another bank takes ownership of the remaining assets. There were concerns in the tech community that until that process unfolds, some companies may have issues making payroll.

As of the end of December, SVB had roughly $209 billion in total assets and $175.4 billion in total deposits, according to the press release. The FDIC said it was unclear what portion of those deposits were above the insurance limit.

The last U.S. bank failure of this size was Washington Mutual in 2008, which had $307 billion in assets.

 

Now traditionally, a really big bank like Bank of America or Wells Fargo would step in and pick up Silicon Valley Bank's assets for pennies on the dollar and would continue all of the bank's functions, accounts, and payment processing. 

 

Except...that's not happening.  No bank stepped up on Thursday to save Silicon Valley. Recent interest rate hikes by the Fed have scared off buyers.

 

The real problem is while the FDIC protects individual accounts with up to $250,000 in deposits, SVB had nearly all of its assets uninsured because they were large corporate accounts well over that number.

Friday’s announcement by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that the bank was closed came with few specifics on what will happen to bank customers who held more than the $250,000 per account that is guaranteed by the government.

In prior large bank failures like IndyMac and Washington Mutual, the FDIC found other firms to take on the assets and keep deposits intact. But failing that, uninsured depositors will be left with a portion of whatever funds the FDIC can raise selling off the bank's assets.

SVB Financial Group's (SIVB.O) Silicon Valley Bank had a relatively high amount of uninsured deposits as it courted tech workers and venture capital firms. The FDIC said on Friday the amount of uninsured deposits at the bank was “undetermined,” likely complicated by the rush of bank customers to remove uninsured funds. But data submitted to the FDIC by the bank at the end of 2022 showed that 89% of its $175 billion in deposits were uninsured.

We'll see if the firewalls put in since 2008 are going to function. If there's any silver lining, it could be that SVB's collapse might get the Fed to hold off on more rate hikes.

Maybe.

 

 

Last Call For That Debt Ceiling Feeling

The House Republican Freedom Caucus response to President Biden's proposed budget unveiled this week is "Cut it in half for starters and maybe we won't collapse the economy into a years-long depression."

A powerful group of far-right Republicans on Friday issued a new set of demands in the fight over the debt ceiling, stressing they may only supply their votes to raise the limit if they can secure about $130 billion in spending cuts, cap federal agencies’ future budgets and unwind the Biden administration’s economic agenda.

The ultimatum from the House Freedom Caucus — led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) — threatened to deal a massive blow to government health care, education, science and labor programs. Seeking tougher work requirements on welfare recipients and the repeal of federal funds to fight coronavirus and climate change, the conservatives’ wish list appeared to complicate efforts to clinch a deal and avert a looming fiscal calamity.

At the heart of the political standoff is the debt ceiling, the legal limit on how much the U.S. government can borrow to pay for spending that policymakers in both parties have already approved. Congress must raise or suspend the current $31 trillion cap as soon as this summer or risk a default, an unprecedented crisis that could rattle markets globally while triggering a potential recession in the United States.

But Republicans have promised to use the fast-approaching deadline to extract fiscal reforms from the White House, many of which target President Biden’s signature economic priorities. Appearing at a news conference, Perry said the goal is to “shrink Washington,” and added: “Doing this will lower dollar for dollar the amount needed for any increase in the debt ceiling.”

The far-right caucus called for clawing back nearly $400 billion to boost clean energy and combat pollution in the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, and an end to the “student loan bailout,” as Perry described it, referring to the president’s debt cancellation measure, which is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling. They also targeted the roughly $80 billion recently approved to help the Internal Revenue Service pursue tax cheats, arguing it empowers the government to target innocent Americans. That move could add to the deficit, however, since it could prevent Washington from collecting money it is owed.

Conservatives further pushed for regulatory reform legislation, while emphasizing the need for tougher work requirements on food stamps, Medicaid and other programs that aim to help low-income Americans. Democrats contend these efforts could result in millions of deserving families being forced off federal benefits, since a wide array of federal anti-poverty initiatives already require beneficiaries to seek employment.

The demands served as a direct challenge to Biden, who has repeatedly pledged he will not haggle with Republicans over the country’s credit. Speaking at the White House later Friday, the president took aim at conservatives’ latest requests: He said it showed the “value set” the GOP had and predicted the impacts would fall hardest on police officers, firefighters and the nation’s health care.

“I don’t know [if] there’s much to negotiate on,” Biden said.

 

Meanwhile, the longer the debt ceiling fight goes on, the closer we get to an economic meltdown that will sink the US economy for years to come.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, meanwhile, appeared Friday on Capitol Hill to deliver her own urgent plea for action, citing the catastrophic ramifications if Congress fails to raise the debt limit in time. Appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, she reminded lawmakers that the government has never defaulted — and doing so would “trigger an economic and financial catastrophe.”

The intensifying political stalemate capped off a week of mixed economic news in an ever-divided Washington. It began with a fresh warning from Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who on Wednesday signaled the central bank may have to raise interest rates more aggressively to keep tamping down inflation. Such a move could help lower prices by raising the cost of borrowing, at the risk of squeezing spending and investment in ways that could leave Americans out of work.

 

Jobs report today showed another 311k jobs created.  Where it goes from here, well, it seems like Republicans need to destroy that jobs streak in order to get elected...

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg about to indict Donald Trump?  The New York Times certainly seems to think so.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in the payment of hush money to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The prosecutors offered Mr. Trump the chance to testify next week before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the potential case, the people said. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is close; it would be unusual for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, to notify a potential defendant without ultimately seeking charges against him.

In New York, potential defendants have the right to answer questions in the grand jury before they are indicted, but they rarely testify, and Mr. Trump is likely to decline the offer. His lawyers could also meet privately with the prosecutors in hopes of fending off criminal charges.

Any case would mark the first indictment of a former American president, and could upend the 2024 presidential race. It would also elevate Mr. Bragg to the national stage, though not without risk.

Mr. Trump has faced an array of criminal investigations and special counsel inquiries over the years but has never been charged with a crime, underscoring the gravity of Mr. Bragg’s inquiry.

Mr. Bragg could become the first prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump, but he might not be the last.

In Georgia, the Fulton County District Attorney is investigating whether Mr. Trump interfered in the 2020 election, and at the federal level, a special counsel is scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election results, as well as his handling of classified documents.

The Manhattan inquiry, which has spanned nearly five years, centers on a $130,000 payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The payment was made by Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, who was later reimbursed by Mr. Trump from the White House. Mr. Cohen is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, but has not yet done so.

The district attorney’s office has already questioned at least six other people before the grand jury, according to several other people with knowledge of the inquiry.

Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have not finished the grand jury presentation and he could still decide against seeking an indictment.

 

I don't know about this one. Personally, I see Bragg cutting Trump a plea deal. Then again, Trump is dumb enough to fight this publicly in court, so...we'll see.

Where The Books Come Burning Down The Plain

We've reached the point now where Republicans are openly banning library books, not just for kids, but for adults too.

 

A Republican-driven Senate bill limiting reading materials in school districts and public libraries has passed and is now on its way to the House floor.

Senator Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, is the author of Senate Bill 397.

He said the intention of the bill is to protect younger generations from reading inappropriate and “pornographic” material.

“This bill is not an attempt to ban books. It’s certain things you can’t get at school,” Sen. Warren said before the vote. “School boards, you ain’t exactly been hitting it out of the park lately. Maybe you could use a little help from some community involvement, some community empowerment.”

The bill would require schools and public libraries to inventory their current books both online and print.

Those books would then be categorized into so-called “ratings.”

Those ratings would include: Elementary (Pre-K through 5th grade), Junior High (6th-8th grade), Under 16, and Juniors and Seniors.

Some of that reading material would also require a legal guardian’s permission before being checked out.

“I think this is a good step in the right direction on making sure inappropriate materials stay out of the hands of kids, give guardrails to educators so they don’t go outside those and lose their job and inability to teach in Oklahoma when we struggle everyday to get new teachers,” said Sen. Rob Standridge, R-Norman.

Sen. Roger Thompson, R-Okemah, called the bill an “overreach of state government.”

Sen. Thompson said these types of decisions should be left to the school board and parents.

The bill doesn’t just outline minors, though.

Anyone over the age of 18 would also have limitations when checking out a book at a public library.

“No print or nonprint material or media in a school district library, charter school library, or public library shall include content that the average person eighteen (18) or older applying contemporary community standards would find has a predominant tendency to appeal to prurient interest in sex,” SB 397 reads.

Those books deemed inappropriate by community standards will then be removed, according to SB 397.

 

And pretty soon, the next step will be the sale of these books at all in the state, or the reading of them. Like I keep saying, Republican want a permanent end to the Civil Rights era and need a scared, uncurious populace to manipulate.

Last Call For Householder Of Cards, Con't

It took more than three years, but disgraced former Ohio GOP House Speaker Larry Householder has been convicted on federal racketeering charges.

 

A federal jury found both former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and ex-Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges guilty of racketeering conspiracy – a dramatic outcome in the biggest public corruption case in state history.

The guilty verdict marks the end of Householder’s long political career in which he twice held the speaker’s gavel. He’ll be in the Ohio history books as the only speaker expelled from the Legislature and then convicted in a federal corruption case.

Householder and Borges face up to 20 years in prison.

The case made it to federal court because of its sweeping scope: $61 million in bribe money paid by FirstEnergy Corp. via dark money groups to help Householder seize political power and in turn pass and defend a $1.3 billion bailout law known as House Bill 6.

“This isn’t typical political activity, and they know it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Painter said. “Mr. Householder abused that (public) trust and Mr. Borges helped him do it.”

Borges lobbied for the bill and worked to block a referendum to put it on the ballot in 2019. He paid a $15,000 bribe to get insider information on the referendum.

Borges, who had an ethics conviction expunged more than a decade ago, declined a chance to sign a guilty plea that could’ve given him no more than six months in prison. Householder wasn’t given such an offer.

Prosecutors introduced nearly 900 exhibits into evidence and slogged through volumes of text messages, emails, bank records and more than demonstrated what the men knew and actions they took.

Two key players, Former FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes and Householder’s political adviser Jeff Longstreth, took plea deals and testified against them. A fifth defendant, lobbyist Neil Clark, died by suicide in March 2021 after his arrest.

 

Ohio Republicans remain arguably the single most corrupt state party in the country right now. Remember, every single Ohio Republican who was associated with the scandal was re-elected in 2020. Every single one of them. 

First Energy, now Energy Harbor, paid a nearly quarter-billion dollar fine two years ago. But none of this would have been possible without Householder.

And now he's going to (hopefully) spend a long time in prison.

More Republicans from Ohio need to join him...

Seeing Red For Walgreens

In the wake of national pharmacy chain Walgreens saying it will no longer carry abortion medication where red state abortion bans prohibit the sale or use of it, despite federal law allowing it, California is scrapping the state's $54 million contract with the company.

 

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday withdrew a $54m contract with Walgreens after the pharmacy giant indicated it would not sell an abortion pill by mail in some conservative-led states.

Newsom ordered state officials to not renew a contract with Walgreens to purchase specialty pharmacy prescription drugs for California’s prison healthcare system, including antiviral and antifungal drugs and medication used for congestive heart failure. Walgreens has received about $54m from the contract, which expires 30 April.

Newsom’s office said the state will buy the drugs elsewhere.

“California will not stand by as corporations cave to extremists and cut off critical access to reproductive care and freedom,” Newsom said in a news release. “California is on track to be the fourth largest economy in the world and we will leverage our market power to defend the right to choose.”

A representative from Walgreens, based in the northern Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois, did not respond to an email from the Associated Press seeking comment. But earlier this week, the company said in a statement it plans to dispense the drug, called mifepristone, “in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so”.

“Providing legally approved medications to patients is what pharmacies do, and is rooted in our commitment to the communities in which we operate,” according to a statement posted onto the company’s website.

Mifepristone is a medication that when combined with another drug will end a pregnancy. The US Food and Drug Administration approved it in 2000 for use up to the 10th week of pregnancy. Today, more than half of all abortions in the US are drug-induced, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

After the US supreme court last year overturned the federal right to an abortion, more than a dozen states restricted the use of abortion pills. But those restrictions are being challenged in court.

Attorneys general in 20 states, mostly with Republican governors, have warned Walgreens and CVS that the companies could face legal consequences if they sell abortion pills in their states. Last week, Walgreens confirmed it sent a response to each attorney general saying it would not dispense the drug in their states.

Newsom responded to that news on Monday, posting in a message on Twitter that California will not be doing business with Walgreens “or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk”.

“We’re done,” Newsom said.

Losing the California contract will have a small impact on Walgreens’ revenues, as the company reported $132.7bn in sales for the fiscal year that ended 31 August.

 

Walgreens could care less about California's contract, it's literally 0.04% of the company's yearly revenues. The bigger problem is that the parent company's stock after it purchased UK-based pharmacy chain Boots has dropped by more than 50% in the last four years. Avoiding getting sued out of existence by Red states is far more damaging than Gavin Newsom.

 

On the other hand, a Trump judge's possible nationwide injunction on the sale of abortion medication is expected any day now, so it may all be moot. 

 

Of course, the real reason why red states want to make abortion impossible nationwide remains very, very simple. 

 

Single women — who are postponing marriage or forgoing it altogether — are a growing economic force, accounting for a larger share of growth in the job market, homeownership and college degrees, according to an analysis of federal data.

The majority of women in the United States — a record 52 percent — were unmarried in 2021, according to a report released Wednesday by Wells Fargo. The census bureau has been tracking Americans’ marital status since at least 1900, when just 7 percent of surveyed women were single. Among the factors driving the rapid rise in single-women households over the last decade: A 20 percent increase in the number of women who have never married.

But while decades of changing norms around marriage and work have empowered women to carve their own paths, a stubborn wage gap continues to keep many women, especially single mothers, from enjoying the same economic gains as single men and married couples. Never-married women earned just 92 percent of what never-married men did last year, and have 29 percent less wealth, Wells Fargo economists found.

More and more Millennial women aren't getting married, and they don't have a reason to economically. Punishing them for not being married, or for having sex out of wedlock at all, is being done deliberately. Putting women back under the economic, social, and legal control of men has always been the key factor in the crusade to end abortion.

Remember that.

Border Line Insanity, Con't

Republicans got the judge and the ruling they wanted on President Biden's immigration policies as the White House's "catch and release" program has now been blocked by a Trump judge.

 

A federal judge on Wednesday handed a victory to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody as he delivered a blistering rebuke to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell ordered federal immigration authorities to revamp one key policy that he says runs counter to federal law while at the same time castigated the Biden administration for its handling of what he called an “unsustainable” crisis on the nation’s southern border.

“For the most part, the court finds in favor of Florida because, as detailed below, the evidence establishes that defendants have effectively turned the Southwest border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country,” wrote Wetherell, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump.

Wetherell added that the Biden immigration policies were “akin to posting a flashing ‘Come In, We’re Open’ sign on the southern border. The unprecedented ‘surge’ of aliens that started arriving at the Southwest Border almost immediately after President Biden took office and that has continued unabated over the past two years was a predictable consequence of these actions.”

The ruling comes amid reports that the Biden administration is considering reopening previously shuttered detention centers to house migrant families.

Moody, whose office first filed the lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other federal officials in March 2021, hailed the ruling.

“Today’s ruling affirms what we have known all along, President Biden is responsible for the border crisis and his unlawful immigration policies make this country less safe,” Moody said in a statement. “A federal judge is now ordering Biden to follow the law, and his administration should immediately begin securing the border to protect the American people.”

Jeremy Redfern, deputy press secretary for DeSantis, said in an email that “Judge Wetherell vindicated the governor’s actions and ruled that the Biden Administration is breaking federal immigration law by failing to fulfill the duties of his office and secure the nation’s border.”

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the ruling.

Florida, along with other Republican-led states such as Texas, has been sharply critical of immigration policies pursued by the Biden administration. DeSantis, who is expected to run for president, pushed for the creation of a contentious migrant relocation program that resulted in the state flying nearly 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last September.

The state’s lawsuit took aim at immigration policies put in place right after Biden entered office, asserting that federal authorities were ignoring a federal law that requires those entering the country illegally to be detained and that undocumented migrants coming into Florida were costing the state.

 

Republicans don't want any immigration. Corporate interests who fund Republicans need cheap labor. Increasingly, the "solution" to the problem pushed by both groups is eliminating child labor laws in states.

 

But most of all, Republicans are trying to make immigration impossible, and they're winning.  Can't have a white supremacist theocracy if America keeps accepting the tired, poor huddled masses from those places.

Last Call For The Huckster's Daughter

I guarantee you that Arkansas GOP Governor (and former Trumpian Mouth of Sauron) Sarah Huckabee Sanders is going to try to resolve the problems that her public education reform bill creates with her new law shredding child labor laws in the state.

 

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed into law this week legislation that rolls back significant portions of the state’s child labor protections.

The law eliminates requirements for the state to verify the age of children younger than 16 before they can take a job.

Sanders believes the provision was “burdensome and obsolete,” spokeswoman Alexa Henning said in an emailed statement. Remaining state and federal regulations are still in effect, she said. Sanders signed the Republican-backed bill on Tuesday.

Federal officials have pledged to crack down on child labor law offenses after regulators discovered hundreds of violations in meatpacking plants and after press reports emerged of children working in hazardous occupations around the country.

The Labor Department fined Packers Sanitation Services, a subcontractor for meatpacking plants, $1.5 million in February for illegally hiring children, some of whom sustained chemical burns after working with caustic cleaning agents.

Other states are also considering loosening child labor protections. A bill advancing in Iowa would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work certain jobs in meatpacking plants and would shield businesses from civil liability if a youth worker is sickened, injured or killed on the job.

 

As red state "education reforms" close down more and more schools and leave kids without an education, more and more of them are going to end up in meatpacking plants, factories, farms, construction work and more doing, as Dubya famously put it, "The jobs Americans don't want to do." 

Republicans understand full well that "school choice" means not everyone will get into the local magnate school with the swimming pool and media lab and the best teachers.  They understand full well that school funding will be decimated, and "failing" schools closed.

This will leave thousands of kids with no schools to attend. Eliminating child labor laws is the proposed solution. The school to prison pipeline is so 2016.

It's the school to meatpacking plant now.

Are there no workhouses?