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Thursday, October 3, 2024
Humana cut by 4 sell siders
Larimar started at Buy by 2 sell siders
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Trick-Or-Lame: Jack Smith's 'October Surprise' Is Just Recycled 'Fake Electors'
For weeks rumors have been swirling that Special Counsel Jack Smith was going to unveil an 'October surprise' against Donald Trump that would upend the 2024 election.
On Wednesday, Smith filed a 165-page 'oversized' brief (normally limited to 45 pages) that turns out to be nothing more than Smith's regurgitated 'fake elector' claims after the Supreme Court ruled in July that Trump has "absolute immunity" for "actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority," and "at least presumptive immunity" for all "official acts."
The filing is one of the first steps for activist Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine what remains of the superseding indictment Smith filed after the Supreme Court's decision.
"Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one," reads the new brief.
"Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted—a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role."
Writing in his 165-page screed about Trump’s legal efforts challenging the results of the 2020 contest, Smith claimed that Trump engaged in criminal activity by, among other alleged actions, “manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes in the targeted states.” This “plan,” the Merrick Garland appointee contended, was designed to “cause” Trump electors in these states to “sign and send to [Vice President Mike Pence], as President of the Senate, certifications in which they falsely represented themselves as legitimate electors who had cast electoral votes for [Trump].”
“Ultimately, the defendant and his co-conspirators would use these fraudulent electoral votes—mere pieces of paper without the lawful imprimatur of a state executive—to falsely claim that in his ministerial role presiding over the January 6 certification, Pence had the authority to choose the fraudulent slates over the legitimate ones, or to send the purportedly ‘dueling’ slates to the state legislatures for consideration anew,” the brief reads. -The Federalist
Yet, as The Federalist further notes, there's nothing illegal about naming contingent electors.
In fact, the process conducted in contested states like Georgia parallels a similar endeavor that occurred during the 1960 presidential contest between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon.
As The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland previously reported, Kennedy and Nixon electors cast their votes for their respective candidates when a disagreement arose over who won Hawaii’s electoral votes. While the state’s acting governor certified the election for Nixon initially, a legal challenge followed by a court decision ultimately resulted in Kennedy receiving the electoral votes. -The Federalist
What's more, Democrats did the same thing in 2016 - with corporate media running "[a]rticles demanding state electors ‘prevent an irresponsible demagogue from taking office’ and overrule Americans to install Hillary Clinton as president" as part of their efforts to prevent Trump from taking office.
Trump described the filing as "falsehood-ridden" on Truth Social.
For a deeper legal analysis, the Epoch Times opines;
Legal Implications
Smith, in his superseding indictment, removed portions of the original indictment related to Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department. Trump’s attorney, John Lauro, suggested during a status conference on the case with Chutkan on Sept. 5 that she could throw out the superseding indictment for not adhering to the Supreme Court’s ruling.Smith’s motion purports to offer a “comprehensive account of the defendant’s criminal conduct” and requests that the court “determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen.” It states that under D.C. circuit precedent, Trump didn’t enjoy immunity in his capacity as someone seeking office.
Chutkan ruled against Lauro’s opposition to Smith filing his revised brief after the status conference. In the weeks leading up to the release of the brief, which Trump’s legal team described as “oversized,” meaning it was larger than usual, Lauro also accused Smith of pursuing a “fundamentally unfair” approach.
Trump’s legal team said “the Court should reject them until threshold legal questions identified by the Supreme Court are addressed and discovery is complete.”
In a Sept. 24 opinion, Chutkan disagreed and said she would grant the motion to file an oversized brief, saying that its “atypical sequence and size thus both serve the efficient resolution of immunity issues in this case.”
Smith’s brief maintained that none of the allegations in the indictment were protected by presidential immunity and that “at its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one.”
The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling set up multiple levels of criminal immunity, with some ambiguity over how the lower court should handle allegations related to former Vice President Mike Pence. More specifically, it held that Trump was presumptively immune for interactions in which the president and vice president discuss their “official responsibilities.”
However, it noted that the government could attempt to “rebut” that presumption and left Chutkan with the task of “[assessing] in the first instance whether a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s oversight of the certification proceeding would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”
Smith’s brief argued that “because the Executive Branch has no role in the certification proceeding ... prosecuting the defendant for his corrupt efforts regarding Pence poses no danger to the Executive Branch’s authority or functioning.”
Smith said he intends to present evidence of conversations between Trump and Pence “in which they did not discuss Pence’s official responsibilities as President of the Senate and instead acted in their private capacities as running mates.”
He said that while some interactions fell within the scope of Pence’s official role, “the rebuttable presumption of immunity is overcome.”
Pence and Jan. 6
Much of the brief outlines an alleged scheme to organize slates of “fraudulent electors,” which Republicans call “alternate electors,” and pressure Pence to not certify the election in his role as president of the U.S. Senate.It alleges that Trump’s team deceived many individuals, including elector nominees.
“Other electors who participated on the conspirators’ false assurances that their votes were only a contingency were later surprised to learn that they were used on January 6—and would not have agreed to participate if the conspirators had been truthful about their plan,” the briefing reads.
It states that Trump and his co-conspirators “lied to Pence, telling him that there was substantial election fraud and concealing their orchestration of the plan to manufacture fraudulent elector slates, as well as their intention to use the fake slates to attempt to obstruct the congressional certification.”
Trump, the brief alleges, “created the tinderbox that he purposely ignited on January 6.”
While Trump hasn’t been charged with inciting an insurrection, Smith’s brief accuses him of causing allegedly unlawful conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, and attempting to take advantage of the riot that ensued.
Pence repeatedly denied having the power to go along with Trump’s alleged scheme. Trump, at one point, told Pence that people would hate his “guts,” think he’s “stupid,” and that the former vice president was “too honest,” according to the brief.
Allegations of Deceit
The filing comes roughly a month before the 2024 presidential election and offers details about communications between Trump, Pence, and his campaign staff.Smith’s filing alleges that Trump repeatedly said things he knew were lies, including allegedly fabricating information about noncitizens voting.
“At trial, the Government will introduce several instances of this pattern, in which the defendant and conspirators’ lies were proved by the fact that they made up figures from whole cloth,” Smith’s brief reads.
It states that one of Trump’s campaign advisers told him his claim of a large number of dead people voting in Georgia was false, as well as that a campaign attorney verified that the number was “around 12 and could not be outcome-determinative.”
One campaign employee, identified as “P5” in the brief, was allegedly contacted by a colleague at the TCF Center in Detroit who said that they thought a batch of votes was in former Vice President Joe Biden’s favor. According to the brief, the employee responded, “Find a reason it isn’t.”
“When the colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers Riot, a violent effort to stop the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, P5 responded, ‘Make them riot’ and ‘Do it!!!’” Smith’s brief reads.
Trump also mocked his former attorney Sidney Powell in November, according to Smith’s filing. At one point, he placed her on mute, mocked her to others, “called her claims ‘crazy,’ and made a reference to a science fiction series Star Trek when describing her allegations.”
It states that Trump had agreed with someone identified as “P9” that Powell’s claims were “unreliable and should not be included in lawsuits.” Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani issued a statement on Nov. 22 distancing the campaign from Powell.
“She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity,” Giuliani said.
Smith’s filing notes that in the following days, Trump promoted lawsuits filed by Powell.
“Nonetheless, the defendant continued to support and publicize [Powell’s] knowingly false claims,” the filing reads.
* * *
Trump's legal team, meanwhile, has asked to file a similarly excessive response:
19 GOP AGs Launch Investigation Into ActBlue Over Money Laundering Allegations
by Debra Heine via American Greatness,
A coalition of 19 Republican state attorneys general have launched a criminal investigation into the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue over allegations of money laundering.
As American Greatness reported in April, multiple independent investigative journalists, including O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) and Election Watch have uncovered what appears to be illegal activity involving millions of dollars in campaign donations to Act Blue that have been laundered through unwitting small donors.
The process of breaking up large donations and submitting them under the names of small donors to cover up illegal contributions has been dubbed “smurfing.” Suspicions that ActBlue routinely engages in this type of illicit fundraising have dogged the outfit since at least Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.
The Committee on House Administration, chaired by Congressman Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.), launched an investigation into Act Blue in November of 2023 to look into reports that the fundraising giant was skirting campaign donation laws and allowing rampant fraud on the site. The committee widened its probe in August 2024.
In a letter sent to top officials on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on August 5, Steil urged them to “immediately initiate an emergency rulemaking to require political campaigns to verify the card verification value (‘CVV’) of donors who contribute online using a credit or debit card, and to prohibit political campaigns from accepting online contributions from a gift card or other prepaid credit cards.”
In September, Steil sent letters to five states, urging them to launch criminal investigations into ActBlue’s alleged illicit activities, citing three specific areas of concern:
– Donations significantly disproportionate to an individual’s net worth or previous giving history.
– Uncharacteristic donations from party-affiliated registered voters suddenly contributing to candidates of the opposing party.
– Unusually frequent donations from elderly individuals or first-time donors.
The number of GOP AGs involved in the effort has since swelled to 19.
On Tuesday, the 19 Republican Attorney’s General sent a letter to ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones demanding information and explanations regarding the suspicious donations.
Recent reporting suggests that that there may be donors across the country who are identified in filings with the Federal Election Commission as having donated to candidates through ActBlue (and other affiliated entities), but who did not actually make those donations. That raises a host of concerns about whether ActBlue’s platform is being used to facilitate “smurfing”––a type of money laundering in which donors break up large donations and submit them under different names to disguise who the money comes from and thereby skirt contribution limits in violation of state and federal law.
As one former FEC commissioner recently explained, wealthy donors—some of whom are foreign nationals and therefore barred from donating to federal candidates at all—can employ complicated schemes like this to make donations in others’ names. This concern is not hypothetical. Indeed, in an indictment filed last week in federal court, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that a major U.S. political figure knowingly participated in such a scheme in a recent election cycle to receive contributions from a foreign national through straw donors. Further, the apparent irregularities in FEC filings also raise concerns about whether ActBlue’s fundraising methods are deceptive and properly safeguard donor’s data privacy.
Some of us and our colleagues have raised these concerns with you directly, and at least one senator has raised these concerns with the FEC. Independent investigations have shown that there are donors across the country who show up on FEC filings as having donated to candidates through ActBlue (and other affiliated entities) but deny having made those donations. Given the prominent role it plays in our elections, it is incumbent on ActBlue to address the serious questions created by apparent irregularities in ActBlue’s FEC filings.
ActBlue is one of the largest fundraising platforms for election-related donations. Already during the 2024 election cycle ActBlue has raised billions of dollars. But there are concerns about where those dollars came from. It is essential that we know whether political donations—particularly in such large volumes—are being solicited, made, and processed consistent with campaign finance, consumer protection, and other state and federal laws. We, the chief legal officers of Iowa, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming ask that you explain what measures you have in place to ensure that donations made through your platform follow State and federal law.
Just as important, we ask for clarification as to what measures you take to make sure that the donors identified as donating via the ActBlue platform are who they claim. If individuals are inadvertently donating to political campaigns, are misled into making repeat donations, or are having donations made in their name that they do not wish to make, that could violate election-related disclosures or state consumer fraud statutes. Our States’ citizens deserve to know that those facilitating election-related financing are following State and federal laws. Thus we appreciate the assurances that you will provide in answering our questions promptly before the upcoming elections in November.
The AGs demanded a response to the the following requests for information no later than October 23, 2024:
1. Confirmation that ActBlue requires CVV numbers for all donations made via credit card.
2. A description of when and under what circumstances ActBlue first decided to require donors to submit CVV numbers.
3. Confirmation that ActBlue requires a legitimate address that is tied to the credit or debit card that a donor uses to make a contribution.
4. An explanation of how ActBlue ensures that all donors are persons legally allowed to make donations in the election to which they are donating.
5. An explanation of whether and how ActBlue’s operations are consistent with industry standards for securely processing credit card or other payment transactions.
6. A description of any measures ActBlue utilizes to ensure compliance with 52 U.S.C. § 30121, including whether ActBlue follows the guidance provided by the FEC in FEC Advisory Opinion (AO) 1998-14 on how to identify the nationality of donors.
7. A description of how ActBlue’s platform facilitates automatic, recurring donations from donors and what safeguards ActBlue has in place to ensure that donors do not inadvertently contribute more than they intend.
Nearly one-third of car owners are under water: Survey
- 31% who financed a car purchase owe more than the car’s worth
- Nearly half of all electric vehicle owners are ‘under water’
- 6 in 10 owners overestimate how much their cars are worth
A growing number of car owners now owe more on their loans than their vehicles are worth, according to a new survey commissioned by the online car buying site CarEdge.
“As vehicle prices soar and depreciation accelerates, more car owners are finding themselves owing more on their loans than their cars are worth,” CarEdge concluded from a survey of nearly 1,000 drivers.
While 31 percent of all drivers who financed their cars are currently in negative equity, that number increases to 39 percent for vehicles bought in the past two years. That makes new car buyers especially vulnerable, says CarEdge.
“As vehicle prices increase and long loan terms become more common, the risk of being underwater is higher than ever,” it said.
The negative equity is far higher for those who bought electric vehicles. The survey said that 46% of EV owners are under water, with Tesla and BMW owners having the higher rates of negative equity.
One other surprising finding: 61 percent of the drivers surveyed overestimate how much their cars are worth. Roughly 17 percent believe their car is worth at least $5,000 more than its true trade-in value.
CarEdge said that the disconnect can lead to some unpleasant surprises for drivers when it’s time to trade in or sell their current cars.
https://thehill.com/business/4913168-nearly-a-third-car-owners-in-debt-survey/
Biden admin eyes $1.5B 4-plant power project with TX grid interconnect
The Biden administration is putting $1.5 billion toward four electric power projects, including a connection to the Southeast for Texas’s isolated grid, it announced Thursday.
The four projects are expected to improve grid reliability and improve energy access, the Energy Department said in a press release.
Collectively, they’re expected to enable 7,100 megawatts of new electric power capacity in Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. That’s enough energy to power more than 710 million LED light bulbs.
One of the projects will, for the first time, connect the isolated Texas power grid with power markets in the southeastern U.S. That grid’s lack of connection came into focus after 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, which caused severe power outages and ultimately killed hundreds of people.
Research has suggested that connecting Texas to the nation’s broader grid could have prevented some of the blackouts.
More broadly, the Biden administration has promoted power lines as a climate solution, noting that some renewable projects struggle to get hooked up to the grid.
“When President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, they set out a vision to tackle the climate crisis and power the economy with clean electricity. In order to get there, we need to more than double our current transmission capacity,” White House adviser John Podesta told reporters Wednesday.
Federal funding for these projects comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and follows three additional previously announced projects funded under the same transmission program.
One project will include the construction of a new power substation in Haynesville, Maine, and a 111-mile power line connecting it to the broader New England grid.
Another will connect wind and solar energy to demand in eastern Oklahoma.
A fourth project will run across New Mexico and help provide power for the area’s semiconductor and battery manufacturing industries, as well as data centers.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4913022-biden-administration-electric-power-projects/
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