Leo

Well-known member
yeah, liked this bit in New York mag:

Powell’s theory has a number of flaws. Perhaps the most glaring is her premise that the agent the CIA would select to carry out its secret mission would be the agency’s director. My understanding of the espionage world is that secret agents generally try to escape recognition. Maintaining your cover is considerably more difficult if you have appeared on television and in newspapers across the world identified as the director of the CIA.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Donald Trump's social media startup announced $1 billion in new investment in its effort to become publicly traded via a blank check company, Axios Pro Rata author Dan Primack reports.

Between the lines: The investors weren't identified, which is highly unusual for this sort of transaction.

What to watch: Trump Media & Technology Group hasn't named a CEO. The former president is listed as chairman. No products have launched.
 

Leo

Well-known member
People are laughing at Trump’s new company

Trump’s new media company, called the Trump Media & Technology Group, may suffer the same amateurish delusions. An “investor presentation” the company recently filed with the Securities and Exchange commission is provoking guffaws among business analysts, with laughable evasions and barely any business strategy. “It does feel like every public action by this company is designed give the impression that it is a joke,” Bloomberg analyst Matt Levine wrote on Dec. 7.

The oddest part of the TMTG presentation is the “technology team” listed on Slide 21. The company has apparently filled 30 important jobs already, but it only lists these team members with a first name and last initial. The chief technology officer is “Josh A.” “Steve E.” is VP of engineering. One of the senior mobile developers is “BJ.” Are these real people or stand-ins? We may never know: As a footnote explains: “personnel subject to change.”

The TMTG investor presentation is vague about how exactly the company will make money. It points out that Trump’s following on Twitter before the platform banned him in 2020—89 million followers—is more than one-third of Netflix’s entire subscriber base, as if TMTG could rival Netflix out of the gate. But that’s apples and oranges. One account on Twitter—free to the account holder and followers alike—is nothing like a Netflix account in which users pay a monthly fee to access a deep library of content.

Other oddities abound. A forecast for the number of monetizable users—81 million by 2026—is based on a Morning Consult poll rather any internal analysis. Other forecasts, for subscriptions and revenue, are represented by question markets rather than the actual numbers (even if inflated) found in most business proposals.

The “key advisor” whose logo appears on every page is EF Hutton. But this isn’t the storied brokerage firm. It’s a reboot of a brokerage named Kingswood Capital Markets that dates all they way to 2020 and recently bought rights to the EF Hutton name. Apparently the gambit worked.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
A while back a load of people on twitter were really adamant that certain states were going to "flip" from Biden to Trump. Some of them claimed to be really certain that it was going to happen. I decided to call people out on it and I asked if there was anyone there who dared to bet me a thousand dollars that Arizona would officially flip. Most of them went quiet but this one woman was like "yeah, I will take that bet" and so we had a bit of a debate and we laid out the terms of the bet. There were a number of states that were already "in play" which were - I think - Arizona, Wisconsin and maybe Michigan, and as well as that there were some states which could come into play if they took certain steps such as performed an audit or whatever. Our bet was that for every state that was "in play" according to the rules that we laid out, the deadline was the end of this year and for each such state that was officially recognised as now being counted for Trump, I would have to pay her one thousand dollars, whereas for each state that didn't flip, she would have to pay me one thousand dollars.

A little while back she seemed to kinda disappear and I assumed that she was gonna just sort of quietly drift away, but, fair enough, she has resurfaced and she swaers that she is a woman of her word and that, if nothing chnages in the next three weeks or whatever it is, she WILL pay me a thousadn dollars for each contested state that doesn't flip.

Now, as far as I can see there isn't even a millionth of one percent of a chance that any state is gonna flip so, come the new year, it's simply a matter of totting up which states are and are not in play. I'm not gonna argue too much on that though, if a complete stranger honours this insane bet she made and pays me three or four k then I won't get bogged down in try8ing to argue she ought to pay me more.

What do you reckon, what are the chances she actually pays me? Also, if she does pay me, what account should I give her to pay into? I don't want to get scammed so maybe best not to use my real bank accts. What if I just gave her my paypal address, is that secure but possible for her to pay thousands of dollars into it?
 

woops

is not like other people
A while back a load of people on twitter were really adamant that certain states were going to "flip" from Biden to Trump. Some of them claimed to be really certain that it was going to happen. I decided to call people out on it and I asked if there was anyone there who dared to bet me a thousand dollars that Arizona would officially flip. Most of them went quiet but this one woman was like "yeah, I will take that bet" and so we had a bit of a debate and we laid out the terms of the bet. There were a number of states that were already "in play" which were - I think - Arizona, Wisconsin and maybe Michigan, and as well as that there were some states which could come into play if they took certain steps such as performed an audit or whatever. Our bet was that for every state that was "in play" according to the rules that we laid out, the deadline was the end of this year and for each such state that was officially recognised as now being counted for Trump, I would have to pay her one thousand dollars, whereas for each state that didn't flip, she would have to pay me one thousand dollars.

A little while back she seemed to kinda disappear and I assumed that she was gonna just sort of quietly drift away, but, fair enough, she has resurfaced and she swaers that she is a woman of her word and that, if nothing chnages in the next three weeks or whatever it is, she WILL pay me a thousadn dollars for each contested state that doesn't flip.

Now, as far as I can see there isn't even a millionth of one percent of a chance that any state is gonna flip so, come the new year, it's simply a matter of totting up which states are and are not in play. I'm not gonna argue too much on that though, if a complete stranger honours this insane bet she made and pays me three or four k then I won't get bogged down in try8ing to argue she ought to pay me more.

What do you reckon, what are the chances she actually pays me? Also, if she does pay me, what account should I give her to pay into? I don't want to get scammed so maybe best not to use my real bank accts. What if I just gave her my paypal address, is that secure but possible for her to pay thousands of dollars into it?
surely she'll just insist that the states did in fact flip but the fake news is reporting that they didn't, then her friends will storm your flat in portugal
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
surely she'll just insist that the states did in fact flip but the fake news is reporting that they didn't, then her friends will storm your flat in portugal
That's a pretty funny image, but I would say the chances of someone like this knowing people who live in an another country, or would be willing to travel to one, or in fact even own a passport or ever travel outside of their own state (except perhaps to attempt to overthrow the government) are slim to none.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps

Donald Trump, the former US president, suffered a major defeat on Thursday when a federal appeals court ruled against his effort to block the release of documents related to the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Not that anything is going to come of it, of course, because nothing ever does.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Trump is now suing the NY AG to stop her investigating him. claiming she

“is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent”.

Probably pretty much true although I would question the word "solely" - it seems to me that the investigation is guided by political animus AND by the desire to see an evil fat bully who thinks he is above the law face justice for the crimes that he obviously committed. My feeling is that the latter bit is gonna be a problem for his attempt to get the investigation dismissed..
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed

Leo

Well-known member
Flight manifests released as part of the Maxwell trial have Trump taking seven NY-Palm Beach trips on Epstein's Lolita Express.
 

Leo

Well-known member
yeah, kind of feel like we're screwed already. plus, there's no strong democratic candidates to lead the opposition. no one will believe Biden is up for another grueling campaign and then four more years of governing, and kamala Harris was a bad candidate last time and done nothing to improve her standing.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
yeah, kind of feel like we're screwed already. plus, there's no strong democratic candidates to lead the opposition. no one will believe Biden is up for another grueling campaign and then four more years of governing, and kamala Harris was a bad candidate last time and done nothing to improve her standing.
That is a depressing thought. Is there really nobody among the Dems who really stands a decent chance? Sounds like you're basically waiting for Trump to have a (surely long-overdue) heart attack within the next three years, then? Seeing as he's got the Senate and the courts so packed with supporters that he's apparently bullet-proof from a legal POV.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Having said that, maybe the whole movement will collapse now that he's confessed the ultimate sin of having been vaccinated against the 'rona?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
yeah, kind of feel like we're screwed already.
It definitely feels that unless there is something huge and amazing going on behind the scenes - the idea of which seems incredibly optimistic to say the least - the Dems are a) allowing a large part of the GOP to get away scott free with an enormous amount of illegal attempts to destroy democracy last year and b) encouraging and allowing to do loads more of the same but worse next time round.

It really seems that there is an enormous amount of gerrymandering and restrictions to the right to vote along with plans to contest every defeat in court or simply allow the state legislature to appoint whoever they like instead of the winner. If they can do that and win and then do it more with the powers they gain in victory... it looks like the end of US democracy. Seems like Marc Elias is the only one fighting it... but what about the party itself and the institutions they control that should be protecting this?
 
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