The Golden Child's Descent
Same elevator different day.
Trump managed to wrench the top position of first child from Mary Trump’s father Freddie, his brother. Now Donald has managed to lose his inheritance, the Trump Organization and its ability to run a business in the state of New York. It’s a big state.
And he had a lot of certificates to allow for his many LLC’s that are now confetti. Yes, thumbs up, indeed.
New York Attorney General Leticia James has revealed decades of fraud in the Trump Organization.
Fraud, that truly selfish crime. Creating an appearance of value to fool someone out of something else of value. It’s fancy theft done while they’re watching. Quite a thrill. Wanting more for oneself than has been earned, in some settings also deprives the more deserving of what they have worked for. And who’s to confer this better than status? Dub that one more deserving? Well, often a test of some kind or way of measuring. In the case of real estate, the “real” in the name tends to make valuations easy. Measure, quantify. Value. Easy unless you get the Donald involved. Everything the Golden Child touches becomes worth more for the act itself of touching. It never occurs to him that if he named his price and knows that the Saudi’s would pay it that the reason is different than the value of trade. Maybe, like, it’s for some future possibilities or continued payment for looking somewhere else for the nothing they didn’t do or take or make that they shouldn’t have? Nah. It’s Golden. He touched. I saw.
Looking through the reporting and the court papers on this monumental case, it’s clear that Donald Dobbs Trump has run a confidence game on life and it’s caught up with him.
The persistent overvaluation of Trump properties to enjoy any and all gravy on one side of the ledger, while the savings of taxes by diminishing the values on the other. Brilliant. The best game ever. Everyone is the fool but him. Till fortunes reverse.
The businesses are likely over complicated on purpose. When banks look at a snarl of money and property, they may pull a thread here or there but when a valuation is needed just go with the Trump number so easily on the bottom of the page. He had his “usual” people. They knew his game and why they kept lending? All that dirty is water under the bridge. He got here by pushing as we know he does over and over and how many law suits to prove the same election wasn’t stollen. Like the babka, not stolen.
There is also the appearance to the outside world that Trump owns more than he does. So much is run by others with Trump Org getting payment for name use and now, what is owned by Trumps Org will be run by a third party till dissolved. It is so ordered unless that is reversed.
Everything about Trumpworld is “off” a bit. Anyone else notice? (pause for laughter) The lawyering is lousy. Trump had lawyers on the Trump Org case from Florida. Florida? The state of ocean spray and palm trees,… bikinis. Spring break. If possible, if I’m in trouble with my most precocious things, I want my lawyers from Oxford on Snooty. Right? Trump doesn’t even live in NY anymore. I think he's stopped caring about New York. Maybe he’s given up on his dream of shooting someone on Fifth. The man who wanted to own the NY landscape, be king of the big apple has turned his NY future to Alina Habba of New Jersey and Florida and Chris Kise of Florida.
She failed to check the box for a jury trial. Did it matter? Maybe.
For anyone who has been in business, gotten married, divorced or purchased a home in New York knows, nothing is easy or simple or not layered with lawyers and laws upon laws all with appendix. There is a hearing on October 2 - an appellate court hearing. Here’s what Michael Popock of MeidasTouch has to say:
unless stopped by an appellate court the court has ordered that his (Trump’s) companies be dissolved including his at his main act, his main trust, including the Trump organization through which he does all they inherited from his dad.
Judge Engoron is appalled by what he seen of the businesses and not that pleased with the lawyers who keep coming back to Trumps boiler plate disclaimer which is neither strong nor a disclaimer of legal merit. Fines all around for the lawyers of $7,500. (thought to be a light slap) and there’s real damages down the road for Trump, yet to be decided.
It’s slow and laborious but getting rid of Trump is working.
Cassidy Hutchinson is everywhere giving Trumpers a view to thinking of a path to walk out of the woods and back to democracy and our real struggles. Cassidy gives a lot of credit to Liz Cheney as to how she climbed out of the sticky cult pit step by emotionally difficult step. She seems to be an extraordinary woman at the edge of her blossoming life. Her book, out only a day, is now number one and I’m hoping it’s a lot of MAGA dollars.
Here is another amazing woman. Heather Cox Richardson. This video is about her new book that is also available now. She is a treasure of an historian of American history and the woman we read drifting off to sleep or first thing in the morning. Writing on Substack as Letters from an American, in the note of optimism, her book hinges on the idea of a resurgence of democracy rather than a demise.
Different than her substack, her youtube chats offer a casual format as she opines without notes about history and the meaning it has on our present. It’s a terrifically interesting facet of her work. This one offers a more personal entry into her writing process and thoughts on her lifework subject, US history. Listen to her tell about her decision to write America’s democracy into the future rather than a clean up mission supporting authoritarianism.
We also can see now in America as the opportunity to work on democracy as the chore that it is. I’m climbing on her boat. There’s room for us all. Here she is to tell you more about her book and herself. Grab a piece of fruit or a coffee. Here’s Heather.
Thanks for being here. I wouldn’t be here, but for you. ❤️
It’s beyond troubling Jim. I see it too. It being the stories on media that are pushing the media, what can I say? In an inorganic way. I believe that climate change is the bigger mover of the unseen unknown hands in our lives. I saw the smash and grab anrticle on msnbc and recalled the black shirted ops that were Prince’s men. Back in where? Atlanta? What no one covers anymore is the actual dirt we see on Twitter all the time. The really bad actors.
I have more observations and dots of hope to share as you seem overwhelmed. One awfully big hurdle at a time. Vote in the best folks we have. I try to recall my long lost family and how they managed the war years. My Jewish grandparents had left Europe fairly early as did my other Ukrainian grandparents. All here by 1900. But wow, still, it wasn’t so nice watching the war from safety. We had shortages and my dad served. It was scary and no one knew the outcome.
I hear you. I see it. I’m try to make a difference and it makes me feel a little better to share what I see happening. I can’t think of another way I’m suited to help at all so, this is it. You could start your own Substack? Sound the alarm?
Thanks for your thoughts.
I watched the news this afternoon on CNN. I must confess that I’m bothered. Obviously almost everything on MSNBC IS Trump. On CNN half on Trump. I never have a reason to watch Fox as that is not news but propaganda.
However, on CNN was a report about stores shutting down in many Democratic cities because of organized theft. Apparently, much of this theft is by the homeless and the poor. So Democratic politicians are opining that the government needs to crackdown on these criminals. They need to protect the interests of Target, Walgreens and others. They need to lock these “criminal” people up.
So what is wrong with this?
Victor Hugo wrote about this issue in Le Miserables.
Am I wrong? Do we not have increased theft highly correlated with increased poverty and homelessness?
Imagine we build prisons for these people. Who will pay for these prisons? I assure you it will not be the major corporations. It will be the shrinking middle class--dissolving into the poor and the homeless. So fewer and fewer middle class taxpayers paying for more prisons to house many former members of the middle class.
Is it just me or has all the politicians, Republican and Democrats sold out the most vulnerable in this country and are selling out the remaining middle class? This trajectory can only lead to authoritarian government where the shrinking middle class and poor are seen as expendable to the interests of the rich and powerful.
Yes Trump is the face of a growing cancer in our society but he is not the cancer.