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He's one of the "friends" of DJT, who MTG says the President told her would, "get hurt" if the Epstein Files come out.... which millions of them still have not.

"Political and Administration Ties

Nomination of Benjamin Black:

The connection between the two camps gained a direct administrative link when President Donald Trump nominated Leon Black's son, Benjamin Black, to serve as CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)." AI

"Trump Picks Apollo Co-Founder's Son for DFC After Firm Shows Interest in X Debt
By Donald Shaw

Published on Apr 9, 2025

Private equity firm Apollo Global Management and its billionaire co-founder Leon Black are poised to gain a direct link to the Trump administration.

On January 31, 2025, President Donald Trump nominated Ben Black"Leon's 40-year-old son and a former Apollo associate"to serve as CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

The announcement came three days after Bloomberg reported Apollo's interest in purchasing debt tied to Elon Musk's acquisition of the social media platform X.

In February 2025, Apollo purchased an unspecified amount of X's debt at 97 cents on the dollar, part of a broader sale of the billions in debt that financed Musk's 2022 acquisition of the platform that also involved companies like Pimco and Citadel.

The debt sales significantly bolstered X's financial situation, enabling Musk's AI venture xAI to acquire the platform at a $45 billion valuation late last month. T

he valuation is a stark reversal from the company's struggles since Musk's $44 billion purchase in October 2022, a price that was widely seen at the time as inflated.

In September of last year, Fidelity estimated that the company had lost 79% of its value since Musk's acquisition.

But Trump's election and the desire by businesses to curry favor with Musk in his new role with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) appear to have been a boon for investor interest in the company...."

readsludge.com

Fencing goes up around the main Kennedy Center building after Trump-aligned board votes to close it
apnews.com

... Fencing went up Wednesday around the main Kennedy Center building, a day after the Trump-aligned board voted to close most of the performing arts center for repairs. A Democratic congresswoman who is a trustee quickly sought an emergency court hearing to prevent what she called the "unlawful closing." ...

More from the article ...

... When law enforcement and tech salespeople pitch ALPRs to city councils, they stick to a familiar script. They trumpet the technology, which is often provided by private companies like Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions, or Axon, as an essential tool for solving high-stakes crimes, such as car jacking, kidnapping, or murder.

But when you strip away the carefully curated talking points, the data continues to reveal a different (and frankly, ridiculous) story. An EFF analysis of ALPR search logs from Flock Safety systems shows that officers across the country are spying on drivers for completely nonsensical "reasons."

Police are routinely searching the Flock database without providing any legitimate justification, making a mockery of our civil liberties by logging reasons like "LOL" (short for "laugh out loud"), "LMAO" (short for "laughing my ass off"), "sexy," and "idk" (short for "I don't know") to access sensitive ALPR location data.

And in some cases, officers are just mashing keyboard buttons rather than articulating the nature of their searches.

Flock Safety claims it has improved its system by requiring officers to select from a dropdown list of crimes before running a search -- but that only makes it easier for officers to hide improper searches behind the veneer of uniformity.

The system does not require proof that the dropdown reason actually matches the true purpose of the search.

With no warrant requirements, limited guardrails, and deficient audit processes, ALPR databases have fostered a culture of unrestricted access to everyone's location information. This culture of abuse has allowed police to treat a mass surveillance network like their own personal search engine, permitting the tracking of the movements of everyday citizens for low-level complaints, personal whims, and sometimes, seemingly, for the lols. ...


@#3 ... Thousands of dollars. That won't even pay for a cake. ...

abcnews.com

... A Russian oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin allegedly contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars for events around Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding to Bettina Anderson earlier this year, according to a report from ProPublica published Monday, with Anderson not disputing the "gift." ...

Zed,
"I am anxious for SOME moral code to be applied to governance."
Whose moral code?
Of course laws reflect moral judgments. Laws about murder, theft, fraud, abuse, and many others rest partly on judgments about right and wrong.
But that is different from government adopting a particular religious or moral code and imposing it on everyone.
After 250 years, many of the broad rules necessary for an orderly society are already part of our legal system. What we are increasingly arguing about now are the harder questions where legitimate values conflict, individual rights collide, and reasonable people disagree about what government should be allowed to force on society.
Legitimate and perceived rights increasingly overlap and conflict. That is where constitutional boundaries become much harder to navigate, and where the courts are often called upon to determine whether government has crossed those boundaries or whether one person's claimed rights unlawfully infringe upon the rights of another.
And that is exactly why I resist the idea that either conservatives or liberals should become the nation's moral standard-bearer.
My moral beliefs guide me. How I conduct my life is between me and God.
They do not automatically give me the right to make everyone else live by them, nor should anyone else's moral beliefs automatically be imposed on me.

#53 | Posted by BillJohnson

No you obtuse turd, zed is referring to the FACT that the current administration and their magat scum supporters and acting upon no observable moral code. they are grifters and nihilists and sadists one and all.

Zed is imploring that they act in SOME way moral, you know, NOT in mean spirited self-interest

Speaking of brokers ...

Trump Made More Stock Trades Than Congress Combined While Pushing a (stock) Trading Ban

Donald Trump made nearly 28,700 stock trades in 17 months, more than the entire Congress's 22,200 combined, even as he pushes a lawmaker trading ban that leaves his own portfolio untouched.

The figures, drawn from a Bloomberg review of disclosures through June, land as Republicans turn stock trading into a campaign issue ahead of the midterms.

More from the article ...

... The survey, opens new tab, commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and conducted in 34 countries from July 21 to August 5, reflected a grim view of economic developments and security challenges, with nearly 70% saying the world had gotten worse over the past year.

Only 38% of those surveyed felt their national economies would improve over the next five years, with optimism down sharply in two of the largest economies. Optimism fell 26 percentage points in India to 50% and 16 points in China to 56%.

Despite widespread pessimism, 57% of those surveyed said countries should cooperate to solve global challenges such as security even if it means compromising on some national interests. That's up from 55% in last year's survey.

The poll, released ahead of next week's United Nations General Assembly in New York, comes after nearly seven months of war in the Middle East that has upended global energy markets, lowered economic growth and fueled inflation. That followed a year of turmoil sparked by sweeping tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on imports from nearly every country. ...

Canada received the highest level of comfort for taking a leading role in world affairs at 60%, followed by Japan (58%) and Australia (55%). The European Union and Britain were closely behind, with 55% and 54%, while the United Nations stood at 52%.

By contrast, just 39% were comfortable with the United States taking a leading role and 37% with China. Russia was viewed even more negatively, with just 26% comfortable. ...


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