Vance gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference for an audience of one, Donald Trump, By Hal M. Brown

 ..

Vance didn’t give a hoot about what the people in the room thought about his speech at the Munich Security Conference when he went on and on lambasting our allies for things like arresting protesters who violated the no-protest zone at abortion clinics.which he decribed as an affront to free speech. Of course there was no mention of the country which was the home of Alexei Navalny where exercising free speech can get you poisoned and imprisoned. 

Considering that this is a security conference and there’s a war raging in Europe, what did the audience hear about Ukraine? We barely heard crickets.

Fom Vance’s speech.

Now Yeah. I hope that's not the last bit of applause that I get, but we, we gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security and normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it's important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America. Now I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too. Now these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard, and I say ourselves because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.

As you see above according to Vance “the threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within.”

Here’s another piece of pro-Russian propaganda Trump will like:

Now we're at the point of course that the situation has gotten so bad that this December Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections, but I'd ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it's wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few $100,000 of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with. 

Clearly the real audience for his speech was primarily one person, Donald J. Trump, his lord and master. The message to Trump is that he is saying that there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to Russia. Secondly, it was the anti-woke and pro-life members of MAGA who bother to tune in to morning television.

Vance is deluded if he thinks Trump actually cares about any of the pro-life falderal. Nobody who thinks rationally would doubt that the notoriously cheap Trump would readily pay for an abortion for a woman he inconveniently impregnated. Mathematicians don’t have a number infinitesimal enough to measure how little Trump cares about aving the life of the unborn.

I listened to Vance for as long as CNN was broadcasting it. That gave methe the idea for this Substack. Then I found the entire text. If I was a real journalist I’d read the entire thing and comments on all the thingsI thought were relevant. Instead I just searched for the words “Ukraine” and “Russia.” 

Addendum on reviewing the entire speech I found this part just plain weird:

And trust me, I say this with all humor. If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg's scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk. 

UPDATES: 

From Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme, NY Times

Vice President JD Vance told European leaders on Friday that their biggest security threat was not military aggression from Russia or China, but their own suppression of free speech — including efforts to block hard-right parties from joining governments.

An audience that was largely expecting Mr. Vance to lay out the Trump administration’s priorities for the trans-Atlantic alliance, NATO military spending and negotiations with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine, instead received a lecture on what Mr. Vance described as the continent’s own failures in living up to democratic ideals.

Those failures, Mr. Vance said, included efforts to restrict so-called “misinformation” and other content on social media and laws against abortion protests that he said unfairly silenced Christians.

Perhaps most strikingly, the vice president called on Europeans to drop their opposition to working with anti-immigration parties, calling them a legitimate expression of the will of voters angered by high levels of migration over the last decade. Those parties include the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, parts of which have been classified as extremist by German intelligence.

Excerpt:

None of this was particularly well-received by Europeans at the conference listening to the speech — and according to Politico's White House reporter Dasha Burns, the anger and derision burst out in the overflow room. The audience reportedly groaned as Vance highlighted the "threat from within," and one woman in attendance shouted out, "he's such a puppet!"

"In the end, there was palpable shock and anger," Burns concluded.

Trump and his associates have often not been met with the reactions they were hoping for when speaking on the world stage. In one of the most well-known incidents, diplomats openly laughed at Trump as he gave a speech to the United Nations in 2018 — though after the fact he insisted they were simply "laughing with me."

If you want to see what I am thinking throughout the day follow me on BlueSky here.

For those who want to wade through the entire speech, below. I added paragraph breaks where I thought they made sense from CSPAN is the text of Vance’s speech.

00:00:12

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. It is now my honor and pleasure to welcome the Vice President of the United States, Mr. JD Vance, who was here last year as senator, and we are very happy that he has come back to Munich, and we are very much looking forward to his speech. Please welcome Vice President JD Vance.

Show More 00:00:54

Well, thank you and thanks to all the gathered delegates and luminaries and media professionals and thanks especially to the hosts of the Munich Security Conference for being able to put on such an incredible event. We're of course thrilled to be here. We're happy to be here. And you know, one of the things that I wanted to talk about today. is of course our shared values and you know it's great to be back in Germany as you heard earlier. I was here last year as a United States senator. 

I saw a Foreign Minister, Foreign Secretary David Lammian joked that both of us last year had different jobs than we have now, but now it's time for all of our countries, for all of us who have been Fortunate enough to be given political power by our respective peoples to use it wisely to improve their lives, and I want to say that you know I was fortunate in my time here to spend some time outside the walls of this conference over the last 24 hours, and I've been so impressed by the hospitality of the people even of course as they're reeling from yesterday's horrendous attack. And the first time I was ever in Munich was with, was with my wife actually who's here with me today on a personal trip, and I've always loved the city of Munich and I've always loved its people, and I just want to say that we're very moved and our thoughts and prayers are with Munich and everybody affected by the evil inflicted on this beautiful community. We're thinking about you. We're praying for you, and we will certainly be rooting for you in the days and weeks to come. 

Now Yeah. I hope that's not the last bit of applause that I get, but we, we gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security and normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it's important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America. 

Now I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too. Now these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. 

For years we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard, and I say ourselves because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values, we must live them. 

Now within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not. And thank God they lost the Cold War. They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, invent, to build, as it turns out, you can't mandate innovation or creativity just as you can't force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe, and we believe those things are certainly connected. And unfortunately when I look at Europe today, it's sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War's winners. 

I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they've judged to be hateful content. Or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of combating misogyny on the internet, a day of action. 

I look to Sweden, where 2 weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend's murder. And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden's laws to supposedly protect free expression do not in fact grant, and I'm quoting, a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief. And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. 

A little over 2 years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 m from an abortion clinic and silently praying for 3 minutes. Not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son, he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before. Now the officers were not moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government's new buffer zones law, which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person's decision within 200 m of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution. 

Now I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person, but no, this last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones. Warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Naturally, the government readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime. 

In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat. And in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. Misinformation like for example, the idea that coronavirus had likely leak leaked from a laboratory in China. 

Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth. So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that. In Washington there is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald Trump's leadership we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer in the public square, agree or disagree. 

Now we're at the point of course that the situation has gotten so bad that this December Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections, but I'd ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it's wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few $100,000 of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with. 

Now the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear, and I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still, which of course brings us back to Munich. Where the organizers of this very conference have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations. 

Now again, we don't have to agree with everything or anything that people say, but when people represent, when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them. Now to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid vote a different way or even worse, win an election. 

Now this is a security conference, and I'm sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defense spending over the next few years in line with some new target. And that's great. Because as President Trump has made abundantly clear, he believes that our European friends must play a bigger role in the future of this continent. 

We don't think you hear this term burden sharing, but we think it's an important part of being in a shared alliance together that the Europeans step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger. But let me also ask you, How will you even begin to think through the kinds of budgeting questions if we don't know what it is that we are defending in the first place? I've heard a lot already in my conversations, and I've had many, many great conversations with many people gathered here in this room. I've heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course that's important, but what has seemed a little bit less clear to me and certainly I think to many of the citizens of Europe is what exactly it is that you're defending yourselves for. 

What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important. And I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges, but the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years. 

Have we learned nothing that thin mandates produce unstable results, but there is so much of value that can be accomplished with the kind of democratic mandate that I think will come from being more responsive to the voices of your citizens. If you're going to enjoy competitive economies, if you're going to enjoy affordable energy and secure supply chains. Then you need mandates to govern because you have to make difficult choices to enjoy all of these things, and of course we know that very well in America. 

You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, whether that's the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news. Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society. And of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost 1 in 5 people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all-time high. It's a similar number, by the way, in the United States, also an all-time high. 

The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone, and of course it's gotten much higher since, and we know the situation, it didn't materialize in a vacuum. It's the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent and others across the world over the span of a decade. We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city. And of course I can't bring it up again without thinking about the terrible victims who had a beautiful winter day in Munich ruined. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and will remain with them. 

But why did this happen in the first place? It's a terrible story, but it's one we've heard way too many times in Europe and unfortunately too many times in the United States as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community. How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction? 

No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants, but you know what they did vote for. In England, they voted for Brexit, and agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more all over Europe, they're voting for political leaders who promised to put an end to out of control migration. 

Now I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns, but you don't have to agree with me. I just think that people care about their homes. They care about their dreams, they care about their safety and their capacity to provide for themselves and their children, and they're smart. I think this is one of the most important things I've learned in my brief time in politics. Contrary to what you might hear a couple of mountains over in Davos, the citizens of all of our nations don't generally think of themselves as educated animals or as interchangeable cogs of a global economy, and it's hardly surprising that they don't want to be shuffled about or relentlessly ignored by their leaders. 

It is the business of democracy to adjudicate these big questions at the ballot box. I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns, or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections, or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy. And speaking up and expressing opinions isn't election interference, even when people express views outside your own country and even when those people are very influential. 

And trust me, I say this with all humor. If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg's scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk. But what German democracy, what no democracy, American, German, or European, will survive is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief are invalid or unworthy of even being considered. Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There's no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don't. 

Europeans, the people have a voice. European leaders have a choice. And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future. Embrace what your people tell you, even when it's surprising, even when you don't agree. And if you do so, you can face the future with certainty and with confidence knowing that the nation stands behind each of you, and that to me is the great magic of democracy. It's not in these stone buildings or beautiful hotels. It's not even in the great institutions that we built together as a shared society. 

To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice, and if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little. As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said, Do not be afraid. We shouldn't be afraid of our people even when they express views that disagree with their leadership. 

Thank you all. Good luck to all of you. God bless you. Yeah

Government by thugs and thuggery, By Hal M. Brown

 

Can I be blunt? Sure, Hal, why not? Another way to put what Trump & Co, have done is put us on the very slippery slope of having governemt run by thugs who delight in their thuggery. From Musk's 20-somethings in DOGE, one of whom brags about what might be a case of Epididymitis (look it up) to the more intimidating J6 insurrectionists who probably will be hired as FBI agents once Kash Patel takes over, they are all thugs.

We already have ICE agents who think they are police officers (who should be protecting and serving everyone) because it says police on their body armor. They even used flash-bang grenades to round up some immigrants. Why, one might ask. Because it was a good show which was meant to intimidate, to send a message. Thom Homan and, of all people, Dr. Phil the bloodthirsty psychologist could have been imagined by Bram Stoker, might as well be weilding bludgeons. Even nicey-nice Goldlocks Pam Bondi might as well be Queen of Cruelty Catherine de Medici.

Add every calculating Jame Bond villain together and throw in steel-tooth Odd Job and we have the cast of villainous characters Trump and Musk (I don't know which one would be Auric Goldfinger), with the help of Stephen Miller and the Heritage Society, have put together to destroy or dominate the world.

I wish this was like a James Bond movie where, with daring do, and in the early movies with a little Walther PPK pistol (which perhaps Ian Flemming meant to be ironic because it was the handgun of the Gestapo and German police) and a little help from his CIA friend Felix Leiter and the Bond girl of the day, because he always prevailed. Anyway, I doubt MI6 will save us now.

This isn't fiction. Jack Reacher isn't going to help us (New series season Feb 20th for fans). The GOP managed to elevate their hero to the presidency. Love him or hate him he sold himself as a superhero and even sold AI images of himself as a muscle bound hero. That, and as someone ordained by Jesus. I wanted to believe Kamala was our Wonder Woman. She couldn't pull it off although in one of the comics she actually ran for president and won. (I had a copy of the cover on my fridge door until she lost.)

Lacking a superhero we have to win the coming battle through sheer numbers and smarts. Being righteous isn't enough. Perhaps we have tp learn how to be ruthlessly righteous.

Trump and Musk's effort to expose fraud is all sizzle and no steak. They are preeminent American fraudsters themselves, but it's worse than this. By Hal M. Brown

'A tiny drop in the bucket': DOGE claims of fraud fall apart under WaPo scrutiny

Here’s the excerpt that prompted me to take the photo on top of the page:

Despite claims from Donald Trump, Elon Musk and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has uncovered massive fraud being committed against taxpayers, an analysis by the Washington Post called the assertions all sizzle and no steak.

In an analysis by the WaPo's Aaron Blake, he made a distinction between accusations of criminal fraud –– of which there is little evidence –– and waste which has long been an obsession on both sides of the aisle.

More importantly, he noted that Trump and his allies are conflating fraud with programs the president "simply doesn’t like or agree with."

The bullet points below are the sizzle from The Washington Post:

By Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was pressed on the supposed evidence of fraud — and seemingly came prepared.

“As for the actual receipts, we are happy to provide them, and I actually brought some today,” Leavitt said, as she waved around printouts.

She proceeded to mention four things:

• A $36,000 contract for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

• A $3.4 million contract for “inclusive innovation” at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

• $57,000 for climate change programs in Sri Lanka.

• A limestone mine in Pennsylvania where federal employee retirements are processed on paper.

Truly, in a huge government, where’s the steak? I’d say this is barely even a sizzle.

Hiring an honest hacker to catch hackers makes sense, so why not have a fraudster expose fraud? To answer this question we have to consider the difference between a hacker and a fraudster and look at their motivations. Some hackers hack for fun and to feel superior, not for profit or nefarious reasons. Fraudsters generally commit fraud for profit or, like both Trump and George Santos did about their accomplishments, for personal gain. Trump managed the fraud, possibly of all time, that propelled himself to the presidency. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, he convinced voters he was a genius businessman.

The word "irony" has become as ubiqiutous as the word "coup" when writing about the Trump and MAGA march to monarchy.

Leaving aside why I'd rather not call what Trump is doing a coup, prefering the word blitzkreig (I explained this here), let me call out the fraudsters who have declared themselves, not in so many words, to be like big game hunters gunning down stampeding elephants who are about to crush innocent villagers.

They want to convince us that they are gunning down rampaging fraudsters before they trample over innocent taxpayers.

In the legal sense, Trump is a convicted fraudster. Musk is a fraudster too.  This is still on the SEC website. I'm going to post it on the bottom of the page so if it is taken down you can refer to it.

Both Trump and Musk are fraudsters in much more important ways than this. They both have, and continue to, perpetrate a fraud as deadly to democracy as lethal as Zyklon B on freedom loving American people.

They believe, and want you to believe, that they are the smartest people in the world who, uniquely, are the only people who have the answers which will solve all of the country’s, and all of the world's, problems.

Trump, the fraudster who lies about crowd sizes, has repeatedly bragged about his "very, very large brain (here for example). Musk is secure enough so he doesn’t feel the need to brag about his intelligence. On an IQ test Musk might score in the very superior range, in my opinion Trump would, at best, score above average, though I have some doubt about this. (Here’s what IQ tests measure.)

Hitler has been considered by experts to have been very smart, but not a genius. (Reference). Putin is considered to have an IQ of 145. This puts him in the very superior range, smarter than 2% of all people. (Reference)

IQ’s aside, both Trump and Musk are frauds in other ways. They are spewing out lies like unrelenting projectile vomit to convince the public that there is rampant fraud in the federal government that justifies eliminating entire departments and agencies. Musk just said that this is akin to making sure you pull out the roots of a weed to make sure it doesn’t grow back. He wants everyone to believe that because there may be some fraud (he won’t call it waste) in a department or agency the entire department or agency must be eliminated.

What Trump and Musk are really trying to do is an extension of the war on Woke and DEI. They want to get rid of any government entity which works to foster compassion and empathy. They know that the employees in certain agencies are either Democrats or anti-MAGA Republicans. Once they are done with this, they will purge other departments and agencies of anyone who isn’t a MAGA loyalist. They will make sure agencies like the SEC and IRS bend to their will. Worse, they intend to turn the Department of Justice and the FBI into their own Gestapo. 

Virtually everything Trump and Musk are working together as president and his smarter co-president are trying to do is to turn America into a dictatorship ruled by toadies, psychopaths, and oligarchs.

When it comes to the claimed fraud, there is barely sizzle. When it comes to the effort to destroy democracy, there are flames coming out of the skillet.

Addendum:

From the SEC: Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges; Tesla Charged With and Resolves Securities Law Charge

Settlement Requires Musk to Step Down as Tesla’s Chairman; Tesla to Appoint Additional Independent Directors; Tesla and Musk Agree to Pay $40 Million in Penalties

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2018-226

Washington D.C., Sept. 29, 2018 —

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that Elon Musk, CEO and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based Tesla Inc., has agreed to settle the securities fraud charge brought by the SEC against him last week. The SEC also today charged Tesla with failing to have required disclosure controls and procedures relating to Musk’s tweets, a charge that Tesla has agreed to settle. The settlements, which are subject to court approval, will result in comprehensive corporate governance and other reforms at Tesla—including Musk’s removal as Chairman of the Tesla board—and the payment by Musk and Tesla of financial penalties.

According to the SEC’s complaint against him, Musk tweeted on August 7, 2018 that he could take Tesla private at $420 per share — a substantial premium to its trading price at the time — that funding for the transaction had been secured, and that the only remaining uncertainty was a shareholder vote. The SEC’s complaint alleged that, in truth, Musk knew that the potential transaction was uncertain and subject to numerous contingencies. Musk had not discussed specific deal terms, including price, with any potential financing partners, and his statements about the possible transaction lacked an adequate basis in fact. According to the SEC’s complaint, Musk’s misleading tweets caused Tesla’s stock price to jump by over six percent on August 7, and led to significant market disruption.

According to the SEC’s complaint against Tesla, despite notifying the market in 2013 that it intended to use Musk’s Twitter account as a means of announcing material information about Tesla and encouraging investors to review Musk’s tweets, Tesla had no disclosure controls or procedures in place to determine whether Musk’s tweets contained information required to be disclosed in Tesla’s SEC filings. Nor did it have sufficient processes in place to that Musk’s tweets were accurate or complete.

Musk and Tesla have agreed to settle the charges against them without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations. Among other relief, the settlements require that:

• Musk will step down as Tesla’s Chairman and be replaced by an independent Chairman. Musk will be ineligible to be re-elected Chairman for three years;

• Tesla will appoint a total of two new independent directors to its board;

• Tesla will establish a new committee of independent directors and put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk’s communications;

• Musk and Tesla will each pay a separate $20 million penalty. The $40 million in penalties will be distributed to harmed investors under a court-approved process.

“The total package of remedies and relief announced today are specifically designed to address the misconduct at issue by strengthening Tesla’s corporate governance and oversight in order to protect investors,” said Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division.

“As a result of the settlement, Elon Musk will no longer be Chairman of Tesla, Tesla’s board will adopt important reforms —including an obligation to oversee Musk’s communications with investors—and both will pay financial penalties,” added Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. “The resolution is intended to prevent further market disruption and harm to Tesla’s shareholders.”

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Walker Newell, Brent Smyth, and Barrett Atwood and supervised by Steven Buchholz, Erin Schneider, and Jina Choi in the San Francisco Regional Office and Cheryl Crumpton in the SEC’s Home Office.

 

Relgious leaders sue to prevent ICE raids on churches giving immigrants sanctuary, does Trump care? By Hal M. Brown

Here is comment I wrote to the HUFFPOST article about 27 religious groups suing to protect immigrants from ICE raids at churches.

As a Jew, this me think of history and my first thought was that today in the United States we are all German Jews circa. Nazi Germany. Then I glance down at some of the comments and am appalled by the ignroacne and hate. As far as the Nazis were concerned Jews were criminals.

I was groggy since I'd just gotten up so I made the typo spelling ignorance "ignroacne "and "glance," needed a comma, and left a word out. It should have read:

As a Jew, this made me think of history and my first thought was that today in the United States we are all German Jews circa. Nazi Germany. Then I glanced down at some of the comments and am appalled by the ignorance and hate. As far as the Nazis were concerned, Jews were criminals.

I considered writing about the HUFFPOST article this morning, but then didn't really have much to say beyond the comment I made. Then I got the email shown below. I decided not to encourage the person who wrote this by responding. Even so, I clicked where it said "Reply to Cecil Patrick" and saw that there were replies to him. I decided that I would share them and add a few thoughts.

Click images to enlarge.

The commenter who prompted these replies had almost 58 thousand "likes" to his other HUFFPOST comments. I couldn't see them because he has this feature blocked.

These replies challenged Cecil Patrick:

Here are a few of the pro-MAGA replies to my comment:

Mark S. obviously doesn’t understad what an analogy is.

This is the excerpt from HUFFPOST from the rabbinical association that is. part of the lawsuit:

“As Jewish leaders, we are mindful of our history as an immigrant people,” Central Conference of American Rabbis executive Hara Person said in a statement about the lawsuit.

“Jews in the United States came as immigrants and so we have always supported and welcomed immigrants,” Person wrote. “The most often repeated command in the Torah is to care for the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt — in this way our scripture and history compels us to work with and help immigrants and refugees.”

There is no mention of Jews taking sanctuary in synagogues or churches in Nazi Germany. While this didn't happen, I assume this in because the issue here involves immigrants and the German Jews weren't immigrants. If they were being given sanctuary in relgious buildings, the Gestapo would have have had a easier job rounding them up.

I am certainly not the first to point out that, except for Native Americans, we are all either descended from immigrants or immirgants ourselves who came here legally. Many of our ancestors were fleeing oppression in their country. All of them came here for a better life. Those Central American immigrants today are the same as them.

So far there has been no reporting I know of that churches are currently housing immigrants. They may be doing this without publicizing it. There is a likelihood that it will be a short matter of time before they do this and the word will get out. The question then is whether or not Trump, realizing that this will make it far easier for him to signficantly increase the number of immigrant arrests, will order ICE agents to raid churches which have offered immigrants sanctuary.

The lawsuit is an attempt to stop this before it happens. It "alleges the Department of Homeland Security’s authorization to make detainments at places of worship violates the First Amendment, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which curtails the federal government’s ability to restrict religious practices." I'm not a lawyer, but since ICE hasn't conducted any raids on churches, at least not yet, the case isn't as strong as it would be if they'd already done this.

Trump likes putting on a good show with the ICE raids. It's like Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, and Dr. Phil are his on the ground theatrical producers and directors.

I can't think of a better show for them that a raid on a church would be, especially one in a liberal city.

If the religious leaders win the lawsuit order the raids would be a typical Trump in your face defiance of a court order. If the immigants had already been hustled out of the country there would be nothing anybody could do to help them.

It would remain to be seen what the reaction would be from the American relgious community if ICE agents were seen on TV breaking down the doors of churches, arresting ministers, and herding immigrants out the door in chains. I doubt Trump would care since he thrives on being attacked. He could order this in part to provoke blowback. This is the nature of the psychopathic beast that he is.

Thanks to Lawrence O'Donnell... well really thanks to Donald Trump... I am wide awake at midnight writing this. By Hal M. Brown

Last night, after watching a couple of epsodes of Vienna Blood ( where a young neurologist and psychoanalyst helps a detective solve murders in 1900s Vienna) we decided to check and see what Lawrence O'Donnell was talking about. Watch the video of the segment that we foound partiuclarly disturbing below :

With lie about cop-assaulting Jan. 6 rioters, Trump is saying what you saw didn't happen

About five minutes into this segment O’Donnell showed what Trump insanely said. Lawrence said we should think about the depth of pathology that allows someone to say this and then showed the clip of the Capitol police officer sceaming as he was being crushed in a door. He went on to say that the only word for this is madness, not just audaciy, to say you didn’t see what you saw live on January 6th.

This is the article about this on HUFFPOST:

Trump Claims The Jan. 6 Cop-Assaulters He Pardoned Were The Ones Assaulted

Excerpt:

“I pardoned people who were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government,” he said in a half-hour news conference with the reporters traveling with him on his flight to the Super Bowl on Sunday.

“That’s who were assaulted and they were treated unfairly. There’s never been a group of people in this country outside of maybe one instance I can think of, but I won’t get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6,” he continued. “So no, I didn’t assault. They didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.”

I woke up at 11:30 and couldn't get this out of my mind. I was wide awake at midnight so I thought I'd get up and write my Substack. Being able to do this is a benefit of being an old man who is retired and dosen't have to go to work in the morning. I can catch up on sleep taking a nap later in the day.

I have MSNBC on as I write this. Jen Psaki, in a repeat of her earlier show. is talking about how Trump administration’s job candidates are being asked whether January 6th was an inside job and whether the 2020 election was stolen. This was reported in The Washington Post.

Of course, no matter what these candidates believe, they know what answers are required in order to be hired.

They weren't asked whether they thought Trump should have complete control of the entire government as a dictator, be able to ignore court orders, and be able to have those he considered to be his enemies prosecuted and thrown in prison, or worse. Six months or a year from now the interviewers may be asking these questions too.

Jen Psaki went on to talk about how the just pardoned Rob Blagojevich would be appointed to be the ambassador to Serbia, how my old US representative who lost the election, former mayor of a city down the road from where we live, Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been nominated to be Secretary of Labor, and how many other Republican election losers have been appointed to Executive Branch jobs. 

These people had proved themselves to be Trumpers. There was no need for them to be interogated to ascertain their loyalty. 

Assuming Kash Patel becomes FBI director, I expect there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of vacancies at the FBI. He doesn’t have to worry about taking time to conduct the usual extensive background checks required for applicants. He has some 1,600 J6 MAGA warriors he can hire. All he has to do is swear them in with a wink and a nod to actually following the oath, and then send them to the FBI academy for firearms training. Currently FBI Academy training takes 16 weeks. Learning to shoot a firearm without hitting too many people you aren’t aiming at would take about a week, maybe less. (When I became a reserve police office it took me an hour to be able to hit the target the first time I fired a handgun.) 

Patel could dispatch his new J6 FBI agents across the country to arrest people in a short time. Many of them would be easy to find since lots of them live in and around Washington, DC. The FBI has about two dozen planes, so sending agents further away would be easy.

It bears knowing the history of the Gestapo. It was founded three months after the Nazis came into power. When the Gestapo was first established in 1933, it had a small staff of about 300 agents. It was originally created to combat political opposition to the Nazi regime and before long was commiting atrocities.It grew to over 30,000 by the end of the war.

The FBI will provide well paid job opportunities for members of the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Boogaloo Boys.

I rather doubt you feel safer reading this. I certainly don’t. Now it’s 2:00 AM. I’m not sure that getting this out of my system will enable me to fall asleep.