Envelope Math
Bribery
Dictionary dot com defines a bribe as ‘money or any other valuable consideration given or promised with a view to corrupting the behavior of a person, especially in that person’s performance as an athlete, public official, etc.’ A bribe is money or something else of value you offer someone to do something for you they would not have normally done. Right?
The pivotal phrase, according to the US Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the law, is would not have normally done. The Court dismissed former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s bribery conviction because the things he did for people giving him money - setting up meetings with state officials, talking to people on their behalf, organizing events - were not ‘official acts’ of office, so it wasn’t bribery. Because, you know, governors often organize events for friends. Who also happen to be their largest campaign donors.
This year, the Court overturned a conviction against a former Andrew Cuomo aide for accepting money to facilitate a real estate deal. Again, the Justices unanimously ruled that because jury instructions in the case were ‘too vague’, no bribery. Gorsuch and Thomas went farther, claiming that Congress’s law defining this sort of fraud as depriving members of the public of the intangible right to ‘honest services’ was too imprecise, because their toddler brains can’t fathom why it’s unfair for someone to pay for access to politicians who do their bidding over the general needs of the public.
These are two examples of the Court’s latest crusade to narrow the definition of public office corruption and, with the liberal justices are happily on board, it’s a rare bipartisan rebuke of the idea that we should hold our elected officials to a higher standard than a nightclub bouncer.
It’s worth noting that, despite this, the US absolutely loves putting local officials in jail, especially when they are Black. The Court didn’t save Seth Williams from doing three years for bribery. Or Kwame Kilpatrick. Or Catherine Pugh. Maybe they didn’t have the right lawyers.
Anyhow, we’re talking about bribery because noted Latino Senator Robert Menendez was indicted again last week and oh my god the details are amazing:
Prosecutors say they found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and two gold bars during a search of the couple’s home, including some inside Menendez’s jackets.
Helllll yeah. We’ll get to the cash and gold in a minute, but first let’s examine what Menendez (allegedly) did. He made a couple calls:
…Menendez called state prosecutors to try and “disrupt” an investigation into another businessman in exchange for a car. And they claim Menendez tried to get President Biden to appoint a US Attorney for New Jersey who would scuttle yet another investigation for a donor — in exchange for “cash, furniture, and gold bars.”
I mean, according to the Supreme Court’s ‘official acts’ standard, was making a few calls to help a friend such a bad thing? He was just talking to people on his buddy’s behalf, in exchange for a car. Who amongst us wouldn’t do the same?
You may recall Menendez was indicted in 2015 for bribery and corruption. He was accused to helping a buddy out - some Florida eye doctor - in exchange for lavish trips and gifts. His lawyers argued that these were simply favors between two best buds, and a jury deadlocked in 2017, ending in a mistrial.
This time, prosecutors have a bunch of texts and emails and fingerprints on envelopes full of cash they claim conclusively proves Menendez took bribes in exchange for trying to help two of his ‘friends’ out of legal jams. Isn’t it funny how many politicians are friends with people under criminal indictment? Anyhow, here are some fun tidbits:
In October 2021, Menendez and Nadine returned from a foreign trip, and Daibes’s driver gave them a ride back to their house. The next day, prosecutors say Menendez did a web search for “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”
[…]
Later that month, Menendez again searched “kilo of gold price.” He also called the DOJ official again, and called Daibes immediately afterward. In March 2022, Nadine brought two one-kilogram gold bars (then worth $60,000 each) to a jeweler to be sold.
And here is a photo of the cash they found in the Senator’s monogrammed jackets:
Truly excellent, no notes. I am not convinced that even with the overwhelming evidence and literal bags of cash, prosecutors would have a slam dunk case against the Senator. After all, we keep learning that if you’re Not Black and a politician just Helping a Friend, it’s probably not bribery, especially if the judge gives vague jury instructions.
But! The third charge might be what finally sinks ol’ Bobby:
Menendez used his office to help the government of Egypt in various ways, including by providing non-public information about US embassy personnel and planned changes in armed policy.
Yeahhhhh, passing secrets to foreign governments in exchange for cash is probably not going to fly. Difficult to claim you’re old friends with the Egyptian foreign minister. American courts may have decided they’re willing to look the other way when Senators and governors take bribes, but they get the vapors when ‘national security’ is waved under their noses. As of this writing Menendez has refused to resign because, you know, he’s been openly corrupt for a decade and not much has happened, so why stop now? Also, they seized all his gold and cash so he probably needs more bribes to pay his lawyers.
Also, while we’re talking bribery, we should talk about one of the Justices who will undoubtedly be ruling on the appeal of any conviction Menendez might receive. I’m referring, of course, to the latest Clarence Thomas scandal:
Thomas has attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years, according to interviews with three former network employees and one major donor. The justice was brought in to speak, staffers said, in the hopes that such access would encourage donors to continue giving.
That puts Thomas in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term.
If I were a ProPublica journalist who’s spent the last year exposing a dozen different Supreme Court scandals I don’t think I’d be able to muster the outrage necessary to describe yet another conservative Justice attending yet another closed-door billionaires’ retreat as ‘extraordinary’, but what the author is referring to is the nature of this particular event - a fundraising gathering for the Koch political network, apparently dangling a Supreme as a sweetener to get people to open their checkbooks.
Legal analysts believe this is a smoking gun, because Thomas can’t claim it was just a fireside chat with a bunch of rich guys who always happen to have open seats on their Gulfstreams whenever they’re headed to a yacht or hunting lodge. He was at the event explicitly to speak to donors, which is political activity, which judges are not supposed to be doing, even though the Supreme Court exempted itself from ethics rules.
It also puts Thomas (and Alito whenever they inevitably uncover him doing the same shit) in conflict for upcoming Court business, because the Kochs fund and support conservative cases being served up for a rubber stamp by the right wing judiciary the Koch network installed through decades of bribery, probably.
This is a lot of words to say that political corruption has become basically legal in this country, because governors, Senators, and judges can get away with it if they’re powerful enough. The rest of the elite apparatus - the only people who could potentially rein it in - are afraid to come out forcefully against it because chances are they and their colleagues are engaged in the same behavior.
It is a stark illustration of the actual two-tiered justice system our rampantly criminal ex-President keeps Truthing about, where Black mayors in poor cities get tossed in jail for the same shit a white governor gets a Supreme Court pardon for. Where most people don’t have the money or the friends to get elected, so they can get bribed by a new set of friends so those friends can avoid their own fraud charges or build new developments in Brooklyn or whatever.
Trump
Speaking of our rampantly criminal ex-President, did you hear the news? A judge has handed down the harshest penalty yet against Trump and his sons:
In a dramatic step just days before the trial is set to start, New York supreme court justice Arthur Engoron issued a partial ruling largely agreeing with James. He also ordered the cancellation of New York business certificates of all companies related to Trump and his two sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, making it difficult for Trump to continue running his real estate business in the state.
This is a pretty big deal! In a few short days, Trump and his companies will go to trial over whether they’ll have to pay $250 million in damages for the decades-long fraud. And it’s a bench trial, which means a judge will decide things.
Trump has been given ten days to nominate people who can oversee the dissolution of his companies, since he and his sons can no longer run them. The judge could rule, along with the damages, that Trump and his spawn could be permanently barred from serving as offices at any New York companies.
What does all this mean? Trump still has significant holdings in New York, and who knows how liquid any of them are now that they must be sold off. Does he have $250 million in cash to pay the state? I imagine his assets are worth at least that much, but given his propensity for taking on debt (via inflated valuations) and the opacity of his finances, who really knows.
It’s all very, very funny and couldn’t happen to a worse family of dipshits. Since the New York Times released Trump’s taxes years ago it has been obvious he built his empire on a long-running accounting fraud, but it’s pleasantly surprising to see him reap any of what he has sown. Let’s end with a quote from a judge who is clearly Sick of Trump’s Shit:
In pre-trial hearings before the ruling, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise told the judge that the former president is “an investment genius” and “probably one of the most successful real estate developers in the country”.
“President Trump is a master at finding value where others see nothing,” Kise told Engoron.
In his ruling, it is clear that Engoron sees things differently.
“In defendants’ world: rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies,” Engoron wrote.
“This is a fantasy world, not a real world.”
Retail Crime
We’ve talked before about the supposed epidemic of retail crime in the US. Despite what retail executives claim about organized criminals conveniently located only in urban and poor areas stealing huge amounts of stuff, the data consistently fail to back up their claims.
It doesn’t stop politicians getting in on the act, though:
On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to combat "organized retail crime." More than $267 million will be distributed in grants to 55 cities and counties across the state. Individual police departments will receive cash infusions of up to $23 million.
But, as usual, the governor presented no statistics proving there was actually a wave of organized retail crime sweeping his state. The National Retail Federation (NRF), as we’ve examined previously, indicates that ‘shrink’ has held steady since 2020.
So if the retailers can’t prove there’s a uptick in retail theft, what about the cops?
2023 data from most major California cities, however, does not reflect a significant increase in shoplifting or organized retail crime.
In San Francisco - the city every rightwing blogger insists is a smoldering hellhole - theft is down, as is burglary. LA has seen an uptick in theft, but not enough to justify pumping a quarter billion dollars into unspecified safety measures across the state.
There is a different type of organized crime going on in California, however, which the governor has steadfastly ignored - wage theft:
According to a CalMatters analysis of wage claim data from the Economic Policy Institute, historical claims indicate the average worker lost an annual equivalent of more than two months' rent in California, nearly three months of childcare in California, or nearly a year's worth of groceries.
They note, "a year of stolen wages used to equate to a year of groceries for a family of four, but not this year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, now it would pay for only 75% of that typical family's annual grocery bill."
So while Newsom has taken time out of his busy schedule promoting driverless trucks and abandoning trans children to set aside hundreds of millions for companies claiming thieves are looting their stores, those companies are stealing money out of the pockets of the employees they expect to help combat a crime wave that simply doesn’t exist.
Car Theft
An actual crime wave facing America is thefts of Kias and Hyundais. Both brands refused to install basic anti-theft technology for the last decade, making their cars trivially easy to steal:
Anti-theft devices are required by law in Canada, but not in the U.S. The rest of the car industry widely adopted immobilizers, and Kia and Hyundai use them in Canada and Europe. But in the U.S, just 26 percent of Kias and Hyundais had immobilizers as late as 2015. In total, some nine million vehicles in the U.S. are vulnerable.
The immobilizers cost around $100 to manufacture, so their absence in US cars can be chalked up to laziness and greed. Once the absence was discovered by car thieves, thefts skyrocketed:
Equipped with only a screwdriver and a USB cord and watching one or two tutorials, pretty much anyone can steal a Kia or Hyundai without an immobilizer. In several lawsuits filed by U.S. cities against Kia and Hyundai, plaintiffs allege the thefts are mostly done by teenagers, some too young to legally drive, for joyriding, crashing, vandalizing, or in some cases to then commit other crimes.
Yeah, I mean, if cars are that easy to steal, why wouldn’t you? It is grimly funny that the current wave of thefts, which are up as much as twenty five hundred percent in cities like Chicago and Milwaukee, were largely driven by social media.
What did Kia and Hyundai do? At first, they tried to sell owners an aftermarket theft device for $170 dollars, installed at dealerships. Then, earlier this year, they pushed software updates to provide an ‘ignition kill’ feature, but as of July more than five million cars remained vulnerable.
Several lawsuits are going after the carmakers for their negligence, but as usual the thefts are impacting normal people the most, typically those who can’t afford to get a new car, or repair the ones wrecked by joyriders:
"Kia is basically telling its customers that they are on their own,” said Paul Laier, whose 2021 Kia Forte has been stolen once and was then broken into 10 days after he got it back. “I don't think they are taking the accountability that they should be.”
Even if they can keep their cars safe, resale value of vulnerable cars (and the brands as a whole) has tanked, and insurance companies are gouging anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck with one of the models in question.
Clearly the efforts taken by the car brands are insufficient, but where is the government in all of this? Nowhere:
…the affected models have not been recalled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a federal agency under the Department of Transportation, because the car technically complies with federal regulations.
Come on! The NHTSA could recall the cars to, say, require they install the software update, which millions of owners have yet to do. But they haven’t, because I guess ‘safety’ doesn’t include being able to park your car on the street without the fear it’ll be broken into and stolen or ruined.
Short Cons
TechDirt - “Looking at Data.ai’s app download charts, the exTwitter app… is barely in the top 100 downloads. At last look, it was 96th. Which is embarrassing. More people are downloading the Jersey Mike’s app and “GeometryDash” than exTwitter.”
NY Mag - “A friendly Free Press staffer sported a pink dress with the words SHADOW BANNED embroidered across the chest, and the room cheered when a projection of Camille Paglia popped onto the stage, as perfect an example of a brilliant woman willing to say crazy shit as one can conjure.”
AP - “Harris said that would make it easier for them to obtain an auto loan or a home mortgage. Roughly one in five people report having medical debt. The vice president said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is beginning the rulemaking process to make the change.”
NY Times - “Mehran’s is an elaborate joke among friends that, somewhere along the way, became entirely serious. On Saturday, for one night only, Mehran’s Steak House opened to the public.”
ABC News - “…Molly Michael, told investigators that -- more than once -- she received requests or taskings from Trump that were written on the back of notecards, and she later recognized those notecards as sensitive White House materials -- with visible classification markings -- used to brief Trump while he was still in office about phone calls with foreign leaders or other international-related matters.”
DOJ - “The complaint alleges that Agri Stats violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by collecting, integrating and distributing competitively sensitive information related to price, cost and output among competing meat processors. This conduct harms customers, including grocery stores and American families.”
WIRED - “In an August earnings call, SoundThinking CEO Ralph Clark announced to investors that the company was negotiating an agreement to acquire parts of Geolitica—formerly called PredPol—and transition its customers to SoundThinking’s own “patrol management” solution.”
Grub Street - “If dinner were better, the restaurant would be famous for that instead.”
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