The News & Guts Digest: a Serving of the Day’s Top News Stories with a Little Side of Commentary
Raise Your Right Hand
A New York judge on Thursday ordered Trump and two of his children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, to provide sworn testimony within three week to investigators probing the family’s business practices…
…The Trumps have already said they’ll appeal and they can always stonewall prosecutors by invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. (Friendly reminder: In 2016 Trump told a rally in Iowa “The mob takes the fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”)
…Eric Trump has already taken the Fifth after a judge ordered him to sit for an interview with New York investigators last year…
…NY Attorney General Letitia James and the new Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg, are trying to determine if the Trump Organization intentionally inflated the value of their properties in order to receive favorable terms on loans and tax settlements. If they did, they could be subject to civil penalties…
…More on the Trump family hustle below, but first…
Enough With the Nazi Stuff
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, tweeted a photo of mass murderer Adolph Hitler on Thursday in a hyperbolic attempt to criticize Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau…
…The photo, presented in classic meme form, included the caption “Stop comparing me to Justin Trudeau…I had a budget.”
…Musk deleted the tweet, which was condemned by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. “Using the image of Adolf Hitler & therefore exploiting the tragedy of all people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany created by him is sad & disturbing. It disrespects the memory of all victims & hurts many people,” the organization said in a social media post…
… “Musk may believe posting a meme comparing Justin Trudeau to a genocidal dictator who exterminated millions is an appropriate way to criticize policies he disagrees with. It is not. It never is. Musk must apologize and find other ways to voice his displeasure,” said The American Jewish Committee…
…The Tesla CEO has yet to address the controversy, but in a follow-up tweet, he recommended a book “for an in-depth explanation.”
…The Wall Street Journal notes that Musk has made Hitler references in the past. ” In January,” the outlet reports “he tweeted a photo that appears to look like a book cover with an illustration of Hitler that said, ‘Everyone I Don’t Like is Hitler…A child’s guide to online political discussion.’”
…Musk is a vexing figure who seems hell-bent on tarnishing his significant accomplishes by continually engaging in immature and trollish behavior…
…Distressingly, invoking Nazism has become a trend in modern political discourse. On Wednesday, at a speaking event, right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk compared restaurants asking for his vaccine status to living in Nazi Germany: “I never want to hear again, like, how could the atrocities of Germany happen? Like, go to Corner Bakery, alright? You’ll see. Seriously. Show me your papers. Like, what? Like, I want a panini. This is weird. Show me your papers. And so, it really sunk in and here I am coming back home, you know, and being treated like I’m visiting East Germany. Literally, no exaggeration.”
…David French, the thoughtful Never Trump conservative, tweeted about Kirk: “The dangerous thing isn’t that there are unhinged extremists out there (there always have been), but that they have huge followings. This is indefensible nonsense. Inflammatory nonsense. To the laughter and cheers of the crowd.”
The Curious Case of Melania’s Digital Hat
Let’s be real: there’s something intuitively scammy about the digital art market. Last year, nearly $40 billion was spent on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are essentially collectibles that only exist in cyberspace. You don’t hang this stuff on a wall; you look at it on a computer screen and hope its value grows…
…Celebrities, major corporations, and even media outlets like CNN hoped to cash in on this craze. Last month, former First Lady Melania Trump threw her hat into the NFT ring, quite literally…
…A watercolor painting of Melania donning a large white hat was digitized and put up for auction. The winning bidder received an NFT of the watercolor, the physical painting, and the hat for good measure…
…In a press release before the auction, Melania said the bidding would be begin at a quarter million dollars, payable in a cryptocurrency called Solana. Ultimately, the NFT sold for $175,000. Melania said a “portion of the proceeds” would go toward foster children…
…But here’s the twist: Vice, the tech-savvy news outlet, endeavored to uncover who bought the collectibles and discovered that the digital paper trail led to the very same company that sold the NFT…In other words, the public records show Melania bought her own hat…
…Vice’s investigative legwork, matched by Bloomberg, is a bit head-spinning and is further obscured by the complexity of cryptocurrency transactions in general. It is possible that someone gave Melania – or her NFT company – cash and then she had to buy cryptocurrency to reimburse herself, but an expert interviewed by Vice said the transaction appears more complex than that…
…Perhaps it’s not surprising that a woman who watched her husband sell branded water, steaks, and energy drinks decided to make money off of a specious digital fad…We just hope those foster kids got their cut.
Trump $pams Donors
Strategists in the Republican Party are concerned that Donald Trump’s non-stop texts and emails to conservative donors are creating an unhealthy fundraising environment that crowds out small candidates and will eventually drain grassroots supporters of their spare cash…
…In 2022, Axios notes, Trump has sent an average of 14 emails per day to donors, many of them containing inflammatory rhetoric and exaggerated claims…
…That makes it’s extremely difficult for anyone not named Trump to cut through all the inbox clutter…
…And it’s not like Trump shares the wealth. Last week, The New York Times reported that in 2021 Trump steered $600,000 from his PACs towards properties he owns in the form of rent, meals, meeting expenses and hotel stays. That same year, he gave out just $350,000 to the scores of political candidate he endorsed…
A Pawn on Ice
15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva stumbled through her final Olympic performance on Thursday, and fell out of medal contention…
…Valieva, the runaway favorite entering the Beijing games, has been at the center of a doping scandal since it was revealed earlier this week that a December drug test indicated that she had taken a banned substance…
…Valieva and her handlers have suggested that she consumed the drug by accident. Almost everyone thinks that explanation is implausible, especially because other legal drugs were found in her system that are designed to enhance the effect of the prohibited one…
…The International Olympic Committee ruled that Valieva could compete while the whole kerfuffle was being probed. If investigators ultimately determined that she cheated, she wouldn’t receive any medals….
…That’s now a moot point for the individual competition, although Valieva did help her team win a group gold earlier in the Games. It remains to be seen what will happen with that result…
…It’s important to keep in mind Valieva’s age. Was she really making decisions about complex medications that could give her an edge, or were they forced on her by a Russian sports culture that routinely encourages cheating? Consider this reporting from The New York Times:
After a few halfhearted waves, [Valieva] stepped off the ice to be greeted by her coach, Eteri Tutberidze. They did not hug.
“Why did you let it go?” Tutberidze asked in Russian in a scene broadcast on live television. “Why did you stop fighting? Explain it to me, why? You let it go after that axel. Why?”
Valieva did not reply.
Reminder: Do Not Trust Putin
Russia continues to insist that is has no intention of invading Ukraine and that it is steadily removing troops from its shared border with its southern neighbor. Problem is, Western leaders haven’t seen any evidence of a pullback…
… “Russia says it’s drawing down those forces,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the United Nations on Thursday. “We do not see that happening on the ground. Our information indicates clearly that these forces, including ground troops, aircraft, ships, are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days,” Blinken said.
…Blinken and President Biden both said on Thursday that Russia is planning a “false flag” operation to manufacture a justification for invading Ukraine. Blinken said that could come in the form a “fabricated, so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia” or the “invented discovery of a mass grave.”
…As if on cue, Russia violated a ceasefire agreement in the Donbas region of Ukraine, shelled a kindergarten, and blamed it all on the Ukrainians. No casualties were reported…
…Biden warned that the chances of war remain “very high.”
Also Churning This News Cycle
… “The BA.2 virus — a subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant — isn’t just spreading faster than its distant cousin, it may also cause more severe disease and appears capable of thwarting some of the key weapons we have against Covid-19, new research suggests,” reports CNN.
… “In May 2020, after an intense courtship, Spotify announced a licensing agreement to host Mr. Rogan’s show exclusively. Although reported then to be worth more than $100 million, the true value of the deal that was negotiated at the time, which covered three and a half years, was at least $200 million, with the possibility of more, according to two people familiar with the details of the transaction who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss it,” reports The New York Times.
… “The U.S. produced more petroleum than it consumed in 2020, and the numbers were essentially in balance in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration,” reports Axios.