#OlderArticles.



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+ More of Trump’s Banks Cut Ties as Backlash Grows Over Violence


By Shahien Nasiripour
January 12, 2021, 2:45 PM CST


Deutsche Bank and at least two U.S. lenders retreat over riot
Others such as JPMorgan, Capital One haven’t signaled decision

Donald Trump’s tumultuous relationship with the financial industry is once again under pressure after his top creditor, his hometown bank and even his mortgage lender spurned him in the wake of riots at the U.S. Capitol.

The question is whether his other banks and financial backers -- including giants Capital One Financial Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. -- plan to keep him as a client.

Fresh strains in Trump’s relationship with the industry began emerging late Monday. Deutsche Bank AG decided not to conduct more business with Trump or his family company while waiting for him to pay off roughly $300 million in loans in years ahead, a person with knowledge of the situation said. Manhattan-based Signature Bank, a mere 10-minute walk down Fifth Avenue from Trump Tower, announced it’s closing Trump accounts holding about $5.3 million.

Then on Tuesday, Professional Bank, which once gave him an $11 million mortgage, said it won’t do more deals with the Trump Organization and “will be winding down the relationship effective immediately.”

Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons running the family business while his father is in the White House, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

With New York City joining an onslaught of companies and entities looking to pull back from doing business with Trump after he encouraged a mob of supporters to storm the Capitol, here’s a look at the firms that provide him with credit or hold his money, and what they have said about those ties:


(more)



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-12/more-of-trump-s-banks-cut-ties-as-backlash-grows-over-violence

#OlderArticles.


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+ January 21, 2021 - 02:47 PM EST

Florida bank says it has closed Trump's accounts

BY JOSEPH CHOI

A Florida bank announced Thursday that it has closed down former President Trump's account, joining a growing list of entities that have cut ties with the former president following the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

In his financial disclosures, Trump had stated he had two money-market accounts with Banks United, The Washington Post reports. The accounts held somewhere between $5.1 million and $25.2 million.

"We no longer have any depository relationship with him," said Banks United, without giving reasons for its decision to shutter the accounts.

Another Florida bank, Professional Bank, last week announced that it would be cutting ties with Trump, saying it would no longer conduct business with the former president or his organizations.

Signature Bank in New York and Deutsche Bank have also said they will no longer be conducting future business with Trump. Signature Bank notably took a strong stance against Trump and his allies in Congress, calling for him to resign and saying it would not conduct business with lawmakers who had objected to certifying the presidential election.

Deutsche Bank is seeking to resolve more than $300 million in loans, reportedly looking to offload the loans onto another lender due to the negative press their dealings with Trump has caused. Deutsche Bank's relationship with the Trump Organization is under a civil investigation by New York attorney general Letitia James.


(more)


https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/policy/finance/banking-financial-institutions/535282-florida-bank-says-it-has-closed-trumps-accounts%3famp

+ Latest News: Facebook to hold politicians accountable for disinformation, suspends Donald Trump's account for two years

Economic Times | Jun 05, 2021 12.27 AM

Latest News: Facebook to hold politicians accountable for disinformation, suspends Donald Trump's account for two years
Facebook said it will suspend former President Donald Trump's accounts for two years following its finding that he stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection.
Facebook also plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that automatically exempted politicians from rules that banned hate speech and abuse. The company has said it has never applied this policy to Trump.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/newsblogs/latest-daily-news-and-updates-june-4/amp_liveblog/83222678.cms

#OlderArticles.


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+ These Businesses and Institutions Are Cutting Ties With Trump

Several large banks and the P.G.A. are among those that have disassociated themselves from the president and his allies since his supporters stormed the Capitol.

Other companies and organizations have begun to cut ties to Trump-related entities since the Capitol rampage.

By The New York Times
Published Jan. 11, 2021
Updated Jan. 27, 2021

A growing number of companies and institutions have taken actions against former President Donald Trump and his associates since the deadly rampage at the Capitol on Jan. 6 by the president’s supporters.

Social media companies barred Mr. Trump from their platforms, universities stripped him of honorary degrees, major banks paused political contributions, and the P.G.A. of America said it would no longer hold the 2022 P.G.A. Championship at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.

Here is a list of entities that have severed ties with Mr. Trump or distanced themselves from the president — and in some cases, Republican politicians who supported his efforts to overturn the election. Many were identified by the newsletter Popular Information.

(more)


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/politics/trump-politicians-donations-degrees.amp.html

+ They joined the Wisconsin Proud Boys looking for brotherhood. They found racism, bullying and antisemitism.

Will Carless, USA TODAY

Mon, June 21, 2021, 1:41 PM


KENOSHA, Wis. – Daniel Berry said he was searching for camaraderie.

The 40-year-old Army veteran yearned to forge the sort of bonds he had in the military: a brotherhood of like-minded men watching one another’s backs, holding one another up, united in a common goal.


Last year, Berry said, he remembered a guy at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall asking him if he had heard of the Proud Boys. The group was vocal in its support for then-President Donald Trump, whom Berry had voted for. Members called themselves "Western chauvinists" and said they welcomed true men. That sounded about right for Berry, who considers himself a dyed-in-the-wool patriot.

He did some internet searches and sent off an email. Almost immediately, he received a link to an encrypted chatroom.

So began Berry's journey into the dark world of the Wisconsin chapter of the Proud Boys.

Berry, along with a member of the Wisconsin Proud Boys and another former recruit, told USA TODAY the group is a den of racism and antisemitism. Moving up within the group, they said, is dependent on sadistically bullying potential members and promoting white supremacist talking points.

Berry and the two other men, who asked not to be named because they fear violent repercussions from members of the Proud Boys, provided a unique view into an organization that has become a magnet for racists and violent extremists. They spoke and emailed with USA TODAY independently, providing screenshots of chatrooms, photos, memes and audio recordings that backed up their claims.

Their accounts reveal the face of a group that masks itself as a harmless, multiracial drinking club, one that reaches new members by preaching free speech and patriotism. At least in Wisconsin, the men said, the Proud Boys stands less for brotherhood and more for the racial hatred espoused by outmoded organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations.

“Initially it was truly a brotherhood,” Berry said. “But what I experienced was more like a cult.”


(more)


https://news.yahoo.com/joined-wisconsin-proud-boys-looking-102503395.html

+ Trump's tour with Bill O'Reilly conflicts with August reinstatement theory — driving QAnons bonkers

Aldous Pennyfarthing and DailyKos

Seeing QAnon adherents puzzle their way through reality is a bit like watching Donald Trump try to sound out a raw vegan menu. Eventually he orders the portobello mushroom steak—and then we sit back and wait to see his face contort into ever-lower depths of bafflement as he deluges his entree with enough ketchup to drown a baby rhino. And that's before the German carob cake shows up.


At some point, the Q folks all changed their internal default font to Zapf Dingbats, and now literally nothing they say makes any sense to anyone—except their fellow travelers.

The latest? They can't imagine why Donald Trump is promoting a December tour with Bill O'Reilly when he's supposed to be back in the White House in August and O'Reilly is presumably scheduled for a series of painful face-splotchectomies.

Newsweek:

QAnon supporters have acted with dismay and confusion after Donald Trump announced the December dates of his upcoming speaking tour with Bill O'Reilly, which coincides with when he is meant to have already been reinstated as president.
…
The announcement was shared by a number of popular QAnon telegram accounts, one of which has nearly 75,000 subscribers on the encrypted messaging service app.
Supporters of the radical movement expressed concerns that Trump going on a speaking tour later this year surely means that he will not be returning as president—a false claim they have continued to believe since he lost the 2020 election more than seven months ago.
I really wonder what these people will do when Sept. 1 comes around and Trump is still ensconced, Taft-like, in his toilet. How many times can they move the goalposts before they—like the QAnon people themselves—are on another planet?

According to the announcement, Trump and O'Reilly have several December dates scheduled in Florida and Texas. But if Trump really thinks he'll be back by then—which has been widely reported to be the case—then why is he fixin' to go on tour with Pile O'Bile-y?

Newsweek collected several alarmed responses from QAnon cultists posting on Telegram about this vexing bait-and-switch.

A sampling:

"OK I GUESS MY QUESTION IS TRUMP COMING BACK? WHY WOULD HE BE DOING A TOUR THRU THE END OF THE YEAR WITH O'REILLY. HMMMMMMMMM SOMETHING DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT?" — Telegram user Peace Lilly
"So nothing will happen until December?" — Tina N.
"Man I sure hope we don't have to wait that long before you're back in office." — Jack Miller
"So basically the August thing is a bunch of bull because a reinstated President doesn't go on tour." — Angela Baldwin
Oh, Angela Baldwin, you are sharp. I imagine that's exactly how Archimedes felt just before shouting "Eureka!"

Of course, many QAnoners and other Trumpy dead-enders are hanging their hopes on either Pillow Man Mike Lindell's barmy assurances or the Arizona fraudit, which they believe will touch off a domino effect wherein one blue state after another falls back into Donald Trump's column. Because there's zero chance that the most vulgar, deceitful man on the planet—a man who never polled over 50% percent approval at any time during his presidency—could have possibly lost a national election.


Of course, some QAnoners appeared to be hedging their bets: "It's only a few dates close together...it could be done if it works out like it should...could cancel....but yup..kinda a gut punch statement," one wrote. "But we are in an information war, so who the hell knows."

Who the hell knows? Not you, that's for sure. But most of us do, oddly enough—because we're not getting our information from rando kookaburras on Telegram.

And, yes, it's possible that Trump will cancel his serial sexual harasser tour with O'Reilly, but not because he'll be president. It'll be because his muscles have taken on the texture of Gerber's mashed pears and he can't get through the auditorium doors without a crowbar and a can of Crisco.

Or maybe—just maybe—he'll be defending himself in court. A man can dream, right?


https://www.alternet.org/amp/qanon-2653474740-2653474740?__twitter_impression=true

+ Trump abused power for revenge and personal gain. This can't be our new normal:

Eric Swalwell
Mon, June 21, 2021, 7:29 AM

Almost 50 years ago, John Dean warned of “a cancer on the presidency.” For the past four years, the cancer was the president. Donald Trump had no regard for our laws, our system of justice or our democracy itself, and he was fine with destroying all of them if it served his personal purposes.

The revelation that Trump’s Justice Department secretly seized phone and email data from his critics, his perceived political enemies and people whose loyalty he doubted – including me – fits a bigger pattern of abusing the rule of law for personal gain. Trump systematically eroded nonpartisan safeguards designed to prevent abuses of power.

Remember, he pardoned or commuted sentences of his felonious cronies Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn; in Flynn’s instance, his Justice Department earlier had moved to abandon the case, even after Flynn had twice pleaded guilty. Attorney General William Barr deliberately misled the public as to the contents of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. And Trump pressured Barr and others to find nonexistent fraud in the election that ousted him.

All the wrong lessons from Nixon
Trump always treated the idea of justice with contempt and his attorneys general as his personal fixers. Just like his almost impeached predecessor and mentor, Richard Nixon, Trump sicced the power of government on his enemies with no regard for the rule of law. It appears he took away all the wrong lessons from Nixon’s time in office.

Presidents help set the tone for America; Trump set a tone of bullying and phony machismo that lingers even after his ouster, as we see public health officials threatened, bottles thrown at NBA players and decency disappearing from campaigns – and even the House floor.

This can’t be America’s new normal. And even Trump supporters should agree our nation can’t have a “Big Brother” who sees all and wields government against anyone who disagrees.


(more)



https://news.yahoo.com/trump-abused-power-revenge-personal-071504992.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr

+ Donald Trump’s Chances of Staying Out of Prison Are Not Improving

BESS LEVIN
JUNE 7, 2021 7:13 PM

BY BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI

If you asked Donald Trump what he thinks the next several months will hold for him, he’d likely tell you that he’ll be holding some rallies, playing some golf, and getting ready to head back to the White House. He’d tell you that because he’s a disturbed man who apparently thinks that a president who loses an election can simply be “reinstated” to the presidency, like one can have their cable reinstated after canceling it and then panicking about how they’re going to be able to watch Vanderpump Rules. In reality, what the next several months, and potentially years, hold for the ex-president are a lot of meetings with attorneys about how he’s legally in the bad place—that is, assuming they’re still keeping him apprised of the situation and aren’t yet at a point where they just park him in front of the TV “while the grown-ups talk.”


Most recently, the no good, very bad news for Agent Orange has involved the impaneling of a grand jury by the Manhattan district attorney as part of Cyrus Vance Jr.’s criminal probe. Last month, The Washington Post reported that such a group will be hearing evidence concerning the ex-president, his business, and its executives, and on Friday, it emerged that one of the most senior officials at the Trump Organization has reportedly already testified. Which seems less than ideal for the owner of said Trump Organization.

Per ABC News:

Jeff McConney is among a number of witnesses that have already appeared before the special grand jury that will decide whether criminal charges are warranted against the former president, his company, or any of its employees, [sources with direct knowledge of the matter] said. McConney, who serves as a senior vice president and controller for the Trump Organization, is the first employee of the former president’s company called to testify, the sources said, and his testimony is a sign that prosecutors have burrowed deep into the company’s finances. “


(more)



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/donald-trump-jeff-mcconney-grand-jury/amp

+ TOPEKA — Reno County resident Josh Wells describes himself as the leader of a Proud Boys group, promotes an all-white nation state, and peddles false conspiracy theories about the financial plot behind COVID-19 and how police instigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The owner of Wells Home Repair is also a candidate for the school board in Haven, a small town southeast of Hutchinson. He is challenging an incumbent who, in sharp contrast, wants to “meet the needs of all students.”

Wells pulled his own kids out of public schools, he wrote in a white nationalist chat group, referencing concerns about the “Communist Manifesto” and Church of Satan.

In private messages with teenage anti-fascists who later doxed him, Wells shared the manifesto of the Patriot Front, a white nationalist hate group. He identified himself as a former member of the Three Percenters, an antigovernment militia movement, and claimed membership in his Midwest Nationalist Party ranges from Arkansas City to Emporia and Concordia.

“We are advocates of white nationalism and or a pro-western Christian theocracy with a protected white majority status. Which ever one is more obtainable,” Wells wrote.

His personal Twitter and Facebook pages are laced with profane outbursts; tirades about Black Lives Matter, Antifa and critical race theory; sexist and racist memes; Proud Boy images; vague threats and personal attacks.

Wells responded to requests to comment for this story by texting “no thanks.”

“Nice try. I will address the voters in my district with any questions or concerns,” he added. “I don’t want nor do I need to give you any answers. Have a great day.”

Members of the Midwest Youth Liberation Front engaged Wells in April, using an encrypted smartphone app called Signal, after seeing some of his messages from a White Lives Matter forum. In May, they exposed Wells’ comments on Twitter.


Wells responded by threatening to sue the anonymous teenagers for “theft by deception” and “copyright infringement” for using his business logo.

“I will be coming after you with everything possible,” he wrote in a direct message to the Midwest Youth Liberation Front’s Twitter account. “Hopefully you are smart enough to remove these items otherwise I can and will financially, lawfully cripple you and your lies.”


(more)


https://kansasreflector.com/2021/07/20/haven-school-board-candidate-lured-into-sharing-racist-ideology-with-teenage-anti-fascists/

Wow! I seriously thought Proud Boys was an LGTB support group. I was waaaaaay off.

Also....it's shocking to think even in the 21st century with the 45-60,000 years of collective philosophy and knowledge, decades of human rights groups that even today people still think that way. So aggressively narrow minded. 😢

I hate myself for forgetting about this one...


This is Jesus Christ and I just broke into Pizza Hut’: NC man’s 911 confession


HIGH POINT, N.C. (WFMY) — A Greensboro man claiming to be Jesus Christ called High Point 911 on March 22 and told the dispatcher he broke into a Pizza Hut.


The caller also said he was “starving to death.”


“Yes, this is Jesus Christ and I just broke into the Pizza Hut,” 46-year-old Richard Lee Quintero told dispatchers around 4:30 a.m. “Jesus is here, he’s back to earth. I just broke in and had a pizza. I’m Jesus.”


Quintero admitted to breaking into a High Point Pizza Hut on N. Main Street, saying he ate pizza and drank Mountain Dew.


When questioned by the 911 dispatcher, Quintero told dispatchers “Because I’m Jesus, I can do whatever I want” and that he’s “tired of the Judases on this earth.”


He later said he was starving and “everybody’s been treating me mean.”


High Point Police said Quintero was cooperative when they arrived and arrested without further incident.


Quintero was charged with one count of felony breaking and entering and one count of felony larceny after breaking and entering. He was put in High Point Jail under a $1,000 bond.


SOURCE:
https://www.cbs17.com/news/this-is-jesus-christ-and-i-just-broke-into-pizza-hut-nc-mans-911-confession/amp/