The Daily Parker

New York Supreme Court (i.e., trial court) judge Arthur Engoron ruled yesterday that the XPOTUS's eponymous family business committed fraud on such a scale that the company is no longer allowed to do business in New York State:

The surprising decision...is a major victory for Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, effectively deciding that no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms on loans and insurance deals.

Ms. James has argued that Mr. Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin as early as Monday.

Justice Engoron wrote that the annual financial statements that Mr. Trump submitted to banks and insurance companies “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.”

While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron’s ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump’s New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

In his order, Justice Engoron wrote scathingly about Mr. Trump’s defenses, saying that the former president and the other defendants, including his two adult sons and his company, ignored reality when it suited their business needs. “In defendants’ world,” he wrote, “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.”

The judge also levied sanctions on Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he had previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500, noting that he had previously warned them that the arguments in question bordered on being frivolous.

Wow. Who would have imagined that possibly the biggest grifter the United States has ever known, a man psychologically incapable of telling the truth, would have lied about his businesses? I mean, other than the sentient beings who have been laughing out loud at the man's self-description as a "billionaire" ever since he first uttered the word.

We've known for years that his "business empire" was a Potemkin village of naming rights and loans, with so many bankruptcies and defaults literally no respectable bank (and few disrespectable ones) would lend him any more money. Anyone who lived in New York as far back as the 1980s knew then that any nickels he could rub together came from someone else. But knowing he was full of shit and relying on fraudulent financial disclosures are two different things under the law.

I guess he'll have a few more bankruptcies under his immense belt soon. They'll go nicely with the 91 criminal charges against him.

And still, a third of the country think this man can do no wrong. Homines liber volunt credunt.

US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has gotten himself indicted again for stupefying corruption:

The three-count federal indictment depicts a brazen plan hatched during furtive dinners, in text messages and on encrypted calls — much of it aimed at increasing U.S. assistance to Egypt and aiding businessmen in New Jersey.

Mr. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, is accused of acting as a go-between, passing messages to an American-Egyptian businessman, Wael Hana, who maintained close connections with Egyptian military and intelligence officials, the indictment said. In one text, to an Egyptian general, Mr. Hana referred to the senator, who held sway over military sales, financing and other aid, as “our man.”

Friday’s charges describe an intermingling of the bare-knuckle, back-room dealings of Mr. Menendez’s home state of New Jersey and delicate matters of security in the Middle East. They represent the latest episode in a decades-long political career that took Mr. Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, from the Union City, N.J., school board to the halls of the Senate, a career marked by accusations of corruption and an earlier federal indictment that ended in a hung jury.

Dan Friedman marvels at the indictment:

Prosecutors say the New Jersey Democrat and his wife took hundreds of thousands of dollars via gold bars, mortgage payments, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, and cash that investigators found hidden in envelopes inside jackets bearing the senator’s name.

But what’s particularly striking about this indictment—besides the sheer brazenness of the alleged bribery—is that this is the second time Menendez has faced corruption charges in less than a decade. In 2015, he was charged with using his office to do favors for a Florida eye doctor, Salomon Melgen, who lavished Menendez with luxury items and free travel. Menendez, who claimed he and Melgen were simply friends who exchanged gifts, avoided conviction after a hung jury caused a mistrial in 2017. Melgen was convicted of Medicare fraud in 2017, but President Donald Trump commuted his 17 year prison sentence.

In 2018, the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Menendez, noting that despite the mistrial, Menendez had admitted to taking official actions to help Melgen while accepting gifts from him that the senator failed to disclose “as required by Senate Rules and federal law.” The committee said that Menendez’s actions “reflected discredit upon the Senate.”

The new charges suggest that the unusually sharp condemnation from his colleagues did not cause Menendez to cease ethically questionable, if not illegal, conduct. And Senate Democrats did nothing to stop him. Menendez’s 2018 reelection to a third Senate term, and an agreement by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats to allow Menendez to return to a top spot on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—he became chairman when his party took control of the chamber in 2021—gave Menendez the power that the Justice Department now alleges he used corruptly.

I lived in New Jersey years ago—in fact, just after I started The Daily Parker—so I get that the state has a rep to uphold. But wow, the man needs to resign right now. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is also a Democrat, so should Menendez unexpectedly do the right thing, Murphy would appoint a new senator immediately. (As long as Murphy doesn't start marveling at "this thing [that's] fucking golden," we should be all right.)

Former college football coach Tommy Tuberville, now a United States Senator grâce a the wisdom and good sense of the fine people of Alabama, continues to degrade the United States military by preventing the US Senate from confirming 301 (and counting) general and flag officers from formally taking the jobs they're already doing. Earlier this month, the commanders of the Naval Air Forces and Naval Sea Systems Command retired, passing their responsibilities—but, crucially, not their policy-setting powers—to their putative successors. US Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired US Navy Captain and 4-time Space Shuttle astronaut, stopped just short of calling Tuberville an idiot on today's NPR Morning Edition.

In other news:

• One of the last sane Republican office holders, US Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), announced he won't seek re-election in 2024.
• One of the least-sane Republican office holders, US Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO), got thrown out of a performance of the Beetlejuice musical in Denver for, among other things, being a Karen when told to stop all the other things she was doing to disrupt the show.
• Contra David Ignatius' column in the Post yesterday advocating for President Biden to step aside in 2024, Josh Marshall has a simple message for my party: "Biden’s age is a real challenge. But the whole question is locked up. It’s locked in. So everyone who wants to beat Trump needs to absorb that, stop whining and buck up."
• ProPublica takes us through the chronology of the Navy's failed $100 billion Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, that tried to support three entirely different mission profiles and, consequently, does none of them well. (This is why we're building a bunch more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and reintroducing frigates after a 35-year construction hiatus.)
• After a 13-year construction hiatus, the Hudson River tunnel connecting New Jersey Transit to Penn Station will resume in 2025, with a projected opening in 2035. (NB: A British-French consortium dug the 50-kilometer Chunnel in six years for the 2023 equivalent of £14 billion. If it finishes by 2035, the 3-kilometer Gateway Tunnel will have taken 25 years and cost over $16 billion.)
• Transport for London (TfL) announced that most of London inside the M-25 is now an ultra-low-emissions zone (ULEZ) with motorist fees of £12.50 ($15.61) per day for cars that don't meet the current emissions standards. The government has also pledged £163 million ($204 million) to scrap old cars that don't qualify for the ULEZ.
• A NIMBY group in Minneapolis has temporarily halted implementation of the city's environmentally-necessary zoning changes that would allow more housing density by—get this—using Minnesota's 1970s-era environmental laws.
• By the way, cars aren't just giving us asthma and killing more people than any other cause in the United States and Canada, they're also bankrupting us.
• Here's what you need to know about the latest Covid booster. I'm getting mine Tuesday.

Finally, John Scalzi's blog turned 25 today, making the Hugo-winning author a relative new arrival to the blogging scene, at least when compared with The Daily Parker.

An Atlanta grand jury charged the failed fascist and 18 of his mooks with another 41 counts, including orchestrating a "criminal enterprise," following his attempts to steal the election in Georgia:

The 41-count indictment, an unprecedented challenge of presidential misconduct by a local prosecutor, brings charges against some of Mr. Trump’s most prominent advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, his former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who served as White House chief of staff at the time of the election.

Mr. Trump, who is running again for president in the 2024 election and is the early favorite to win the Republican nomination, has now been indicted in four separate criminal investigations since April, including a federal indictment earlier this month over his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 race.

Although that case covers some of the same ground as the one in Georgia, there are crucial differences between state and federal charges: Even if Mr. Trump were to regain the presidency, the prosecutors in Georgia would not report to him, nor would he have the power to attempt to pardon himself if convicted.

The 13 counts against the XPOTUS bring his total charge sheet to 84 items, most of them felonies, and most of them with the potential of jail time.

The defendants include Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Ken Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, and Sidney Powell.

I thank the editors of Politico for keeping track of all of the XPOTUS's criminal cases. We have only 448 days until the 2024 election. We are unlikely to see any of these cases resolved by then. That said, I agree with Josh Marshall: in these dominance contests between the XPOTUS and the People of The United States, the People of Georgia, and the People of New York, the People must win.

I'm just over a week from performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, so as I try to finish a feature that turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought, I'm hearing opera choruses in my head. Between rehearsals and actual work, I might never get to read any of these items:

• Jesse Wegman describes how to tell a political prosecution from a real one, which would be great except the people doing the political ones don't read the Times.
• Meaghan O'Rourke points to Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie as emblematic of the strangeness of modern American girl culture.
• Sci-fi author John Scalzi, who knows a thing or two about fictional aliens, does not think the US government is covering up details about real aliens, if for no other reason than the XPOTUS would have bragged about it by now.
• Via Bruce Schneier, the World of Warcraft sub-reddit embarrassed an AI-driven site by getting the site's AI to write about something that will never exist.
• The Post has an interactive history of changes to the Appalachian Trail.

Finally, New York City (and other urban areas) are experiencing a post-pandemic dog-poop renaissance. Watch where you step!

And now, I will put on "Dank sei dir Osiris" one more time.

I had a lot going on this morning, so I'm only now snarfing down a Chipotle bowl. Also, I'm going to have to read these things tomorrow:

• Over 100 candidates, including a dog, will stand for election in Toronto's mayoral election on the 26th.
• Writing for Mother Jones, Ali Breland thinks the content-creator rebellion at Reddit won't stop what Corey Doctorow calls "the enshittification" of online platforms.
• Similarly, private-equity debt has killed yet another good company making good products, Insta-Pot.
• After what insiders call a deliberate campaign by New York mayor Eric Adams to strip her of power, New York City's police commissioner Keechant Sewell abruptly resigned Monday.
• Despite yesterday's rain around Chicago, the drought in Illinois has gotten worse.
• Save the firefiles!
• Tinley Park, Ill., has launched a brewery trolley that technically puts 2 new breweries on the Brews & Choos list. (I had plans to return to Banging Gavel later this summer anyway, as they're about to open the Vogt House to the public.)
• The list of people excited about the NASCAR race in downtown Chicago keeps getting shorter.

Finally, today is the 35th anniversary of the best baseball movie of all time, Bull Durham. If I had time I'd watch it tonight.

On this day in 2000, during that more-innocent time, Beverly Hills 90210 came to an end. (And not a day too soon.) As I contemplate the void in American culture its departure left, I will read these articles:

• Anna Nemtsova rubs her hands in glee along with Ukrainian president Volodmyr Zelinsky in watching the Kremlin's worst fears about Ukraine come true.
• Henry Grabar blames the killing of Jordan Neely on conservatives' willful failure to address homelessness and mental illness for the last 50 years.
• National Geographic traces the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language after lying dormant for 2,000 years.
• The Chicago Tribune editorial board, never the most progressive group of people in Chicago, warn of doom and gloom coming from Mayor Johnson's administration.
• Timothy Noah is in awe of the CEOs of two failed banks who testified to the Senate yesterday for their ability to avoid taking any responsibility for the failures.

Finally, a new genetic study suggests that "modern humans descended from at least two populations that coexisted in Africa for a million years before merging in several independent events across the continent." Cool.

We finally have a real May-appropriate day in Chicago, with a breezy 26°C under clear skies (but 23°C closer to the Lake, where I live). Over to my right, my work computer—a 2017-era Lenovo laptop I desperately want to fling onto the railroad tracks—has had some struggles with the UI redesign I just completed, giving me a dose of frustration but also time to line up some lunchtime reading:

• Both Matt Ford and David Firestone goggle at how stupidly US Rep. George Santos (R-NY) ran his alleged grift, considering he had so many legal ways to scam his constituents thanks to the Roberts Court.
• In a desperate bid to win over Fox News viewers, CNN attempted a Town Hall with the sexual predator XPOTUS yesterday, which went about as you'd expect.
• Julia Ioffe looks at how much Russia and China are enjoying our own-goal-producing debt ceiling crisis even as neither has any chance of supplanting our currency dominance in the near future.
• Chicago-based Groupon, the Internet darling of 2009, has started its final death rattle after issuing a "going concern" warning to investors yesterday.
• A pop-up bar in Chicago will raffle off Taylor Swift tickets that one hopes they didn't buy on Ticketmaster.
• Bruce Schneier sees a tremendous market for trustworthy AI, but large corporations won't build it because of the inherent conflict of interest.

Finally, today marks the 30th anniversary of Aimee Mann releasing one of my favorite albums, her solo debut Whatever. She perfectly summed up the early-'90s ennui that followed the insanity of the '80s as we Gen-Xers came of age. It still sounds as fresh to me today as it did then.

US Representative George Santos (R-NY) surrendered to Federal authorities this morning, charged with 13 counts of fraud and related offenses:

Prosecutors said the charges resulted from “fraudulent schemes and brazen misrepresentations” designed to mislead donors, enrich Mr. Santos and win a seat in Congress as a Republican from Queens.

• The bulk of the charges relate to what prosecutors said was a 2022 scheme in which Mr. Santos solicited at least $50,000 in donations from political donors for a fake super PAC and then pocketed the money for personal expenses, including luxury goods and designer clothing.
• As part of that arrangement, prosecutors accused Mr. Santos of committing five counts of wire fraud when the candidate and an unnamed political consultant he directed told potential donors in emails and text messages that their contributions would “exclusively” support the Republican campaign and pay for TV ads.

The charges leave some tantalizing questions unanswered. For example, prosecutors say that he falsely certified that he earned $750,000 from his company, the Devolder Organization, and that he had received between $1 million and $5 million in dividends from Devolder. In their news release, prosecutors note: “These assertions were false. Mr. Santos had not received from the Devolder Organization the reported amounts of salary or dividends.”

The Times has a posted copy of the indictment, as have other news sources.

Rep. Santos has already announced his re-election campaign. Only two of his fellow Republicans have called on him to resign.

I'm chasing down a bug that caused what we in the biz call "unexpected results" and the end-users call "wrong." I've fixed it in both our API and our UI, but in order to test it, I need the API built in our dev/test environment. That takes about 18 minutes. Plenty of time to read all of this:

• Ruth Marcus wants you to really think about Jean Carroll's testimony in her defamation suit against the XPOTUS.
• Tom Nichols sees narcissism, not "misguided patriotism," as the root of the classified intelligence leaks endangering the US.
• Jamelle Boule reminds the Chief Justice of the United States that when Congress calls, he needs to answer.
• Alex Shephard tells us what we can all see: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sucks at his job.
• Tim Murphy can't wait for Twitter to die so news stories no longer quote "another Twitter user" ever again.
• ProPublica exposes the dangers children face when trains park across their route to school, forcing them to crawl over (or under!) them.

Finally, the Times explains how last year's 257 traffic fatalities in New York City undermine the claims that "Vision Zero" is working. But Strong Towns already told you that.

OK, build succeeded, fix is now in Dev/Test...on with the show!