Search results for tag #grift
"Zach Everson of Public Citizen’s Trump Accountability Project noted that when Trump left office in 2021, his businesses were mainly real estate and hospitality and he had massive amounts of debt coming due. At the time, he had no interests in crypto and Trump Media didn’t exist."
~ Heather Cox Richardson
'Context: OpenAl is shutting down its Sora Al video generation app and API approximately six months after its September 2025 launch. The app is closing amid rising safety concerns over deepfakes, high computational costs, and a strategic pivot toward enterprise Al, robotics research, and profitability ahead of a potential IPO'
#sora #meme #capitalism #deepfake #ArtificialIntelligence #grift
Alt...
meme: a photo where a guy crouches in front of a gravestone, makes a happy smile, and flits the victory sign with one hand at the camera.
text on the gravestone: Sora, 2024–2026.
text on the guy: Film Industry Workers
" A report published last week by the Cato Institute, written by director of immigration studies David J. Bier, found that the State Department and Department of Homeland Security were receiving millions of applications from immigrants whom Trump has made ineligible for legal status and pocketing the fees without ever processing the requests."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/immigration-fee-fraud-state-dept
#TrumpAndEpstein #Money #Grift #Immigration #GrandTheft #USTreasury
*If* what the "AI" [1] grifters say in their sales pitches were true [2], and their LLMs are good at writing prose, summarizing other text, and writing code, then it follows that you should be able to do this:
"<LLM-agent>, write an LLM prompt text that will cause a code-generating LLM to create a Gmail clone, including server-side code and client-side user interface."
Then feed that to CopyLot or whatever, and out pops a Gmail clone.
[1] Bovine excretory corollary to Sturgeon's Law: if an article about "AI" doesn't use scare quotes on (at minimum) the first use of the term, it is guaranteed grifter salesbabble, not actual human thought. If scare quotes *are* properly used, then it's only 90% likely to be grifter #salesbabble.
[2] It isn't.
#grifter #AI #LLM #grift #BS #bullshit #ScareQuotes #corollary #SturgeonsLaw #agent #AgenticAI #agentic
"Your healthcare premiums may have shot up, and the nice guy who runs the neighborhood dry cleaners may have disappeared, and you may be in an ICE concentration camp sleeping on the tile floor of one room with 50 other people and one open toilet, and the funding for your research into an mRNA vaccine for cancer may have gone up in smoke," (continued in /10)
~ Gary Legum
#Trump #Republicans #KristiNoem #corruption #EconomicElites #grift
/9
https://www.wonkette.com/p/check-out-kristi-noems-luxury-flying
(continued from /9)
"and housing may still be prohibitively expensive, and America’s standing in the world may be kaput, and the rest of the planet may loathe us.
But know one thing:"
#Trump #Republicans #KristiNoem #corruption #EconomicElites #grift
/10
(continued from /10)
"if Kristi Noem can bang her sidepiece (allegedly!) in a queen-size bed whilst jetting off to her next LARP function, if she can have some chilled wine during the trip, and if her tuchus can be kept sparkling clean by the bidets in her luxury, taxpayer-funded jet, your sacrifices will have been worth it."
#Trump #Republicans #KristiNoem #corruption #EconomicElites #grift
/11
Sara Paretsky provides a link to the National Planning Commission website that allows people to provide feedback about the demolition of the East Wing of the White House and plans to built a tacky, glitzy, vanity-project Trump ballroom in its place.
She quotes the feedback Anara Guard provided at this link:
#Trump #Republicans #corruption #EconomicElites #grift #ballroom #WhiteHouse
/12
"And they should care because Trump only has immunity for official acts and there is no way to construe corruption that is explicitly forbidden by the Constitution as official."
"This is the most corrupt administration of all time, and everybody knows it.
But if you pick a person at random in the country and ask him or her, which of the two major parties is most corrupt—a question that’s easily answerable if you already know that “this is the most corrupt administration of all time”—he or she will likely as not say 'Democrats.'”
~ Brian Beutler
#Trump #Republicans #corruption #EconomicElites #grift
/5
https://www.offmessage.net/p/republicans-much-more-corrupt-than-democrats
"Or at least say both parties are similarly corrupt.
That is a (to me) infuriating but consistent finding in the data: Trump has at least fought the corruption issue to a draw—and may actually be winning it."
"Why don’t people care that the president and members of his cabinet are stealing us blind, are by far, by far, the most corrupt administration in history?
No…why? Journalists, opposition politicians, average Americans, patriots, law enforcement…everyone should care about this. They should care because it’s outrageous. They should care because it undermines our system and gives influence to the highest bidder."
"Trump’s interest in being added to Mount Rushmore does not appear to be related to a desire to advance the interests of the American people. In September 2025 the IRS granted tax-exempt status to the Donald Trump Mount Rushmore Memorial Legacy, making it a charity that can accept tax-free donations.
Happy Presidents Day 2026."
#Trump #Republicans #corruption #EconomicElites #grift #airport
/4
"On February 13 and 14, President Donald J. Trump’s representatives filed three applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark his name for future use on an airport."
~ Heather Cox Richardson
#Trump #Republicans #corruption #EconomicElites #grift #airport
/1
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-16-2026
"As trademark lawyer Josh Gerben of Gerben IP noted, the application also covers merchandise branded 'President Donald J. Trump International Airport,' 'Donald J. Trump International Airport,' and 'DJT,' including 'clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches, and tie clips.'"
#Trump #Republicans #corruption #EconomicElites #grift #airport
/2
"Because of the trademark filing, Gerben notes, any airport adopting the Trump name would have to get a license to use the name, potentially paying a licensing fee. Gerben emphasizes that while it is common for public officials to have landmarks named after them, 'never in the history of the United States' has 'a sitting president’s private company…sought trademark rights' before such a naming."
#Trump #Republicans #corruption #EconomicElites #grift #airport
/3
RE: https://mastodon.social/@RealJournalism/116076866866366473
The worst idea anyone ever had was to allow businesses to ‘donate’ to politicians.
How much money has Trump profiteered from his presidential office in the past year, you ask?
David Kirkpatrick has the answer for you: a whopping $4.05 billion.
#Trump #EconomicElites #grift #corruption #profiteering
https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/trumps-profiteering-hits-four-billion-dollars
From the New Yorker:
“It has been a lucrative year for the Trump family. In just the past six months or so, a bitcoin mining company headed by Eric Trump brought the family more than a hundred million dollars. Promotions by a major crypto exchange (whose founder the President recently pardoned) have positioned the family to pull in about a hundred and thirty-six million dollars. A convoluted deal that turned a company into a stockpile of Trump-linked digital tokens appears to have brought the family another five hundred and sixty-two million dollars. And crypto is hardly the only family business. The Trumps sold the use of their name to a Saudi real-estate company that is close to the royal family for a resort in the Maldives and two other new megaprojects inside the kingdom. Donald Trump, Jr., made millions by reinventing himself as an adviser or director to half a dozen companies. And President Trump, whose Administration regulates the banking and securities industries, filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase demanding five billion dollars—not as a deposit in the U.S. Treasury but as a check made out to Donald J. Trump.
Donald Trump opening a bank safe.
Illustration by Erik Carter
This past summer, I set out to tally up just how much the Trumps have made off the Presidency—to sum it all up in a number. The total then was $3.4 billion. Nearly six months later, at the end of Trump’s first year back in the White House, I am updating my reporting: the total has now reached four billion dollars.
1/2
“A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow.”
~ New York Times
#Trump #grift #EconomicElites #fascism #crypto
/1
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html
Mulroney got his bribes in bags also. Must be a standard for conservative criminals.
Mulroney got away with it too...
https://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/12/03/ChargeBrian/
#Corruption #Injustice #Bribery #Grift #Conservative #CdnPoli
Alt...
Charge Mulroney
If the former PM lied, he owes us $2.1
million.
Rafe Mair
3 Dec 2007 TheTyee.ca
Alt...
Trump border czar
was investigated for
taking bribes:
Tom Homan reportedly accepted a bag filled
with $50,000 in cash as part of an FBI sting.
"No president in American history has profited off the presidency the way Donald Trump has—and it’s not close. ...
That’s why we’ve had a hard time picking the worst instances of his corrupt self-enrichment, not to mention that of his cronies and family. So if you don’t see your favorite scheme on this list, don’t worry—there are too many! Here’s our latest Top 10 Worst list…."
~ Norman Eisen and Gabriel Lezra
"Human rights violators who make the TSA look like the Girl Scouts. People who do not care what nonsense the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) asks for, because their 'online activity' doesn’t exist or is conveniently curated by a PR team large enough to staff a minor embassy."
#Trump #immigrants #visas #PaytoPlay #grift #Russia #drugs #crypto #corruption #travel #tourism
/3
"Meanwhile, millions of average, harmless travelers — fans coming for the World Cup, families planning a California road trip, Canadians who used to drive across the border to buy gas and discount Oreos — are instead being greeted with a digital strip-search and a bill for extra fees, background checks, and biometrics more suited to a dystopian sci-fi reboot."
#Trump #immigrants #visas #PaytoPlay #grift #Russia #drugs #crypto #corruption #travel #tourism
/4
"What kind of person has both $5 million in liquid assets and a pressing need for American residency without scrutiny?
I’ll tell you who.
Money launderers. Drug traffickers. Russian oligarchs whose yachts have been seized more times than Trump has contradicted himself in a single sentence."
~ Michael Cohen
#Trump #immigrants #visas #PaytoPlay #grift #Russia #drugs #crypto #corruption
/2
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/your-profile-pic-better-be-patriotic
"Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández recently thanked God and Donald Trump – in that order – for being pardoned by the latter of a drug trafficking conviction won by federal US prosecutors less than two years earlier."
~ Ramon Antonio Vargas
"Trump accepts two primary types of currency for his pardons: loyalty and money."
~ Don Moynihan
#Trump #pardons #crime #criminals #corruption #PaytoPlay #grift #authoritarianism #fascism
"The degree to which Donald Trump demands fealty and obeisance and anus adulation as the price of his attention has risen from troubling to grotesque to comical. ...
In the Divine Comedy, Dante depicts flatterers in the Eighth Circle of Hell wading in human excrement — because their words, uttered insincerely to prop up the egos of the unworthy, are pure shit."
~ Gene Weingarten
#Trump #narcissism #flattery #grift #EconomicElites #PaytoPlay
/1
https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/its-fawning-in-america
"As the collection of authoritarian grifters and neoconservative leftovers take to television and social media each day to sell their various cons and schemes to the public, Trump appears more and more to be a passive actor, watching as the people around him run his administration as they please."
~ Justin Glawe
#Trump #narcissism #flattery #grift #EconomicElites #PaytoPlay #ethics #morality
/2
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-boat-strikes-execute-drug-dealers
"Trump’s pardon-palooza is not just fueled by his own bitterness at being America’s first felon president, but also a desire for obsequious signs of fealty from the people he’s let off the hook. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s disastrous presidential immunity decision, there remains the specter of more pardons for anyone who puts loyalty to Trump ahead of loyalty to the Constitution."
~ Ron Filipkowski quoting Rolling Stone
#Trump #narcissism #flattery #grift
/3
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/today-in-politics-bulletin-264-12525
Silicon Valley and Wall Street are in sync: conjuring up sketchy credit deals that are pointing us toward another financial crash....
“We have sealed the deal on another financial crisis—the question is size,” said one former congressional staffer.#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #AIBubble #grift #CasinoEconomy #FinancialCrash #GreatRecession
Let’s start with some very recent history. CoreWeave is a data center company that pivoted in 2022 from crypto. (In 2021, CoreWeave made its money by… mining Ethereum.) Essentially, CoreWeave is a landlord for compute: companies pay for the use of its server racks for AI projects....
CoreWeave chief executive officer Michael Intrator, a former hedge fund manager,...
“They have to continue to borrow to pay interest on the last loan.”So,
- CoreWeave sits at the center of the AI bubble;
- it used to be a crypto company and also gets its (electric) power from a Bitcoin mining company that makes no money and has CoreWeave as its only customer
- it's positioned itself as a rentier;
- its interest payments on previous loans exceed its revenue by a significant amount, so it's paying off loans with more loans and has already defaulted once;
- it has essentially two customers, Microsoft and NVIDIA;
- it has a loan from one of the actors implicated in the 2008 financial crash (Magnetar)
- it's run by a finance guy, not a tech person
- yet it's in the position of someone who takes out a new credit card to pay the interest on the previous credit card
Yeah. Looks like crypto, and crypto's Ponzi scheme way of thinking, has slimed its way into the "real" economy after all.
Oh and welcome back, global financial crash. We missed you. And eyyy, how you doing Enron long time no see:
CoreWeave isn’t alone in its complex finances. Meta took on debt, using a SPV, for its own data centers. Unlike CoreWeave’s SPVs, the Meta SPV stays off its balance sheet. Elon Musk’s xAI is reportedly pursuing its own SPV deal."Complex finances" are what companies engage in when there isn't any there there (SPVs were Enron's "financial innovation" too).
Peter Thiel pulling his investments out of NVIDIA makes far more sense after reading this. Looks wobbly.
It is perhaps time to discuss the enormous stock sales from CoreWeave’s management team. Before the company even went public, its founders sold almost half a billion dollars in shares. Then, insiders sold over $1 billion more immediately after the IPO lockup ended....
“It’s noteworthy that people who have a good view on that business are cashing out,” says Leevi Saari, a fellow at the AI Now Institute.and of course
It makes a certain kind of cynical sense to view CoreWeave itself as, effectively, a special purpose vehicle for Nvidia.#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #AIBubble #CoreWeave #CoreScientific #Microsoft #NVIDIA #crypto #grift #CasinoEconomy
A $1.5 billion AI company backed by Microsoft has shuttered after its ‘neural network’ was discovered to actually be hundreds of computer engineers based in India.https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ai-company-files-for-bankruptcy-after-being-exposed-as-700-human-engineers-3208136/
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #crypto #scam #grift #dev #tech #con #AICon
DeepSeek launched a free, open-source large-language model in late December, claiming it was developed in just two months at a cost of under $6 million — a much smaller expense than the one called for by Western counterparts.The "Western counterparts" are claiming training a model might take years and billions of dollars. This has always been a hyped-up grift, with snake oil salesmen and con artists being showered with money and power. It's really quite amazing how profoundly unintelligent "the market" is in practice.These developments have stoked concerns about the amount of money big tech companies have been investing in AI models and data centers, and raised alarm that the U.S. is not leading the sector as much as previously believed.
The sad reality is that the US could lead in this field (1), if we'd stop routinely putting narcissists and con artists in charge and showering them with praise even when they fail.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLM #SnakeOil #hype #grift #MarketCapitalism
(1) Putting aside whether we should, which is an important question.