Zorro
Zorro's JournalJeffrey Epstein's Fortune May Be More Illusion
When federal prosecutors announced sex-trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein this week, they described him as “a man of nearly infinite means.” They argued that his vast wealth — and his two private jets — made him a flight risk.
Mr. Epstein is routinely described as a billionaire and brilliant financier, and he rubbed elbows with the powerful, including former and future presidents. Even after his 2008 guilty plea in a prostitution case in Florida, he promoted himself as a financial wizard who used arcane mathematical models, and he often dropped the names of Nobel Prize-winning friends. He told potential clients that they had to invest a minimum of $1 billion. At his peak in the early 2000s, a magazine profile said he employed 150 people, some working out of the historic Villard Houses on Madison Avenue.
Much of that appears to be an illusion, and there is little evidence that Mr. Epstein is a billionaire.
Mr. Epstein’s wealth may have depended less on his math acumen than his connections to two men — Steven J. Hoffenberg, a onetime owner of The New York Post and a notorious fraudster later convicted of running a $460 million Ponzi scheme, and Leslie H. Wexner, the billionaire founder of retail chains including The Limited and the chief executive of the company that owns Victoria’s Secret.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/business/jeffrey-epstein-net-worth.html
Wall Street banks bailing on troubled U.S. farm sector
In the wake of the U.S. housing meltdown of the late 2000s, JPMorgan Chase & Co hunted for new ways to expand its loan business beyond the troubled mortgage sector.
The nation’s largest bank found enticing new opportunities in the rural Midwest - lending to U.S. farmers who had plenty of income and collateral as prices for grain and farmland surged.
JPMorgan grew its farm-loan portfolio by 76 percent, to $1.1 billion, between 2008 and 2015, according to year-end figures, as other Wall Street players piled into the sector. Total U.S. farm debt is on track to rise to $427 billion this year, up from an inflation-adjusted $317 billion a decade earlier and approaching levels seen in the 1980s farm crisis, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But now - after years of falling farm income and an intensifying U.S.-China trade war - JPMorgan and other Wall Street banks are heading for the exits, according to a Reuters analysis of the farm-loan holdings they reported to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-farmers-lending-insight/wall-street-banks-bailing-on-troubled-u-s-farm-sector-idUSKCN1U618F
Trump expected to announce executive action to try to get citizenship question on 2020 Census
Source: Washington Post
President Trump on Thursday is expected to announce an executive action in a renewed bid to place a controversial citizenship question on the 2020 Census, according to two administration officials.
It remains unclear exactly what Trump will announce, including whether it will be an executive order or some other action that falls short of that move. The two administration officials who discussed his plans requested anonymity to speak ahead of an official announcement.
In a morning tweet, Trump said he would hold a news conference related to the census at the White House following a planned summit Thursday afternoon on social media.
“At its conclusion, we will all go to the beautiful Rose Garden for a News Conference on the Census and Citizenship,” he wrote.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-hold-news-conference-on-census-as-he-mulls-executive-action-to-add-a-citizenship-question/2019/07/11/c0eb7cb6-a3c8-11e9-b8c8-75dae2607e60_story.html
Seems that would be a direct Constitutional challenge to the authority of the Supreme Court, but that's just me.
Is Duncan Hunter beyond redemption?
Will Rogers never met a man he didn’t like. And, apparently, Duncan D. Hunter never took an oath he didn’t violate.
The Alpine Republican congressman — whose personal and professional lives ought to be cordoned off by little orange cones due to poor judgment — allegedly broke most of the vows he swore to his wife, his country and his constituents.
This week, the Republican walked into a federal courthouse and rolled the dice on a last-ditch attempt to skirt punishment for his sins.
The disgraced lawmaker is accused of misusing more than $250,000 in campaign funds to support a lavish lifestyle. Between 2010 and 2016, he and his wife, Margaret, allegedly dipped into the till to pay for expensive vacations, private-school tuition, dental bills, football tickets and other goodies — all while their personal checking account was repeatedly overdrawn.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2019-07-09/is-duncan-hunter-beyond-redemption-utak
210,000-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe or Asia
Around 210,000 years ago, an early human died in southern Greece — leaving scientists with the earliest evidence of human migration out of Africa and prompting them to reconsider the story of how our species spread throughout the planet.
A new analysis of that ancient person's skull suggests Homo sapiens left their birthplace in Africa about 16,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
"We are seeing evidence of human dispersals that are not just limited to one major exodus out of Africa, as perhaps we have thought in the past, but multiple dispersals," said study leader Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
The skull was found about 40 years ago in Greece's Apidima Cave. The specimen, dubbed Apidima 1, was situated nose to nose just 30 centimeters (about 12 inches) away from a second human-like skull known as Apidima 2.
https://www.latimes.com/science/oldest-modern-human-skull-in-eurasia-story.html
Divisive telescope to restart building next week in Hawaii
Construction on a giant telescope will start again next week after lengthy court battles and passionate protests from those who say building it on Hawaii’s tallest mountain will desecrate land sacred to some Native Hawaiians.
State officials announced Wednesday that the road to the top of Mauna Kea mountain on the Big Island will be closed starting Monday as equipment is delivered.
Scientists revere the mountain for its summit above the clouds that provides a clear view of the sky with very little air and light pollution. Astronomers say it will allow them to reach back 13 billion years to answer fundamental questions about the advent of the universe.
The Thirty Meter Telescope project got approval to move forward last month. While it was the final legal step, opponents vowed to keep fighting and even get arrested if necessary to stop construction.
https://www.apnews.com/3790bd1d2110480f9228acedbe24f7ac
Missing Texas man was eaten by his own dogs, police say
A Texas man who had been missing for months was eaten, bones and all, by his pack of dogs, sheriff’s deputies said.
Medical examiners said Tuesday that DNA testing determined that pieces of bone recovered from the dogs’ feces were those of 57-year-old Freddie Mack, according to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputy Aaron Pitts said the 18 mixed-breed dogs apparently devoured all of Mack’s body, his clothing and his hair, leaving nothing larger than 2- to 5-inch bone fragments.
“Never have we ever, or anyone we’ve spoken to, heard of an entire human being consumed,” Pitts told The Associated Press. “The bones were completely broken up and eaten.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/10/missing-johnson-county-texas-man-freddie-mack-eaten-own-dogs/1699044001/
That's a helluva way to go.
U.K. Unable to Find Replacement Ambassador Who Does Not Think Trump Is an Idiot
LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—Following the resignation of its Ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, the government of the United Kingdom has disclosed that it has been unable to find a replacement for Darroch who does not also think that Donald J. Trump is a blithering idiot.
At a press conference at 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, revealed that the search for a new ambassador who does not believe that Trump is an imbecile has thus far come up empty.
“We did not want a repeat of the unfortunate Kim Darroch incident, so we made the first question on the job application, ‘Do you think Donald Trump is a moron?’ ” May said. “So far, none of the applicants has checked the ‘no’ box.”
May acknowledged that the government might have to expand its search for applicants beyond those with diplomatic experience in order to find a replacement for Darroch who does not consider Trump a dolt.
“We will search high and low until we find someone in this country who doesn’t think Donald Trump is a nitwit,” she said. “We’re starting by interviewing people who don’t think Boris Johnson is a nitwit.”
While affirming her government’s determination to find someone in the U.K. who does not think Trump is an unmitigated bonehead, May warned that the difficulty of the task must not be underestimated. “This is turning out to be harder than Brexit,” she said.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/uk-unable-to-find-replacement-ambassador-who-does-not-think-trump-is-an-idiot
35 Employees Committed Suicide. Will Their Bosses Go to Jail?
In their blue blazers and tight haircuts, the aging men look uncomfortable in the courtroom dock. And for good reason: they are accused of harassing employees so relentlessly that workers ended up killing themselves.
The men — all former top executives at France’s giant telecom company — wanted to downsize the business by thousands of workers a decade ago. But they couldn’t fire most of them. The workers were state employees — employees for life — and therefore protected.
So the executives resolved to make life so unbearable that the workers would leave, prosecutors say. Instead, at least 35 employees — workers’ advocates say nearly double that number — committed suicide, feeling trapped, betrayed and despairing of ever finding new work in France’s immobile labor market.
Today the former top executives of France Télécom — once the national phone company, and now one of the nation’s biggest private enterprises, Orange — are on trial for “moral harassment.” It is the first time that French bosses, caught in the vise of France’s strict labor protections, have been prosecuted for systemic harassment that led to worker deaths.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/world/europe/france-telecom-trial.html
Judge in Rep. Duncan Hunter criminal case finds campaign-funded trip to Italy was family vacation
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
A federal judge in the criminal case against Rep. Duncan Hunter ruled in an order filed Tuesday that a campaign-funded trip Hunter’s family took to Italy was not legally-protected legislative activity, and neither were efforts to control political damage from a probe into his campaign spending.
Judge Thomas J. Whelan listed the findings in the three-page order memorializing his ruling Monday to deny some of the lawmaker’s key motions to dismiss part or all of a 60-count indictment against him for allegedly using more than $250,000 in campaign money for personal purposes including getaways with girlfriends, dental work, private school tuition, video games and more.
Hunter, R-Alpine and his wife and former campaign manager, Margaret, were indicted Aug. 21, 2018. Both originally pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-07-09/judge-in-rep-duncan-hunter-criminal-case-finds-family-trip-to-italy-was-mostly-personal-vacation
This is the trip where Hunter reportedly said "FUCK THE NAVY!" when he was denied a visit to US Naval facilities in Naples. He was counting on that to provide "legislative fact-finding" cover for his campaign donor-financed family vacation.
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