SoHo Condominiums, and GOP Senators Acting Badly

 #New York prosecutor Cy Vance's office learned that condominiums owners at the Trump SoHo believed that they had been cheated by Trump's children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, who were managing the project for the family business, the Trump Organization. The lawyers claimed that the Trumps had lied to them by inflating the number of apartments that they had sold, thereby misleading them into thinking that the condominiums were better investments than they were. 

Mary Trump said that "Vance left two of my cousins off the hook. If he hadn't, he may well have kept Donald Trump from running for President when two of his children were indicted for fraud." 

As for prosecuting a head of state, Anne Applebaum, author of 'Twilight of Democracy,' noted that "it's not uncommon for heads of state to be prosecuted." She warned that the lesson from democracies under strain elsewhere around the world is that failing to lay down the law "is dangerous -- it creates long-term feelings of impunity, and incentives for Trump and those around him to misbehave again."

#Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Georgia) has said that when he called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, he only wanted to find out how the state evaluates signatures on mail-in ballots; however, as Raffensperger has pointed out, Graham wanted him to find out how tens of thousands of ballots could be thrown out. He recommended to Raffensperger that all the ballots from the district -- or the county -- that had the highest number of unmatched signatures, should be thrown out. Throwing out all the ballots from Fulton County -- which incudes Atlanta -- would ensure that no Democrat vying for a high office would be elected in Georgia.

#Sen; Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said that he wasn't concerned about the Capitol rioters, because they had high respect for law enforcement and they loved this country. He would have been concerned, however, if it had been Black Lives Matter and antifa people who were rioting. It is a great tragedy that Wisconsin voters had one of the best senators  to ever grace the U.S. Senate in Russ Finegold, and they twice elected Johnson, once a Tea Partyer. Johnson's only service to the Republican Party is that of a conspiracy theorist.

#Sen. Mitch McConnell has warned of a "earth-shaking" outcome if the Democrats eliminate the filibuster, or even significantly modify it. What this portends is that lawmakers representing a significant minority of the U.S. population can defeat a bill supported by a significant majority of the U.S. population. The 50 U.S. Democratic senators -- including the two Independents who vote with them in the same caucus -- represent far more persons than do the 50 Republican senators. So  even if 90% of adults support expanded background checks for firearms, 41filibustering GOP senators can defeat any action.

ADDENDUMS: 

*The U.S. Supreme Court has established the standard of "one person-one vote." The GOP is intent on burying the standard.

*Donald Trump appeared on Fox News recently, and said the Capitol rioters represented "no danger."

Trump in the Crosshairs, Vaccine Hesitancy, and Violence Against Asian-Americans

 Jane Mayer, "Trump in the Crosshairs," The New Yorker, March 15, 2021. - Ruth Ben-Ghist, New York University historian, has said that "Trumpism isn't just about 'him.' It's a whole new way of being in the world. It's about secrecy, domination, trickery, and fraud." "Now he [Trump] is pitted against a D.A. who regards the law as the politically blind foundation of democracy."

Jane Mayer writes that Allen Weisselberg, who managed Trump's money for decades, will be a star witness; however, she also acknowledges that tax cases are "notoriously difficult to prosecute, because the details are dull and complicated; ignorance can be an effective defense." Mayer believes that prosecutors "will likely create a time line and compare it with various financial representations made by the Trump Organization, looking for inconsistencies." 

District Attorney Cy Vance's office learned that condominium owners at the Trump SoHo believed that  they had been cheated by Donald Trump's children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, who were managing the project for the family business. The buyers alleged that the Trumps had lied to them by inflating the number of apartments they had sold, thereby misleading them into thinking the condominiums were better investments than they were. 

Mary Trump, the daughter of Donald's brother, believes that her uncle had swindled her and other family members out of a fair share of the financial distribution of her grandfather's estate. Mary told Jane Mayer that "Vance let two of my cousins off the hook. If he hadn't, he may well have kept Donald from running for President when two of his children were indicted for fraud." 

As for the argument that heads of state can't be prosecuted for what they did while in office, Anne Appelbaum, author of 'Twilight of Democracy', wrote that "it's not uncommon for heads of state to be prosecuted." She warned that the lesson for democracies under strain elsewhere around the world is that failing to lay down the law "is dangerous -- it creates long-tern feelings of impunity, and incentives for Trump and those around him to misbehave again!" 

#Eliana Dockerman, Moms on a mission," TIME, March 29/April 5, 2021. - "Now, inconsistent monitoring of falsehoods by social media and a politically polarized atmosphere -- in addition to genuine confusion about the COVID-19 virus -- has created a perfect storm for vaccine hesitancy. The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that the 147 biggest anti-vaccine accounts on social media gained 7.8 million followers in 2020." Forty-four percent of white evangelical Americans, who make up a significant portion of epidemiologist Emily Smith's following, say they will not get the vaccine, according to a January Washington 'Post'-ABC poll. "In 2019, pre-COVID-19, 19.5% of children had a parent who reported being 'hesitant' about childhood shots, according to a study published in 'Pediatrics.' "  

#Cady Lang, "Silent no more," TIME, March 29/April 5, 2021. - "The violence that has long targeted their community is rarely seen for what it is. Since the start of the pandemic last spring, Asian-Americans have faced racist violence at a much higher rate than in previous years. Stop AAPIHate, a reporting data-base created at the beginning of the pandemic as a response to the increase in racial violence, received 3,795 reports of  anti-Asian discrimination between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021; women reported hate incidents at 2.3 times the rate of men's." 

"A 2018 report from the American Psychological Association outlined the ways in which Asian-American women are exoticized and objectified as 'faceless, quiet, and invisible', or as sexual objects." "A 2018 study by the Pew Research Center found that Asian-Americans experience the largest income-inequality gap [among] ethnic and racial groups in the U.S." 

ADDENDUM:

*"Vatican: No same-sex union blessings," TIME, March 29/April 5, 2021. - "While calling for LGBTQ people to be treated 'with respect and sensitivity,' the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog said on March 15 that Catholic priests cannot bless same-sex unions."