Like a game of Monopoly, Donald Trump may be forced to sell off his iconic properties under a New York judge's ruling that he committed fraud for years while building his real estate empire.
In a civil trial starting Monday, Trump's lawyers will return to court to begin a trial to determine how much he and his companies will be penalized for the fraud. New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $250 million in damages. Potential witnesses include Trump, his children and former business associates.
At stake? Whether the former president will have to shutter or break up his namesake Trump Organization and sell off those famous properties − and whether he will have to pay millions.
Trump's lawyers vowed to appeal the ruling. Trump called the decision "ridiculous and untrue."
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Tuesday canceled Trump's business certificates by ruling he committed fraud for years through "pure sophistry," a "fantasy world" of real-estate valuations that "can only be considered fraud."
In fact, Engoron quoted a Marx Brothers movie to ridicule Trump's explanations for altering objective data such as the size of an apartment − an unusual approach for a judge to take.
“Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” Engoron quoted Chico Marx from the movie "Duck Soup."
Engoron ruled that Trump valued his Mar-a-Lago resort at 20 times the tax assessment, that apartments at Trump Park Avenue gained millions of dollars on his corporate balance sheet beyond their appraised values, and that Trump falsely nearly tripled the square-footage of his own Trump Tower penthouse apartment to increase its value by calling the measurement "a subjective process."... (our emphasis)
Today, starts the process of divesting the Malignant Loser of what matters to him most: his wealth and image as a "billionaire." Let the fun begin!
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be seen as a wild success. Over its 12 years of existence, it’s been responsible for returning more than $17 billion to Americans separated from their money by financial sector shenanigans.
Instead of being able to celebrate that achievement, the agency is in a fight for its life — and if it loses, we’ll all be poorer for it.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear a case filed by a trade group of payday-loan lenders against the CFPB. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit — considered by many the most right-wing court in the country — agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that the funding mechanism for the agency is unconstitutional.
In the worst-case scenario, this could lead to not just an end to payday-loan regulations, the continued halting of CFPB cases across the country, or to the CFPB needing to find a new funding source. It could lead also to much of the agency’s past work being declared invalid. This is not simply a fear being felt by progressives. It’s in a brief submitted to the court jointly by the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors, hardly anyone’s idea of the usual lefty suspects. While studiously not taking a side on the question of the bureau’s constitutionality, the groups point out that almost all residential real estate transactions are governed by CFPB rules, and that with a broad ruling, further court challenges might mean “the housing market could descend into chaos.”...
Will the corrupted Republican Supreme Court decide this one in favor of payday sharks or consumers? The suspense is killing us.
Every year, hordes of tourists descend upon Paris with a shortlist of concerns: pickpockets, steep hotel prices, how to get skip-the-line tickets and the most polite way to decline a stranger’s offer of a friendship bracelet outside the Sacré-Coeur.
But as the French capital prepares to welcome millions of visitors for the 2024 Summer Olympics, a different issue has caught the eye of government officials: bedbugs. Lots of them.
Apparent footage of the insects has gone viral on social media platforms such as TikTok, prompting some users to post videos of themselves standing on the metro instead of taking an open seat or warning about infestations in their Airbnbs. Social media posts appeared to show bedbugs on the metro and in public buses. One showed bedbug bites all over a person’s body, purportedly after visiting a movie theater.
Paris’s deputy mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, wrote a letter last week to Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne calling for solutions to the bedbug problem, local media reported. “The state urgently needs to put an action plan in place against this scourge as France is preparing to welcome the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024,” Grégoire wrote, according to French TV news outlet TF1 Info.
The deputy mayor also attempted to reassure the public on social media, but he still made his warning clear: “No one is safe” from an infestation, he said...
