New Brett Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Allegations Revealed in Secret Sundance Doc

Daily Beast

New Brett Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Allegations Revealed in Secret Sundance Doc

Nick Schager – January 21, 2023

Win McNamee/Getty
Win McNamee/Getty

Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation to the Supreme Court was embroiled in controversy when multiple women accused him of sexual assault. One of them, Christine Blasey Fordtestified before Congress about the alleged attempted rape she suffered at his hands in high school. Justice is a horrifying and infuriating inquiry into those claims, told in large part by friends of Ford, lawyers and medical experts, and another of Kavanaugh’s alleged victims: Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of his at Yale.

Most damning of all, it features a never-heard-before audio recording made by one of Kavanaugh’s Yale colleagues—Partnership for Public Service president and CEO Max Stier—that not only corroborates Ramirez’s charges, but suggests that Kavanaugh violated another unnamed woman as well.

A last-minute addition to this year’s Sundance Film FestivalJustice is the first feature documentary helmed by Doug Liman, a director best known for Hollywood hits like SwingersGoThe Bourne Identity, and Edge of Tomorrow. His latest is far removed from those fictional mainstream efforts, caustically censuring Kavanaugh and the political process that elevated him to the nation’s highest judicial bench, and casting a sympathetic eye on Ford, Ramirez ,and their fellow accusers.

Liman’s film may not deliver many new bombshells, but he and writer/producer Amy Herdy makes up for a relative dearth of explosive revelations by lucidly recounting this ugly chapter in recent American history, as well as by giving voice to women whose allegations were picked apart, mocked and, ultimately, ignored.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Win McNamee/Getty</div>
Win McNamee/Getty

The biggest eye-opener in Justice comes more than midway through its compact and efficient 85-minute runtime, when Liman receives a tip that leads him to an anonymous individual who provides a tape made by Stier shortly after the FBI—compelled by Ford’s courageous and heartrending testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee—briefly reopened its investigation into embattled then-nominee Kavanaugh.

In it, Stier relays that he lived in the same Yale dorm as Kavanaugh and, one evening, wound up in a room where he saw a severely inebriated Kavanaugh with his pants down, at which point a group of rowdy soccer players forced a drunk female freshman to hold Kavanaugh’s penis. Stier states that he knows this tale “first-hand,” and that the young woman in question did not subsequently remember the incident, nor did she want to come forward after she’d seen the vile treatment that Ford and Ramirez were subjected to by the public, the media, and the government. The Daily Beast has reached out to Justice Kavanaugh for comment about the fresh allegations.

Stier goes on to explain that, though he didn’t know Ramirez, he had heard from classmates about her separate, eerily similar encounter with Kavanaugh, which she personally describes in Justice. According to Ramirez, an intoxicated Kavanaugh exposed himself right in front of her face in college, and that she suppressed memories of certain aspects of this trauma until she was contacted by The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow.

Christine Blasey Ford’s Grace Exposes Her Questioners’ Cruelty

As Ramirez narrates in a trembling tone that seems on the perpetual verge of cracking, she suffered this indignity quietly, convinced that she was to blame for it (because she too was under the influence) and humiliated by the guffaws of the other men in the room. Her account is convincing in its specificity, and moving in its anguish.

Ramirez confesses that some of Farrow’s questions made her worried that she still wasn’t recalling everything about that fateful night, and it’s Stier’s recording that appears to fill in a crucial blank. Stier says he was told that, after Kavanaugh stuck his naked member in Ramirez’s face, he went to the bathroom and was egged on by classmates to make himself erect; once he’d succeeded in that task, he returned to harass Ramirez some more.

It’s an additional bit of nastiness in a story drowning in grotesqueness, and Liman lays it all out with the sort of no-nonsense clarity that only amplifies one’s shock, revulsion and dismay—emotions that go hand-in-hand with outrage, which is stoked by the numerous clips of Kavanaugh refuting these accusations with unconvincing fury and falsehoods.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty</div>
Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty

Through juxtapositions of Kavanaugh’s on-the-record statements and various pieces of evidence, Justice reveals the many lies advanced by the judge in order to both sway public opinion and to give Republicans enough reasonable-doubt cover to vote in favor of his confirmation.

Moreover, in a lengthy segment about text conversations between Kavanaugh’s college buddies and Ramirez’s Yale classmate Kerry Berchem, the film persuasively suggests that Kavanaugh and his team were aware of Ford and Ramirez’s charges before they became public, and sought to preemptively counter them by planting alternate-narrative seeds with friends and acquaintances.

While Liman relies a bit too heavily on graphical text to convey some of this, the idea that Kavanaugh (or those closest to him) conspired to keep his apparent crimes secret—along with his general reputation as a boozing party-hard menace—nonetheless comes through loud and clear.

Surprisingly, although Ford is seen speaking to Liman just off-camera at the beginning of Justice, she otherwise doesn’t appear except in archival footage. Still, her presence is ubiquitous throughout the documentary, which generates further anger by noting that the FBI ignored Stier’s tip, along with the majority of the 4,500 others they received regarding Kavanaugh. The Bureau instead chose to send along any “relevant” reports to the very Trump-administration White House that was committed to getting their nominee approved.

The Brett Kavanaugh Probe Should Be About One Thing: Sexual Assault

The effect is to paint the entire affair as a charade and a rigged game in which accusatory women were unfairly and maliciously put on the defensive, and powerful men were allowed to skate by on suspect evasions and flimsy denials.

Justice is more of a stinging, straightforward recap than a formally daring non-fiction work, but its direct approach allows its speakers to make their case with precision and passion. Of that group, Ramirez proves the memorable standout, her commentary as thorough and consistent as it is distressed.

In her remarks about Kavanaugh’s laughter as he perpetrated his misconduct—chortling that Ford also mentions to Congress—she provides an unforgettable detail that encapsulates the arrogant, entitled cruelty of her abuser, as well as the unjust system that saw fit to place him on the nation’s highest legal pedestal.

How an Investor Lost $625,000 and His Faith in George Santos

The New York Times

How an Investor Lost $625,000 and His Faith in George Santos

Grace Ashford, Alexandra Berzon and Michael Gold – January 20, 2023

As Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was running for office, he also sought investors for a company that was accused of running a Ponzi scheme. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)
As Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was running for office, he also sought investors for a company that was accused of running a Ponzi scheme. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)

A month after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit in 2021 accusing a Florida-based company of operating a Ponzi scheme, one of the firm’s account managers assured an anxious client that his money was safe.

The client, a wealthy investor named Andrew Intrater, had been lured by annual returns of 16% and had invested $625,000 in a fund offered by the company, Harbor City Capital — in part because he trusted and admired the account manager, an aspiring politician named George Santos.

Admiration aside, Intrater wanted to know about his investment and a promised letter of credit that secured it. Santos said that it was already on the way.

“All issued and sent over,” Santos assured him in a text message sent in May 2021.

The letter of credit did not exist, the SEC would later tell a court. The $100 million that Santos told Intrater that he had personally raised for Harbor City did not exist either, the commission said. Nor, seemingly, did the close to $4 million that Santos claimed he and his family had invested in Harbor City.

Santos’ representations form the basis of a sworn declaration that Intrater gave the SEC in May 2022, as part of its Harbor City investigation. Intrater’s interactions with the SEC are the first indication that the commission might be interested in Santos.

Intrater told the SEC that the representations influenced his decision to invest in Santos’ business and political endeavors — an allegation that could leave Santos vulnerable to criminal charges.

“I admired him and fundamentally I thought he’s a hardworking guy — he’s young and he has the ability to win,” Intrater said in a recent interview.

In late December, after Santos’ years of lies were exposed, Intrater reconsidered his appraisal. He shared with The New York Times text messages that he exchanged with Santos, as well as documents and the declaration that he had given to the SEC — all outlining the ways in which he said Santos had misled him.

“I don’t want Republicans having a bum representing Republicans, and I don’t want to have a guy that committed crimes walking free,” he said.

The SEC has not indicated publicly that it is looking into Santos and declined to answer questions about potential inquiries into the congressman or communications between Intrater and the agency. But the SEC reached out to Intrater in March 2022 to seek information on Santos’ dealings on behalf of Harbor City, according to Intrater and his lawyer.

Although Santos claimed to have raised $100 million for Harbor City, SEC documents say the firm had only raised a total of $17 million. And while Santos said that he and his family had invested millions of dollars because of Harbor City, financial disclosures filed during his 2020 run for Congress show that he earned just $55,000 that year, and had no assets.

If Santos had lured investors through the use of false statements, he could face charges of securities fraud, legal experts said.

It is not clear how the SEC is handling Intrater’s sworn declaration; it does not appear to have been filed in court. The SEC lawsuit against Harbor City and its chief executive, J.P. Maroney, was put on hold in October 2022 at the request of Maroney because of a related criminal investigation into him, court documents show. Maroney has denied wrongdoing.

Some of Santos’ interactions with Intrater have been outlined in news accounts, including in Mother Jones, The Daily Beast and The Washington Post.

But documents, as well as interviews and text messages reviewed by the Times, offer new evidence of the lengths Santos went to in an effort to obscure the problems at Harbor City, and how the relationship soured between the politician and one of his biggest supporters.

Intrater is a private equity investor perhaps best known for his financial ties to Viktor Vekselberg, his cousin. Vekselberg is a Russian oligarch whose U.S. assets were frozen in 2018 by the Treasury Department because of his ties to the Kremlin.

Under a license from the Treasury Department, Intrater says, he has continued to manage Vekselberg-connected assets but is in the process of winding them down. He says that he has not distributed or received funds or had business dealings with Vekselberg or related companies since the sanctions.

Intrater is also known for his relationship with Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime personal lawyer; Intrater’s firm, Columbus Nova, signed Cohen to a $1 million consulting contract when the businessman was looking for new investment opportunities in 2018.

Santos met Intrater a few years later; Intrater recalled that Santos called him seeking his financial support in the 2020 congressional race. After Santos lost, the two remained friendly, building a relationship over text messages and lunches at Osteria Delbianco, an Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan. They bonded over a shared “old school” worldview and having families that fled the Holocaust, Intrater said. (Santos’ family did not actually flee the Holocaust, records show.)

Santos, as The Daily Beast reported, joined Harbor City in 2020, the same year he first ran for the House, and helped establish the firm’s presence in New York as its regional director. Santos had met Maroney, Harbor City’s CEO, when Santos was helping to organize conferences for LinkBridge Investors, Maroney said, and the two stayed in touch.

Maroney liked Santos, whom he described as “a consummate networker.” He hired him to bring in investments from the ultrawealthy.

According to court documents filed by the SEC, Harbor City told investors that it had discovered a way to make guaranteed money by investing in digital marketing and advertising.

But Harbor City was not doing any such investing, and only a small part of the $17 million it raised was used for legitimate business expenses, the government claims. The company, according to civil charges filed by the SEC, was instead engaged in a Ponzi scheme, using investments from new clients to make payments to older investors, while Maroney siphoned money from business accounts to buy a Mercedes and a waterfront house and pay down more than $1 million in credit card bills.

Intrater was a lucrative client. He decided to invest the $625,000 in a Harbor City fund, using a holding company, FEA Innovations. He and Maroney signed a subscription agreement, which was reviewed by the Times, on Jan. 15, 2021.

Intrater became one of Santos’ more generous patrons. In addition to his investments in Harbor City funds, first reported by The Washington Post, he donated more than $200,000 to Santos’ election campaign, associated political committees and a New York political action committee that he would later learn was controlled by Santos’ sister. He liked the political stances of Santos, a Republican, and his rags-to-riches story, he said.

In retrospect, he should have recognized warning signs, he said.

Though Intrater and his lawyers repeatedly requested the letter of credit, it never materialized. And while he received the first interest payment as scheduled in March 2021, the April payment was mysteriously clawed back. He did not receive any future payments from the company, he said.

With the April payment and the bank letter still missing, Intrater followed up with Santos on May 28, 2021. Intrater said he was unaware at the time that the SEC had by then made public its fraud complaint against Maroney and Harbor City.

But all was well, Santos assured Intrater, casually mentioning that he had been let go a few weeks earlier. Santos, who was running for Congress a second time, told Intrater that his political activities were deemed to be a conflict for Harbor City and he was leaving to focus on his real estate and small projects. (Santos has since admitted that he does not own any property.)

Maroney said in an interview that he had no problems with Santos’ political career and that he supported his ambitions, even agreeing to hold a fundraiser for Trump’s reelection bid at his home.

In fact, Maroney and another former Harbor City employee said Santos had been with the firm until the end. Maroney recalled in an interview last month that Santos “was definitely one of the ones that got the notice that everything we had had been frozen.”

Yet months after Harbor City’s accounts were frozen in April, Santos was still telling Intrater that things were fine, maintaining that the $100 million fund he had mentioned was separate from the one described in the SEC case, according to text messages he sent Intrater.

“Hey Andy, I put in calls to everyone I know still working at HC,” he wrote Intrater. “Should hear back today I hope.”

A few days later, Santos was fretting about his own financial exposure, which he had told Intrater was huge. “I’m having a nervous breakdown,” he texted.

As late as January 2022 he swore to Intrater that his family had invested “almost 4M,” and said that he had employed a lawyer, Joe Murray, to help him try to claw back any remaining funds.

The court-appointed lawyer overseeing Harbor City’s assets, Katherine Donlon, would not formally say whether Santos and his family had invested in Harbor City. But she said that she did not recognize their names as investors, in response to a request emailed by the Times.

Murray declined to answer questions from the Times about Santos’ representations to Intrater and on behalf of Harbor City, saying only, “It would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation.” Santos, who was not named in the SEC suit, has publicly said he had no knowledge of wrongdoing at Harbor City, an assertion that Maroney backed up.

Intrater said that at the time, he felt for the younger man, who he believed was also a victim.

“Take long walks to clear your head in order to deal with the stress,” he coached Santos via text, urging him to avoid stress eating and alcohol.

The two stayed in touch, even as Intrater came to write off his investment. When Santos appealed to him again for political donations in his second run for Congress, Intrater came through, donating tens of thousands of dollars to Santos’ associated PACs.

And he remained receptive to business opportunities presented by Santos, who helped to set up at least two other potential deals. Neither came together.

Neither Intrater nor his lawyer have heard much from the SEC since filing the declaration, they said, with the commission only replying in November 2022 to say that the civil case had been stayed.

By then, Santos had been elected to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District. A few days later, Intrater had lunch with the congressman-elect and offered his congratulations.

Things changed in December after Santos’ deception became public. In the weeks since, Intrater said he has reached out to the Department of Justice offering information on Santos. The agency declined to comment.

The last time the men spoke, Intrater says, was after he saw Santos being grilled on Fox News, about a week after the Times ran its initial investigation.

“I said, ‘Dude, I saw your interview,’” Intrater said. “‘You look like you’re absolutely lying about everything.’”

Once again, Santos sought to reassure him. But Intrater was no longer interested in explanations.

He told Santos that he was convinced he was a liar and then cursed at him, he said. “I hung up the phone,” he added. “That was it.”

Russia’s relationship with U.S. at its ‘lowest historical point,’ Kremlin says

Yahoo! News

Russia’s relationship with U.S. at its ‘lowest historical point,’ Kremlin says

Niamh Cavanagh, Reporter – January 20, 2023

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at a news conference in Moscow in December. (Sputnik/Valeriy Sharifulin/Pool via Reuters)

LONDON — The Kremlin said Friday that Russia’s relationship with the U.S. is at an all-time low.

Speaking to reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that despite timid hopes from the Geneva summit in 2021, bilateral relations were “at their lowest historical point.” He added, “There is no hope for improvement in the foreseeable future.”

The comments follow months of what has come to be a total breakdown in relations between the two powers. Relations went from bad to worse when after conducting several military drills along Ukraine’s border, Russia’s forces launched what it called a “special military operation” on Feb. 24, 2022. The invasion was met with immediate and harsh sanctions from the U.S. as well as Ukraine’s Western allies.

All hopes for any progress in relations were slashed when the Biden administration threw its full support behind Russia’s neighboring countries Finland and Sweden in joining NATO.

President Biden.
President Biden departs Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

This, according to reports, meant the U.S. would be going against its agreement with Russia in 1991 that NATO would not expand past East Germany. This part of the agreement has been hotly contested, as there had been no legal binding between the two nations that would prohibit countries in Eastern Europe from joining the military alliance.

Over the past 11 months, the Biden administration has made several announcements that the U.S. would be providing Ukraine with billions of dollars in military aid and assistance. With Russia’s recent onslaught of airstrikes on Ukraine, the U.S. and other allies have announced plans to provide the beleaguered nation’s military with more weapons.

On Friday, Peskov told reporters that the wave of assistance from the West would be met with consequences.

“We see a growing indirect and sometimes direct involvement of NATO countries in this conflict,” he said. “We see a devotion to the dramatic delusion that Ukraine can succeed on the battlefield. This is a dramatic delusion of the Western community that will more than once be cause for regret, we are sure of that.”

His remarks came as Western defense ministers gathered at an air base in Germany to discuss supplying further military assistance to Ukraine.

Doctors say men are getting more vasectomies amid abortion restrictions nationwide

Yahoo! News

Doctors say men are getting more vasectomies amid abortion restrictions nationwide

Jayla Whitfield Anderson, ·National Reporter – January 12, 2023

A doctor writes on a clipboard, posing questions to a patient.
Doctor and patient. (Getty Images)

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that protected abortion rights, medical professionals say they have seen a drastic increase in vasectomies.

Vasectomies offer a form of permanent birth control for men, and roughly 500,000 are performed every year in the United States.

“There was an increase of basically 100% in the number of vasectomies from the moment Roe v. Wade was overturned,” Dr. Esgar Guarin, the co-founder of SimpleVas Medical Clinic, told Yahoo News.

Guarin, a doctor in Des Moines, Iowa, trained in maternal, child and reproductive health, says interest from male patients in learning more about the procedure increased after the Roe decision.

“Within only 48 hours, we signed up 50% of the patients that we normally sign up in a month, just immediately after June 24, and that trend continued,” he said.

In November, a Planned Parenthood office in St. Louis also noted a spike in vasectomies in an interview with Live Action. “Since the Dobbs decision, we have seen an increasing number of male-bodied people coming and requesting this service [vasectomies],” Dr. Margaret Baum of Planned Parenthood told Live Action. “We performed 142 vasectomies in 2021. Already this year, we’ve done close to 200 in 2022.”

But doctors say this isn’t the only major event that has pushed men to seek a permanent form of contraception.

“During the Great Recession, there was a marked increase in requests for vasectomies, because people felt that the economy was such that they couldn’t afford to have children,” Marc Goldstein, professor of reproductive medicine and urology at Weill Cornell Medical College, told Yahoo News.

Between 2007 and 2009, an estimated 150,000 to 180,000 additional men received a vasectomy, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).

“And we’re seeing exactly the same thing happening now,” Goldstein said. “We’ve seen a doubling or tripling overall in the number of vasectomies, and they marked a drop in the number of reversals since Roe v. Wade.”

Abortion rights activists on the march, with signs also reading: Guns should not have more rights than women,
Abortion rights activists hold a sign reading “Vasectomy Prevents Abortion” at a protest in downtown Los Angeles, on June 24, 2022. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

Doctors note a slight increase in the number of younger patients of less than 30 years old with no children seeking a vasectomy, with the largest increase among in men in their mid- to late 30s.

“We saw a bump up of about 20%-25% from 35- to 37-year-old men who had decided not to have any children in years prior, but had done nothing about it, and were purely relying on the partner for their contraception,” Guarin said.

As abortion rights are restricted nationwide, experts say vasectomies do not provide a replacement for access to abortion.

“Contraception is an integral part of ensuring reproductive justice, freedom and autonomy, but it always has to exist with access to other pregnancy outcomes, including access to abortion,” Katrina Kimport, professor of reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, told Yahoo News.

Even though medical professionals say vasectomies are cheaper, safer and faster, more women get their tubes tied. Vasectomies, however, are an outpatient procedure with a low risk of complications, and take less than an hour to complete.

“Tubal ligation and other procedures for women are options, but they usually have a higher risk of complications and may cost more,” Dr. Nicholas Toepfer, a UCHealth urologist, said in a UCHealth article.

“There has never been a single death from a vasectomy ever. In tubal ligation every single year in this country alone, 25 to 30 women die from getting a tubal ligation, because it requires a general anesthetic,” Goldstein said.

Since vasectomies have rarely been the popular choice, women have often carried the burden of preventing pregnancies.

“Women and people who can get pregnant are largely expected to prevent pregnancy on their own for 30 years or more. And there’s not enough public recognition for how hard that is,” Krystale Littlejohn, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, told Yahoo News. “Responsibility for preventing pregnancy shouldn’t be a stopgap effort for men, and it shouldn’t be something that is done periodically. It is a long-term commitment to their partners and to themselves.”

Doctors suggest that men could step up more often. “It’s sad to see that it took restricting the rights of an individual to choose about her own body, for the counterparts to say, ‘You know what, I probably should be doing something, because I cannot rely on the very last option, because it’s no longer available,’” Guarin said.

A Republican elections commissioner said he was proud of lower turnout in Milwaukee. Democratic colleagues are calling for his resignation.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Republican elections commissioner said he was proud of lower turnout in Milwaukee. Democratic colleagues are calling for his resignation.

Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – January 12, 2023

MADISON – A Democratic member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission is calling on his Republican colleague to resign for praising lower voter turnout in Milwaukee during the 2022 general election that he attributed to targeting Black voters with negative ads, lawsuits filed by Republicans that added voting restrictions, and GOP campaigning that pushed Democratic voters to stay home instead of voting for candidates in their party.

Bob Spindell, the chairman of the Fourth Congressional District GOP and a member of the elections commission, told Republicans in a recent email the district party was proud of lower turnout in Milwaukee “due to a ‘well thought out multi-faceted plan'” that included “A substantial & very effective Republican Coordinated Election Integrity program resulting with lots of Republican paid Election Judges & trained Observers & extremely significant continued Court Litigation,” according to UrbanMilwaukee, which was the first to report on Spindell’s comments.

Democratic commissioner Mark Thomsen said Spindell should leave his position overseeing elections.

“My fellow commissioner Bob Spindell has shown he cannot be fair and should resign from the WEC,” Thomsen tweeted, citing the UrbanMilwaukee report. Thomsen did not respond to a request for an interview.

Bob Spindell, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Bob Spindell, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“I would suspect that he didn’t read my article,” Spindell told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in response to Thomsen’s tweet.

Democratic commissioner Ann Jacobs also called for Spindell to resign, tweeting, “When you brag about suppressing votes, you are admitting you suppressed votes. Nothing in his claims says ‘our message won’ or ‘people came to our side.’ It is literally ‘We made them not vote – hooray!’ Mark Thomsen is absolutely correct. This is beyond the pale.”

Spindell said by touting lower voter turnout he was praising efforts by Republicans to make inroads with lifelong Democrats. He said Thomsen’s comments were ignoring the fact that commissioners are supposed to be partisan.

“The elections commission was not set up to be fair,” Spindell said. “The oath of office that we take does not say anything about not being nonpartisan. We were appointed by Republican and Democratic officials to be partisan and there is nobody more partisan than Ann Jacobs and Mark Thomsen and that is meant to be a compliment.”

“Three partisan Democrats and three partisan Republicans try to get together and come out with (guidance) that is in the best interest of Wisconsin and at the same time recognizing the interests of the (political parties) must be protected.”

In a five-page memo touting the party’s 2022 campaign strategies, Spindell wrote that the party is “especially proud of how the City of Milwaukee’s gross vote went down from 74% to 63% of registered voters — 37,000 total votes less than cast in 2018.”

“We must remember, in the strategy of things, it is often extremely difficult & hard to convert a hard core, long term generation type Democrat to all of a sudden, bring himself or herself around to vote for a Republican. However, by our Republican efforts, pointing out strongly, how the Democrat Candidates are worse than or certainly no better than their perception of the Republican Candidates, at all levels, they hopefully cannot bring themselves to vote for either one,” Spindell wrote.

“In a Democrat City or Democrat County where up to 80% of the people are voting for the Democrats – that’s a good thing and helped insure that Sen. Johnson got over the goal line.”

In the memo, Spindell claimed Democratic candidates did not receive “the votes they needed” from Black voters because of Republican campaigning targeting Black communities. He touted smaller voter turnout in Milwaukee aldermanic districts with high percentages of Black residents.

“While a great deal of credit goes to the RNC/RPW/Johnson paid staff and our many dedicated volunteers; our recruitment of good candidates & their hard work for these areas; continued presence on a Black Talk Radio Show coupled with Negative Black Radio Commercials, there is still a great deal of much more concentrated work we need to do in the Black and Hispanic Communities by continuing to show how the Democratic Elected Officials and Candidates are not watching out for the livelihoods of the people who live in these areas and the Republicans can,” he wrote.

By ballots cast, the Journal Sentinel reported, Milwaukee had the biggest proportional decline of any municipality in the county, but that may have been driven partly by population decline. Some 17% fewer ballots were cast in the city than in 2018, a drop off bigger than other communities in the county.

However, by another measure, percentage of registered voters, the decline in turnout in the city was in line with other Milwaukee County communities. Overall, Milwaukee County saw about 46,000 fewer ballots cast.

Spindell is one of the 10 Wisconsin Republicans who in 2020 submitted false paperwork to Congress and the National Archives claiming to be an elector for former President Donald Trump despite Trump losing the election, and has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” but legal.

Spindell has been sued by two of Wisconsin’s real presidential electors over his decision to submit false paperwork to Congress claiming to be a presidential elector for Trump. Spindell and other false electors have defended their actions, calling it a legal strategy in the event the election results were overturned by a lawsuit.

‘Morning Joe’ Rails on GOP ‘Idiots Running Around’: ‘I Don’t Know When the Republican Party Became the Stupid Party’ (Video)

The Wrap

‘Morning Joe’ Rails on GOP ‘Idiots Running Around’: ‘I Don’t Know When the Republican Party Became the Stupid Party’ (Video)

Aarohi Sheth – January 11, 2023

In the “Morning Joe” studio Wednesday, host Joe Scarborough went in on the Republican Party, after its inquiry into the “weaponization” of government was approved by a divided House Tuesday.

“I don’t know when the Republican party became the ‘stupid party,’” Scarborough mocked. “I can’t imagine that the White House, the Senate, and others are going to sit back and let these people destroy American intelligence agencies, destroy the FBI, harm our national security [all] because [House Republicans] got a grudge in the name of Donald Trump.”

Republicans pushed this inquiry to create a powerful new committee to scrutinize what they say they believe to be an effort by the government to target and in turn, silence conservatives. After a party-line vote of 221 to 211 with all Democrats opposed, the House approved the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is chaired by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who is also the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a Trump supporter.

Upon approval of the committee, an investigation will be launched into federal law enforcement and national security agencies. Jordan claims that this committee is meant to preserve the First Amendment, during a time when conservatives are supposedly being unfairly targeted, likely referring to the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for classified White House documents he didn’t return for more than a year after leaving office.

“The political malpractice continues,” Scarborough said. “I know that there are a lot of former Republicans like me who say, ‘This is really bad. America needs a competent conservative party.’ Instead, we just have these idiots running around, trying to attack the military, trying to attack our intel services, trying to destroy the FBI.”

He continued: “This is the Republican party once again, not reading the room,” Scarborough said. “And by the room, I mean the United States of America, not reading American voters who rejected them in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. Now, they’re going to try and politicize intelligence. They’re going to try to get top-secret classified documents.”

Also Read:
‘The View’: Sunny Hostin Says Comparing Trump and Biden’s Classified Document Gaffes is ‘Like Comparing Apples to Orangutans’ (Video)

Scarborough doubled down, questioning who truly has faith in the Republican party, after they continue to push their various conspiracy theories forward.

“We trust these people? They’re going to war against the FBI, they’re attacking the Pentagon, they’re attacking our top-ranked military officers. When are they going to learn?”

Scarborough noted how this committee may just end up harming Republicans themselves.

“MAGA extremists need to keep losing elections,” Scarborough said, referring to all the Trump-backed candidates losing during the recent midterms. “This [committee] is sure to do it, they’re just damaging themselves.”

Rep. Andy Biggs spews Kari Lake-like delusion from Washington, D.C.

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

Rep. Andy Biggs spews Kari Lake-like delusion from Washington, D.C.

EJ Montini, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023

Rep. Andy Biggs delivers remarks in the House Chamber during the third day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
Rep. Andy Biggs delivers remarks in the House Chamber during the third day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC.

Based on her ongoing unhinged behavior there is no doubt Arizona dodged a bullet when Republican Kari Lake lost the governor’s race.

Knowing the state won’t have a person in a position of power who is motivated by a bizarre, single-minded sense of revenge based on moronic or (even worse) mindful delusions affords us a sense of relief.

That is … until we recognize that the spinning barrel of Arizona politics has more than one round in the chamber.

The first Lake-like politician to come out blasting after the election, bent on destruction and with little or no grasp of reality is U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs.

Beginning by burning down the House

First, Biggs tried to metaphorically burn down the House of Representatives by putting himself up for speaker, making his own party look like a bunch of buffoons during days of ridiculous recriminations and deal-making, only to have the guy Biggs said was unfit to be speaker, Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy, wind up as …speaker.Then, on Tuesday, Biggs tweeted:

Last night, my Republican colleagues and I defeated the Democrats’ 87,000-person IRS army. We are working quickly to reverse the Democrats’ negligent policies. This is already a very good start to the 118th Congress!

Essentially, none of that is true.

Biggs and his Republican colleagues “defeated” nothing. To claim they did is not even wishful thinking. It’s close to hallucination. And Biggs knows it.

Last year, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included roughly $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to be spent over 10 years. But, as numerous fact checkers have pointed out numerous times during the election cycle, claims of an IRS “army” going after middle class families are fiction.

The IRS, which had been underfunded by Congress for years, plans to use the money to update its technology systems, to hire and train new technology specialists and customer service representatives, to replace some of the tens of thousands of retiring agents and to hire some news ones.

No ‘army’ and nothing was ‘defeated’

The “army” claim comes from the fact that agents within the IRS’s Criminal Investigation division can carry firearms. In context, there are roughly 82,000 IRS employees. About 2,000 of them are CI agents. And they don’t go after regular folks.

Biggs’ claim that he and the new Republican-controlled house “defeated” the original bill is a fantasy. It’s shocking – or is it? – to think that he and his Republican colleagues believe their supporters are stupid enough to believe that.

The Inflation Reduction Act is law.

The new Republican-controlled House passed legislation to eliminate the IRS funding in that bill, but the House proposal must first get through the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden.

Neither of those things will happen.

Biggs knows this.

That is reality.

You are equipped with body armor. Use it.

Biggs also knows that fashioning such legislation then pushing it through the House was a colossal waste of time, all designed to send a false message filled with false bravado to gullible constituents who, in turn, might be conned into sending money back to the campaigns of the politicians who, in essence, did nothing.

We have plenty of other elected officials like Biggs – Rep. Paul Gosar, most of the GOP state legislative caucus and more – all with an unlimited supply of conspiracies and misleading information.

Don’t duck for cover, however.

Don’t run from the oncoming barrage.

There is widely available, impenetrable body armor at your disposable: Truth.

Republicans who snubbed Gov. Katie Hobbs will quickly become irrelevant

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

Republicans who snubbed Gov. Katie Hobbs will quickly become irrelevant

Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023

Republican state Sen. Anthony Kern turns his back as Katie Hobbs delivers her State of the State address to the Arizona House of Representatives during the opening session of the 56th Legislature on Jan. 9, 2023, in Phoenix.
Republican state Sen. Anthony Kern turns his back as Katie Hobbs delivers her State of the State address to the Arizona House of Representatives during the opening session of the 56th Legislature on Jan. 9, 2023, in Phoenix.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs delivered her first State of the State speech on Monday, only to watch as a handful of Republican legislators walked out or turned their backs.

The state of the state Legislature, it seems, is …

Rude.

Granted, it wasn’t exactly the Gettysburg Address, but Hobbs delivered a decent enough speech for her first time out, touching on many of the major issues confronting the state. There were no surprises.

“We are all here,” she began, “because we care deeply about Arizona.”

Well, most of those in attendance, anyway.

Members of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus walked out, unwilling even to listen to what a new governor, at the start of a new legislative session, had to say.

“As was foreseeable, Katie Hobbs utilized the time-honored State of the State Address to once again promote her radical, woke policy initiatives, rather than address the profoundly serious concerns that Arizonans have regarding the political and fiscal realities of daily life,” the caucus group said in a press release after the event.

So now it’s “radical” and “woke” to support public education, to require accountability when spending public money, to protect our dwindling groundwater supply?

Who, I wonder, is really out of step here?

Hobbs’ speech was hardly a wish list of the left. She called for:

– Overriding the aggregate spending limit so that schools attended by nearly 1 million Arizona children aren’t faced with widespread layoffs or even closures come April 1.

– Repairing crumbling schools and redirecting to all schools the $68 million in bonus funding that’s now reserved only for schools with good test scores.

– Creating a task force to figure out why 1 in 4 teachers are fleeing the classroom and what to do about it.

– Requiring privately owned charter schools to account for our how they spend the public’s money.

– Boosting state spending on affordable housing and offering a child tax credit to families earning less than $40,000 a year and exempting diapers and tampons from the state sales tax.

– Expanding college scholarships, including $40 million for undocumented students who now qualify for in-state tuition rates, thanks to passage of Proposition 308.

– Updating the state’s water management plan to put a stop to large agricultural interests that are pumping the ground dry in rural areas.

– Holding the line on further restrictions to abortion.

“I will use every power of the governor’s office to stop any legislation or action that attacks, strips or delays the liberty or inherent right of any individual to decide what’s best for themselves or their families,” Hobbs said.

You’d think the far right – the people who scream about vaccines – would be thrilled with those words.

Instead, some of the state’s most conservative legislators walked out on Hobbs, the first Democrat to be elected as governor since 2006.

“It took 5 seconds for Katie Hobbs to begin legislating from the 9th floor, so I will not listen to her rhetoric for even 5 seconds,” incoming Rep. Rachel Jones, R-Tucson, tweeted.

“We could not sit idly by while she repeatedly declared her intention to advance her woke agenda that stands at odds with the people of our state,” Rep. Jacqueline Parker, R-Mesa, explained, in a press release.

Republican Reps. Alexander Kolodin of Scottsdale and Jake Hoffman of Queen Creek also walked out. Sens. Anthony Kern of Glendale and Justine Wadsack of Tucson, meanwhile, stood and turned their backs.

Class acts, one and all.

Earlier in the day, the Freedom Caucus announced plans to sue Hobbs over last week’s ”unconstitutional” executive order – the one that strengthens worker protections for LGBTQ state employees and contractors.

Imagine filing a lawsuit because the state says it won’t fire people for being gay?

“The Arizona Freedom Caucus will oppose Katie Hobbs’ woke agenda,” Hoffman, the group’s chairman, vowed, during a Monday morning press conference.  “You can bet your ass that will happen.”

You know another sure thing on which you can bet your hindquarters?

The Republicans who walked out on Monday – unwilling even to listen to what the governor had to say – will, in the end, have no voice in how Arizona is governed.

A split government, after all, requires compromise, and compromise requires a level of maturity not seen in the snowflakes who couldn’t stand even to listen on Day 1 to what Arizona’s new governor had to say.

Monday’s stunt was the first step to irrelevance.

Why Trump loyalist went to prison rather than blame the boss

BBC News

Why Trump loyalist went to prison rather than blame the boss

Nada Tawfik – BBC News, New York – January 10, 2023

Trump Organization former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg looks on as then-U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks
Allen Weisselberg worked for former President Donald Trump for decades (file image)

Former US President Donald Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has been sentenced to five months in jail for his role in a tax fraud scheme.

Weisselberg, 75, was given a shorter-than-expected jail term after agreeing to a plea deal in which he served as a prosecutor’s witness against the Trump Organization.

But Mr Trump had little reason to fear that Weisselberg’s testimony in the autumn trial would harm him or overshadow his announcement in mid-November that he was launching another run for president.

Indeed, as expected, his employee – who started with his father Fred Trump and who was one of the first to join his company in 1986 – remained loyal even under immense pressure.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

While Mr Trump sounded off on social media, pinning the fraud scheme on Weisselberg, he continued to offer him his support in arguably more meaningful ways. Jurors heard how the Trump Organization was still paying Weisselberg his same salary under the title senior adviser, covering his legal fees, and recently celebrated his birthday in the office.

“In a normal organisation, a corrupt CFO would be terminated and thrown out the door,” says Professor Maurice Schweitzer from the Wharton School of Business. “And you would want to separate and preserve the integrity of the institution. In this case, it’s the exact opposite.”

The trial provided a fascinating insight into the relationship between the loyal lieutenant and his boss – as well as prosecutors’ efforts to try to turn one against the other by threatening Weisselberg with a lengthy sentence at Rikers Island.

Weisselberg is expected to report to the notorious New York prison to begin serving his sentence immediately.

His attorney, Nicholas Gravante, said after Tuesday’s hearing: “He deeply regrets the lapse in judgment that resulted in his conviction, and he regrets it most because of the pain it has caused his loving wife, his sons and wonderful grandchildren.”

Under the plea deal, Weisselberg admitted to 15 felonies including tax evasion, and must pay nearly $2m (£1.65m) in fines in addition to the five-month prison term.

But without the deal, he could have faced as much as 15 years in prison.

But despite prosecutors’ focus on Mr Trump, Weisselberg refused to co-operate with the wider investigation into the former president and his business practices.

The question of what Mr Trump potentially knew about executives deceiving the tax authorities and not properly reporting benefits became a persistent and tricky one throughout the trial given he was not personally charged with wrongdoing.

Weisselberg prepared for his testimony with both the prosecution and the defence, an unusual arrangement. The Trump Organization’s lawyers repeatedly argued during the trial that he was motivated by greed, and that “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg”. The defence strategy, in a nutshell, was that the former CFO was not shown the door because he was regarded as a family member, “a prodigal son”.

Prosecutors throughout the trial carefully tried to extract concessions from Weisselberg to bolster their case, while also poking holes in his story that Mr Trump and the business knew nothing of his 15-year tax dodging scheme. They walked the jury through how Weisselberg joined Mr Trump from day one and rose from accountant to controller to CFO. He had deep knowledge of all of the financial workings of the business as it grew. His testimony was key to exposing corruption and fraud at the Trump Organization and gave insight into how the family operated.

On the stand, he teared up as he was asked: “Did you betray the trust that was placed in you?”

“I did,” he answered.

Defence lawyer Alan Futerfas continued: “Are you embarrassed by what you did?”

“More than you can imagine,” he replied.

The man who Mr Trump once described as tough to contestants on an episode of The Apprentice, his old reality show, appeared timid and nervous.

A source close to the case insists Weisselberg’s testimony under oath was truthful and that he chose not to make up stories about Mr Trump. “That’s just common moral decency. And it’s also consistent with the rule of law, you should not make up lies about someone and then offer to give that testimony, which is perjury, just to improve your own legal situation after you have messed up in order to try to get a reduced sentence,” the source told the BBC.

His determination to take blame, however, did not convince the jury, which unanimously decided to convict the Trump Organization. Nor did it convince former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner, who got the impression that the 75-year-old was very scared. “He was hoping to be able to placate Donald Trump by his testimony. And I took those tears to be self-pity for fear that he is going to be frozen out of Trump World,” said Mr Epner.

Prof Schweitzer says the dynamics at play in this trial were in line with Mr Trump’s management style, what academics refer to as a “dominant” leader.

“There’s broadly two kinds of leaders, there are leaders who gain status because of their expertise and wisdom and capabilities, and there are leaders who maintain their positions of power because of dominance,” says Prof Schweitzer.

“Basically, they pull levers of rewards and punishments to coerce or compel people to do what they want.”

Mr Trump has been successful throughout his business and political career figuring out “loyalty levers to reward friends and hammer foes”, says Prof Schweitzer.

The former president has a history of rewarding those who stand by him and attacking those who don’t. Before he left office, he pardoned several of his former aides of their convictions, including his National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, his ex-adviser Roger Stone and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

On social media, President Trump praised Manafort for not “breaking” like his former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen and Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates were convicted in the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but both co-operated with prosecutors. They, to the surprise of no-one, did not get pardons from Mr Trump.

Weisselberg stands behind Mr Pence and Mr Trump at Trump Tower in New York in 2017
Weisselberg stands behind Mr Pence and the former president at Trump Tower in New York in 2017

The former president’s treatment of Mike Pence is another example of how he places loyalty above other values. Mr Trump reportedly told the former vice-president not to “wimp out” and to not certify the results of the 2020 election, according to an excerpt from Mr Pence’s book. He recounts Mr Trump asking him: “If it gives you the power, why would you oppose it?”

Prof Schweitzer says both Mr Trump and Weisselberg were shaped by the era of ’80s New York and the mindset that greed is good. “Greed was celebrated and endorsed in a way that it is not today, we had different mindsets about this wild west of capitalism,” he says. “Things that we are saying are illegal were common practice. These men really enjoyed the privileges that came with being a very powerful, wealthy person in the 1980s who were not constrained by the rules that bound the rest of us.”

Mr Epner agrees. “The New York real estate business has been a dirty business for not decades, but centuries. And he [Mr Trump] was part and parcel of the dirty part of the NY real estate business and then he shone the biggest spotlight in the world on himself [with the presidency].”

On the final day of the trial, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said during closing statements that the evidence had shown that Mr Trump knew exactly what was going on. He reminded the jury of that evidence, including a memo the former president initialled authorising a pay cut for another executive for the exact amount of his perk, rent paid by the company.

“Mr Trump explicitly sanctioning tax fraud! That’s what this document shows,” Mr Steinglass said.

To many, it begged the question why the former president, who built his entire reputation and bravado off the back of his namesake company, wasn’t charged, too. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office says investigations into Mr Trump are ongoing.

Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority

Yahoo! Finance

Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority

Ben Werschkul, Washington Correspondent – January 10, 2023

The House GOP’s first policy bill out of the gate didn’t address inflation or gas prices or immigration, but instead went after the Internal Revenue Service.

The bill was passed Monday evening on a straight party line vote of 221 to 210 to reverse much of the $80 billion in extra funding set aside for the agency by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.

While it has little chance of it being enacted anytime soon with Democrats in control of the Senate and President Biden promising a veto, the prominence of the issue shows just how much the IRS has become a heated target of Republicans. That’s despite experts saying the funds in question would go toward prosaic concerns like helping the agency chase down tax cheats and refresh its outdated technology.

The enhanced funding for the IRS is “part of the broad Biden administration strategy to tax and audit exponentially more Americans,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) as debate got underway on Monday. He added that the bill would “stops autopilot funding for an out-of-control government agency that is perhaps most in need of reform.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy then announced the final results of the vote once it had passed, noting that it had been a GOP promise.

Washington , D.C.  - January 6:   Newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) points to a newly installed sign above his office after he was elected in 15 rounds of votes in a meeting of the 118th Congress, Friday, January 6, 2023, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC.  The House reconvened Friday night after adjourning earlier for a fourth day of voting after Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy failed to earn more than 218 votes on 11 ballots over three days.   (Photo by Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy finally won the gavel early on Saturday morning after a protracted fight. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
‘Absolutely false’ viral claims

The claim from countless Republicans, from Speaker McCarthy on down, is that the influx of money will lead to a flood of 87,000 new IRS agents who will then turn and harass everyday Americans. Some critics of the agency go even further and claim these new agents will be armed.

But fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked the claims, and the agency itself pushed back in a Yahoo Finance op-ed from then-IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in August.

The viral claims are “absolutely false,” Rettig wrote at the time, adding his agency “is often perceived as an easy target for mischaracterizations,” but he promised the new money will not lead to increased audit scrutiny on households making under $400,000.

The plan is instead for much of the money to go toward wealthy tax cheats. IRS estimates of the so-called “tax gap” — the difference between what taxes are owed to the government and what is actually paid — is hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Much of the $80 billion will be focused on taking a bite out of the gap, focusing on wealthy tax payers. The investment is projected to pay for itself and then bring in over $100 billion in increased tax revenue over the coming decade.

By contrast, a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office released Monday afternoon found that the net effect of the House GOP bill’s to defund the agency would increase the deficit by more than $114.3 billion over the coming decade if enacted.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10776702/embed?auto=1

With the new funding, the IRS could hire an estimated 86,852 new employees, according to a May 2021 report by the Department of Treasury, but many of those would not be agents. Many would work in other areas like information technology.

And nearly all new agents would be unarmed. Very few IRS agents carry weapons as part of their responsibilities. Some of the hires may also be used to replace thousands of existing IRS workers expected to retire in the coming years.

Nonetheless, claims of a flood of new agents have persisted, repeated by figures ranging from the GOP chairwoman to Elon Musk.

The chronically understaffed IRS has until recently been a bipartisan concern, but the increased funding became an issue during the 2022 campaign and played into conservative suspicions of the agency that have been growing for years.

Conservatives have long claimed the IRS targeted the tax-exempt status of political groups during the Obama administration, while a 2017 Treasury report on the controversy found that groups on both sides of the political spectrum had faced scrutiny.

‘The average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents’

This week’s vote comes just as Danny Werfel is set to return this year as IRS Commissioner, leading the agency’s revamp.

The newly elected chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith (R-MO), said in a statement Monday that Werfel “should plan to spend a lot of time before our committee answering questions about the leaking of sensitive taxpayer information and an agency with a history of targeting conservative Americans.”

In a recent Fox News appearance, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) additionally argued that “the average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents.”

A sign outside the Internal Revenue Service is seen August 8, 2015 in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / KAREN BLEIER        (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images)
An Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, DC. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images)

On the other side, Democrats repeatedly attacked Republicans for holding a vote on the bill and also for making it their first priority, implying they will use it against Republicans in the coming years.

In a statement calling the move a giveaway to rich tax cheats, Vice President Kamala Harris said House Republicans were trying to undo recent progress under Democrats and hoping to allow “millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to cheat the system.”

This post has been updated.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.