Reddit’s WallStreetBets is playing games with the stock for Digital World Acquisition (DWA), the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) connected with the new technology effort from Deposed Donald Trump (DDT). The price quadrupled on day, indicating a meme stock false inflationary rise as Reddit did with GameStop. SPACs make money by getting money from investors by going public before finding a private company for a merge. Thus big investors in DWA didn’t know the tie with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) until the deal was reached. Now DDT wants the invested money to build his new social app, TRUTH Social, in 2022 as a rival to the “Big Tech” companies.
Although people justified voting for DDT as a “smart businessman,” wealthy people in the business world don’t agree. Hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein took out his investment in DWA after he discovered its connection with DDT’s social media company. The stock is still ten-fold it’s start but heading down.
Washington Post tech reporter Drew Harwell called DDT’s project a crude, uncreative knockoff of Twitter:
“The site looks almost entirely like a Twitter clone: A user can post Truths, which are like tweets, or Re-Truths, which are retweets. There’s also a news feed, called the Truth Feed, a notification system so users can know ‘who’s interacting with your TRUTH’s,’ the social network’s App Store profile states…
“When you publish posts you don’t hit “Tweet” — you hit a button that says ‘TRUTH!’ Every post from every user is a ‘Truth,’ not because of the substance of what someone is saying, but by virtue of where they are saying it.”
“TruthSocial” has already disappeared—at least temporarily—because DDT’s company violated its software licensing agreement. According to a policy fellow of the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), TMTG used the software program Mastoden which didn’t give software users “an opportunity to receive the entire Corresponding Source for the website based on that code.” TMTG tried to hide its use of Mastoden, according to The Verge, and called the service “proprietary,” but the HTML coding and site appearance showed Mastoden’s open-source code. After TMTG was caught, it took down the site with 30 days to make the site available to every user who logs in before its permanently termination. Terms of service on DDT’s “free speech” app states that users may not “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site.”
Before DDT’s website was taken down, hackers broke into it and created fake accounts. One posted a defecating pig with the hashtag @donaldjtrump in what it called an “online war against hate.” Hackers noted the ease with which they could gain access to the site.
DDT’s effort is not his first try. The last one, From the Desk of Donald J. Trump, evaporated last June in 29 days to much ridicule. A blog-like webpage sharing his comments required donations for responses. At that time, DDT said he planned join “another social media platform.” DDT’s site attracted fewer visitors than the pet-adoption service Petfinder and the recipe site Delish. Called a “beacon of freedom” by DDT’s advisers, the effort garnered only 1,500 shares or comments on Facebook and Twitter on its last day.
Lev Parnas, an associate of DDT’s personal lawyer Rudy, Giuliani, was quickly found guilty of using a Russian financier’s campaign donations to influence several state and federal political candidates and lying about it. One was a $325,000 donation in 2018 to a fundraising committee supporting DDT. Parnas faces a second trial in a Manhattan federal court for defrauding investors in his company, Fraud Guarantee, supposedly protecting companies from fraud. In Ukraine, he searched for damaging information on President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, for DDT’s 2020 campaign. DDT’s first impeachment trial accused him of withholding congressionally-approved aid to Ukraine if the country’s officials didn’t announce a criminal probe into the Bidens.
Parnas’ guilt is connected to GOP voter fraud. Some of the donation went to Adam Lexalt’s campaign in Nevada. Former state AG Lexalt claimed dead people voted in the 2020 election. The husband of one of the two women cited in the claim called it “sickening” before admitting he had submitted his dead wife’s ballot. He is an executive with a company fined for providing space for DDT’s rally months earlier against state’s limits on crowds. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) also took donations from Parnas.
In more financing issues, the January 6 Committee is investigating any election law violations or financial crimes by domestic terrorists and foreign extremists funding the pro-DDT rallies preceding insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Four different teams are tracking money, participants’ motivation, group coordination, and DDT’s executive authority to pressure lawmakers, former VP Mike Pence, and the DOJ. Buses, meals, hotels, etc. cost millions of dollars with staffing by DDT’s former campaign employees. The committee has hired people such as financial investigators to create a “comprehensive inventory of everything that took place,” according to committee member Jamie Raskin (R-MD). Persons of interest include rally organizers for Women for America First, Amy Kremer and Caroline Wren, the latter a major fundraiser for DDT’s campaign. Other questions are about private security forces, some associated with DDT’s friend Roger Stone and permits for the grounds.
The House may also probe the part of Oath Keepers in the Capitol insurrection, assisted by hackers finding data about almost 40,000 members of the self-described militia who are part of the GOP mainstream. On the list are 48 state and local GOP government officials, ten sitting state lawmakers, two former state representatives, one current state assembly candidate, a state legislative aide, a city council assistant, two town aldermen, state investigators in Texas and Louisiana, a New Jersey town’s public work’s director, a retired Alabama assistant school superintendent, a California award-winning elementary school teacher, and county commissioners, sheriffs, and constables in Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, North Carolina, and Texas. Others are police officers, active military troops, and veterans. State Arizona lawmaker and member Wendy Rogers was active in the fake Arizona ballot count.
Nearly 1,000 people joined the militia or renewed their memberships immediately after the insurrection. The surge included combat veterans, retired servicepersons, at least one serving national guardsman, several members of the clergy, and others involved in security contracting and the firearms industry. The NYPD has started an internal investigation after hackers found two active officers among Oath Keepers members.
Valuable to the Oath Keepers are the almost 200 former and active law enforcement officials who swear allegiance to the group instead of the United States. They present credentials such as law enforcement experience, weapons, etc. and vow to not obey government orders such as disarming people in the U.S. The group’s anti-government conspiracy theories and penchant for violence have led them to armed standoffs with the federal government and a role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The NYPD has started an internal investigation after hackers found two active officers among Oath Keepers members.
In Oregon, Oath Keepers, including over two dozen current and former law enforcement officers refused any comment and sometimes denied being members but ridiculed indigenous people, ignored inmates’ medical needs, etc. A former military police officer and current corrections officer at Snake River Correctional Institution, one of six current or former correction officers in the militia, posted a Facebook message calling for “all illegals” to be deported, suggested wealthy Democrat George Soros paid protesters “to riot and burn down Ferguson,” and accused congressional Muslims of trying to destroy the country from within.
Founding member and former board member Richard Mack also founded the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in Oregon which believes county sheriffs can ignore state and federal law because they are the highest government authority. Several Oregon sheriffs joined Mack’s group, including then-Linn County Sherriff Tim Mueller who led eight other Oregon counties in sending a letter in 2013 to then-VP Joe Biden, declaring they would not enforce any new federal gun laws. Now, Mack’s sheriffs have told Gov. Kate Brown they will not enforce the state mask mandates, something Brown has not required.
During a campaign speech for election to Congress, Arizona’s state representative Walt Blackman praised the Proud Boys, another far-right extremist group, saying their attending his rallies “was one of the proudest moments of my life.” He called them “the example on how to be an American.” The speech was at a rally organized by Look Ahead America to support insurrections charged in the January 6 riot. He also thanked McCarthy and the NRCC for putting him on the Young Guns program as an “on the radar” candidate. One of Blackman’s GOP opponents is Ron Watkins, a QAnon leader. Congress has also constituted hearings to investigate the number of military-related people attracted to such extremist organizations as the Proud Boys.
Nel's New Day 
Leave a Reply