#mercer — Public Fediverse posts

Hype for the Future 191A: Route 65 in Northern Missouri

https://novatopflex.wordpress.com/2026/05/10/hype-for-the-future-191a-route-65-in-northern-missouri/

@easwatch #EAS #WEA for #Henderson, #ILwx #Mercer, #IL; #Warren, #IL; #Des Moines, #IAwx #Louisa, #IA: National Weather Service: SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING in effect for this area until 6:45 PM CDT for DESTRUCTIVE baseball size hail. Take shelter in a sturdy building, away from windows. People and animals outdoors will be severely injured. Source: NWS Quad Cities IA IL

** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***

@easwatch #EAS #WEA for #Henderson, #ILwx #Mercer, #IL; #Warren, #IL; #Des Moines, #IAwx #Louisa, #IA: National Weather Service: SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING in effect for this area until 6:45 PM CDT for DESTRUCTIVE baseball size hail. Take shelter in a sturdy building, away from windows. People and animals outdoors will be severely injured. Source: NWS Quad Cities IA IL

** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***

@easwatch #EAS #WEA for #Henderson, #ILwx #Mercer, #IL; #Warren, #IL; #Des Moines, #IAwx #Louisa, #IA: National Weather Service: SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING in effect for this area until 6:45 PM CDT for DESTRUCTIVE baseball size hail. Take shelter in a sturdy building, away from windows. People and animals outdoors will be severely injured. Source: NWS Quad Cities IA IL

** DO NOT RELY ON THIS FEED FOR LIFE SAFETY, SEEK OUT OFFICIAL SOURCES ***

Honestly? I don't know that Matt has as much fun playing (in this campaign) as he had GMing CR1 through 3.
Whether it's the way Brennan does things, or the tonality of the campaign (both of which seem very different), or just sitting on the other side of the screen for such a long time (way longer than during Aabria GMing) - I dunno.

It's all gut-feeling anyway.

#CriticalRole #CR4 #Mercer #MattMercer

Furman Announces 2026 Football Schedule https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/714745/ #AwayContest #Football #FootballSchedule #furman #FurmanFootball #FurmanPaladins #FurmanPaladinsFootball #Home #HomeGame #matchup #Mercer #nov. #oct. #paladins #Richmond #Samford #sept. #socon #SoConFootball #SoConFootballSchedule #Tennessee

Furman Announces 2026 Football Schedule https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/714745/ #AwayContest #Football #FootballSchedule #furman #FurmanFootball #FurmanPaladins #FurmanPaladinsFootball #Home #HomeGame #matchup #Mercer #nov. #oct. #paladins #Richmond #Samford #sept. #socon #SoConFootball #SoConFootballSchedule #Tennessee

Hype for the Future 78P: Mercer and Auglaize Counties, Ohio

https://novatopflex.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/hype-for-the-future-78p-mercer-and-auglaize-counties-ohio/

https://open.substack.com/pub/newrepublic/p/a-new-report-reveals-the-real-reason

This report is half right.

It says that Dems wanted stronger more liberal candidates than they got, so they didn't vote. This is what the sponsor of the report wants so no surprise there. I agree that Dems don't want tepid moderate candidates. But that's not why they didn't turn out.

#DNC #Democrats #Dems #Turnout #Musk #GOP #Kamala #Harris #Mamdani #AOC #Bernie #PaidDigital #Trump #Putin #GRU #FSB #Mercer #CambridgeAnalytica #Thiel #Facebook #AlphaBank

Kaia Gerber Selling Soho Loft for $5.79 Million

Photo: Monica Schipper/FilmMagic/Getty Images Kaia Gerber is leaving Soho. The New York Post reports that the model–actress–book clubber…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Celebrities #CelebrityRealEstate #Entertainment #KaiaGerber #loft #Mercer #soho #who’sselling
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/345189/

Kaia Gerber Selling Soho Loft for $5.79 Million

Photo: Monica Schipper/FilmMagic/Getty Images Kaia Gerber is leaving Soho. The New York Post reports that the model–actress–book clubber…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Celebrities #CelebrityRealEstate #Entertainment #KaiaGerber #loft #Mercer #soho #who’sselling
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/345189/

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The wealth of #Betsy #DeVos,
by contrast, comes from a simpler operation:
the marketing of what some have called a pyramid scheme that goes by the brand name #Amway.

Founded by her father-in-law in 1959, Amway distributes home products like dish soap and cosmetics through a network of home-based sellers
who are pressured to recruit more sellers in order to earn a bonus on the amount of product the distributor would then sell wholesale to the recruit.
That recruit would also be a distributor, looking for recruits of his or her own, in order to sell more products wholesale in order to get that bonus.

Note the emphasis on recruitment and bonuses rather than the direct-selling to retail customers,
who, in the end, were the ones for whom Amway products were ostensibly intended.

In the business press, Amway is often described as a “multilevel marketing company.”

In the 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission described its business model as
an “inherent fraud,” as historian Rick Perlstein reported in The Nation,
and tried to shut the company down.
The FTC failed in that effort, but did issue orders in 1979 slapping Amway for price-fixing and misrepresenting the kind of money distributors could expect to make.
In fact, Amway was made to tell distributors that they could wind up losing money.

Three decades later, in 2010, a class action lawsuit by former sellers (um, “distributors”) alleging Amway’s engagement in an “illegal scheme” was settled out of court.

According to USA Today, Amway agreed to pay $55 million to former distributors,
closely oversee high-level distributors who run training businesses,
strengthen refund policies
and make other changes estimated to cost an additional $100 million.

In Forbes’ 2016 listing of “America’s Largest Private Companies,” Amway clocks in at number twenty-nine.

The education secretary, née Elisabeth Prince, did not come into the DeVos family empty-handed.
Her own family of origin, while not as wealthy as her husband’s, was quite well-to-do through her father’s enterprise, 💥Prince Corporation💥, itself a privately held company until Johnson Controls bought it for $1.3 billion in cash in 1996.

Founder #Edgar #Prince, seeking to change the political culture to more closely resemble his own heartless Calvinism,
donated, according to Zack Stanton of Politico, “millions in seed funding to launch the
💥Family Research Council,”
the right-wing organization that represents and organizes politically conservative evangelical Christians,
and was famously designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Prince’s son, #Erik, used his windfall to found #Blackwater, the military contractor that went on to infamy when, in 2007,
its mercenaries gunned down civilians in a Baghdad city square.
Four Blackwater contractors were convicted in 2014 of killing fourteen unarmed Iraqis “in what prosecutors called a wartime atrocity,” according to the New York Times.
Blackwater, since sold and renamed #Academi, was also privately held.
It enjoyed more than $1 billion in government contracts.
In 2010, according to the Washington Post,

Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates “amid mounting legal problems for his American business.”

Both the #Mercers and the #DeVoses pour millions into the political system.
You can bet they plan to run the country the same way they have run their companies: using shell games and pyramid schemes, fraud and shakedown.

According to The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, #Robert #Mercer “gave $22.5 million in disclosed donations to Republican candidates and to political-action committees” to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
And that doesn’t include possible donations to nonprofit advocacy groups, now allowed,
since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC,
to conduct advertising for and against political candidates.

But unlike PACs, these nonprofits
—classified as “social welfare” groups
—are not required to disclose their donors.

Politico’s Stanton reports that Betsy and Dick DeVos pretty much own Michigan politics,
having spent “at least $100 million on political campaigns and causes over the past 20 years.”
The DeVoses used political giving and influence to cut funding to public schools and pave the way for a large influx of charter schools,
and to see Michigan, home to the once-mighty United Auto Workers,
turned into a so-called right-to-work state,
an anti-union designation that translates into greater workplace control for business bosses, but few rights for the bossed

🆘 Your government is in the hands of super-rich people who never had to show anything to anybody!

And you can bet they plan to run the country the same way they have run their companies:

using shell games and pyramid schemes, fraud and shakedown, answerable to virtually no one.

These are people who have thrived in a culture of unaccountability and self-dealing.

They are also people who have convinced themselves that the accrual of wealth to themselves is a boon to the nation at large.

They like to think of themselves as job creators, dynamic players in shaping the global economy.

Because their magnificence exists to benefit us all, the reasoning goes, they need not show us the methods by which they perform their magic.

And indeed we do all stand, mouths agape, at the show, dazzled by the 22,000-square-foot mansion
(with a 6,200-square-foot guest house)
that serves as the home address of secretary of education #Betsy #DeVos,
or the 203-foot yacht (with an elevator inside) owned by #Robert #Mercer, the Trump donor and patron of chief White House strategist #Stephen K. #Bannon.

(Mercer’s daughter, #Rebekah, is said to have great influence in the West Wing.)

The source of Mercer’s wealth is ♦️Renaissance Technologies LLC, a privately owned firm known as a hedge-fund sponsor,
which was built by scientists who learned how to run algorithms that identify signals emanating from great masses of data in order to generate profitable financial trades.

After Renaissance founder and math wizard James Simons, a big donor to Democratic candidates and political action committees, retired and kicked himself upstairs to serve as the company’s chairman,
Mercer became co-CEO with #Peter #Brown, his longtime research partner.

At the Renaissance office in East Setauket on New York’s Long Island, no sign is visible from the road to tell you you’ve arrived at the headquarters of a rare kind of casino
—one that moves billions of dollars around the world.

Thick plantings of trees obscure any view of the low-slung Renaissance building from the public side of the security gate.

Renaissance is spectacularly successful
—Investopedia named Renaissance Institutional Equities, the LLC’s largest entity,
the top-performing hedge fund of 2016,
after it yielded investors a return of 20 percent for the year.

Mercer’s genius as a data and systems geek is part of the super-secret sauce of this “quant fund”
that turned other people’s assets-minus-liabilities into riches for his investors.

It’s like a very complicated version of counting cards at the blackjack table.

But the best-performing fund at Renaissance is one that only its employees can join
—and indeed they must in order to actualize their full compensation package.

Bloomberg’s Katherine Burton described the employee-only Medallion fund as
“finance’s blackest box.”
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/what-we-do-is-secret-stan

A dollar is a dollar is a dollar
But some dollars are different, because of how their owners obtain them and move them about.

These are the dark dollars of private companies, dollars slithery in their expert avoidance of taxes, their paths rendered invisible by the absence of footprints.

Critics of the Trump White House point to the obscene levels of wealth that you find among the inner circle of President Trump’s appointees and associates.

Just as striking, though, is the provenance of all this loose cash:
Trump’s trusted advisers have come into much of this wealth through private companies,
whose financial balance sheets and so much more are shielded from public view.

At least ten of Trump’s close political associates, including some of his cabinet picks, hail from the carefully shrouded world of private capital.

💥Private companies play by a different set of rules than those governing firms that trade their shares on stock exchanges.

Unlike their publicly traded counterparts, private companies don’t have to worry about facing irate shareholders.

That’s because a private company’s principals have chosen those shareholders, who are often drawn from a founder’s family.

No proxy fights or hostile takeovers to worry about; no bending to the will of big institutional investors.

This is not to say that there are no big donors to Democrats who don’t also get their dough from private companies.

For example, Democrats have long enjoyed the largesse of the Pritzker family, who took their Hyatt Corporation public only in 2009.

Until then, it was a closely held private company.

But no Democratic administration was ever dominated by the owners of privately held entities,
and no administration of either party has ever represented so much wealth derived from such secretive entities.

👉Little in the way of financial disclosure is required of privately held companies. When it comes to financial regulation, these companies reap the benefit of the government’s failure to call them to account.

The same is true of private companies as large as the Koch Industries conglomerate or as adorably tiny as a startup founded by a lone millennial in a stocking cap.

Sanctums of Privilege

This is not a screed against private companies. As a red-blooded American, I revel in tales of heroic entrepreneurship
—of hatched-in-the-garage ideas that yield their underdog executors an unlikely pot of gold.

This is, rather, a scream, the wail of a blues tune sung to my fellow red-blooded Americans:

🆘 Your government is in the hands of super-rich people who never had to show anything to anybody!

And you can bet they plan to run the country the same way they have run their companies:

using shell games and pyramid schemes, fraud and shakedown, answerable to virtually no one.

These are people who have thrived in a culture of unaccountability and self-dealing.

They are also people who have convinced themselves that the accrual of wealth to themselves is a boon to the nation at large.

They like to think of themselves as job creators, dynamic players in shaping the global economy.

Because their magnificence exists to benefit us all, the reasoning goes, they need not show us the methods by which they perform their magic.

And indeed we do all stand, mouths agape, at the show, dazzled by the 22,000-square-foot mansion
(with a 6,200-square-foot guest house)
that serves as the home address of secretary of education #Betsy #DeVos,
or the 203-foot yacht (with an elevator inside) owned by #Robert #Mercer, the Trump donor and patron of chief White House strategist #Stephen K. #Bannon.

(Mercer’s daughter, #Rebekah, is said to have great influence in the West Wing.)

The source of Mercer’s wealth is ♦️Renaissance Technologies LLC, a privately owned firm known as a hedge-fund sponsor,
which was built by scientists who learned how to run algorithms that identify signals emanating from great masses of data in order to generate profitable financial trades.

After Renaissance founder and math wizard James Simons, a big donor to Democratic candidates and political action committees, retired and kicked himself upstairs to serve as the company’s chairman,
Mercer became co-CEO with #Peter #Brown, his longtime research partner.

At the Renaissance office in East Setauket on New York’s Long Island, no sign is visible from the road to tell you you’ve arrived at the headquarters of a rare kind of casino
—one that moves billions of dollars around the world.

Thick plantings of trees obscure any view of the low-slung Renaissance building from the public side of the security gate.

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/what-we-do-is-secret-stan

The Winklevoss twins, Rebekah Mercer, allies of Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr. and top Trump campaign aides recently joined a conclave of right-wing donors who are suddenly flush with power.

Just four days after being named the next White House chief of staff,
Susie Wiles was waiting patiently for an espresso drink at a five-star hotel in Las Vegas.

Overnight, she had become one of the most powerful people in America.

The value of a minute of her time could not be higher during the presidential transition:
Republican strivers are hounding her for desirable gigs,
and back at Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Donald J. Trump has kept courting controversy with his picks.

Yet here she was thousands of miles away, flanked only by a security guard,
alone in line at a Four Seasons coffee shop.

She had just peeled off from lunch with other top Trump campaign officials,
including her fellow campaign manager, Chris LaCivita;

the pollster Tony Fabrizio;

and the campaign’s fund-raising chief, Meredith O’Rourke.

“We’re all just chilling,” one member of the startled Trump entourage joked aloud when alerted that they had been spotted by a nearby New York Times reporter as they walked through the hotel.

What demanded the dayslong presence of all these Trumpworld figures during some of the most important weeks of their careers?

♦️The fall gathering of a secretive group of wealthy tech executives and their allies who have ascended swiftly within the Republican Party’s donor class: ♦️the #Rockbridge #Network.

The group, which was co-founded five years ago by JD Vance,
sprouted from an informal set of dinners into a powerful coalition of Republican donors who have
given more than $100 million to Rockbridge projects since 2019, according to a person close to the group,
helping lead Silicon Valley’s march to the right.

For Rockbridge, Mr. Vance’s election as vice president was a crowning achievement
— and a tantalizing opportunity to wield new national influence.

But Rockbridge has largely kept its activities stealthy,
mindful of how groups of wealthy conservatives like the Koch Network have drawn attacks from both liberal detractors and Republican wannabes.

As caravans of black S.U.V.s shuttled in the billionaires from their private jets last week, members of the Rockbridge roster could be spotted around the hotel: #Rebekah #Mercer, the scion of one of the most prolific Republican donor families, greeted well-wishers in the lobby.

Working the happy-hour scene at the hotel bar were two close friends of #Elon #Musk’s
— #Ken #Howery and #Luke #Nosek, whose time with Mr. Musk at PayPal made them megawealthy themselves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/us/politics/rockbridge-trump-vance-wiles.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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Project 2025: The Plan To Take Over The Courts w/ Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse | iHeartRadio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGe5_tKEWo0

#Politics #DarkMoney #LegislationLoopholes #Law #Project2025 #Feudalism #Fascism #PropertySupremacy #Buchananism #Trump #JDVance #Thiel #Mercer #KochBrothers #Crow #SCOTUS #Executive #Totalitarianism #CorporateWelfare #CorporateSocialsim #ClimateCrisis #Economy

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Secretive conservative donor group Rockbridge Network met in April to draw up 2024 plans — with a call-in from Trump

The #Rockbridge #Network, a collection of pro-Trump donors with a heavy tech influence, heard from the former president during a conference in Palm Beach last April.

Former President Donald Trump spent his week stuck in New York City for the beginning of his hush money trial.

But on Wednesday, between days in court, Trump made time to call into a secretive donor meeting back at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, according to two people involved with the group who were in the room.

The Rockbridge Network is an under-the-radar, new-age conservative group that sees itself as the leading edge of a changing Republican Party
— and is putting tens of millions of dollars into building a fresh infrastructure to support it. 

Trump spoke to a room of about 250 attendees who lean more tech-populist than traditional, 20th-century political, having gravitated to the former president and the way he has shaken up the Republican Party.

Trump was originally slated to be a guest speaker but was unable to attend in person due to his New York trial.

Donald Trump #Jr. ended up pinch-hitting for his father as one of the star in-person speakers, according to the two people in attendance.

Trump’s co-campaign managers, Susie #Wiles and Chris #LaCivita, attended as well. 

Rockbridge isn’t yet a brand name in Republican politics, in part because the group has been secretive since its founding in 2019.

The exact number of dollars behind the group is also difficult to verify, but one of the sources in attendance last week who is familiar with the group’s operations told NBC News it is in the “high tens of millions.”

And while some older GOP donor groups eschew Trump
— the Koch network stayed out of the presidential race after endorsing Nikki Haley in the Republican primary, preferring to focus down the ballot
— Rockbridge is firmly aligned with Trump.

Rockbridge sees itself as a sort of anti-Koch network that can fill in the gaps the party hasn’t traditionally invested in.

As the GOP went from middle- and upper-middle-class to more middle- and working-class,
Rockbridge founders felt the GOP infrastructure didn’t shift to support and capitalize on that.

While Democrats had labor unions organizing their blue-collar base, for example, Republicans didn’t have a mechanism to do the same.

The organization is the brainchild of Ohio Sen. JD #Vance (before he was a senator) and Chris #Buskirk, who is a co-founder of the conservative fund "1789 Capital" and the publisher of the website “American Greatness,” a pro-Trump outlet that describes itself as “the leading voice of the next generation of American Conservatism.”

Billionaire Peter #Thiel has been among those involved.

“All these other historical think tanks and more traditional conservative organizations didn’t capture the Trump movement at all and didn’t recognize the shift.

Many are still operating like they’re in the 1990s,” said Omeed #Malik, an entrepreneur and donor who has been involved with Rockbridge since 2022. 

Last April's three-day gathering, which took place at the Palm Beach Four Seasons apart from the Wednesday night Mar-a-Lago event, featured both new- and old-school GOP donor stalwarts.

Among the crowd was major GOP donor Rebekah #Mercer, billionaire and former Trump ambassador to the United Kingdom Woody #Johnson, and prominent conservative lawyer Leonard #Leo, according to the two people present at the gathering.

Also there were cryptocurrency luminary Erik #Voorhees and former Uber exec Emil #Michael.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/secretive-conservative-donor-group-meets-draw-2024-plans-call-trump-rcna148899

Leonard Leo typically operates in the background and goes to considerable lengths to cover his philanthropic tracks.

Each year, his groups send millions through #DonorsTrust,
which markets itself as a “principled philanthropic partner for conservative and libertarian donors”
and a means to anonymously fund “sensitive or controversial issues.”

Deep-pocketed benefactors like Leo can tell DonorsTrust where they want their money to ultimately go.

Its board of directors will “always respect grant requests that fall within the DonorsTrust mission and purpose,” per its website.

DonorsTrust declined to discuss the specifics of any contributions identified by The Intercept.

“We do not release to the general public either the names of our accountholders nor specific grants that they may have recommended,” said Lawson #Bader, its president and CEO.

Bader noted that some of the contributions listed on DonorsTrust’s tax filings may have originated from multiple donors.

But Leo’s funding vehicles
— especially the #Marble #Freedom #Trust and the #85Fund,
which he rebranded in 2020 and likely bankrolls via yet another donor-advised fund
— are among the biggest contributors to DonorsTrust.

In 2022, the 85 Fund sent $92 million through DonorsTrust,
more than a quarter of all contributions to DonorsTrust that year.

Marble Freedom Trust has distributed more than $41 million via DonorsTrust, according to a filing for its 2020 fiscal year.

The Rule of Law Trust, also run by Leo, gave $5.8 million via DonorsTrust in 2020.

Beside Leo’s groups, other top contributors to DonorsTrust include #Rebekah #Mercer of Cambridge Analytica and Parler fame,
whose Mercer Family Foundation gave $31 million in 2022.

Mercer and other top contributors to DonorsTrust did not respond to The Intercept’s questions for this article.

Whether from Leo or other sources, conservative money has been already flowing to law schools via DonorsTrust for years, mostly to premiere programs.

Since 2019, #Yale Law School has received $250,000 per year for the “Diversity in Democracy Professorship Fund”;
Yale declined to explain the purpose of this fund or say whether these contributions came from Leo.

New York University Law School received $350,000 in 2021 and $300,000 in 2022 for a libertarian research institute.
#NYU also declined to provide additional details about the source of these contributions.

And since 2020, #Stanford’s student chapter of the Federalist Society received $25,000 per year.
Stanford referred questions to the Federalist Society and DonorsTrust.

There were also millions sent to George Mason University’s #Scalia Law School,
which Leo helped make one of the gravitational centers for conservative legal academia.

Since 2017, Scalia Law School received at least $4 million each year via DonorsTrust,

much of it earmarked for its Law & Economics Center, which puts on often lavish doctrinal bootcamps for judges, one of which was held in Leo’s literal backyard.
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/29/leonard-leo-donor-law-schools/

‘October 7 was a turning point’: Trump’s pro-Israel fundraising accelerates

ALMOST AS SOON AS PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN announced he would halt a weapons shipment to Israel, Steve #Witkoff’s iPhone started buzzing.

“Every one of my friends started calling and asking, ‘What can I do for Donald Trump?’” Witkoff, a pro-Israel donor and fundraiser for Trump’s presidential campaign, told The Bulwark.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/october-7-turning-point-trump-fundraising

#Paulson #Ross #Wynn #Lutnick #Wood #Loeffler #Troutt #McMahon #Mercer #Malik #McEvoy #Kurtz

Last month the New York Times reported on a dinner Donald Trump had with a small group of donors,
-- including large backers of his 2016 campaign, Robert #Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer.

Other attendees included entrepreneur Omeed #Malik, cosmetics firm founder Trish #McEvoy and real estate billionaire Richard #Kurtz.

In April the Mercers and Malik were among a few dozen co-chairs of a Trump fundraising dinner hosted by John #Paulson, along with other notable co-chairs including Wilbur #Ross, Steve #Wynn, Howard #Lutnick, Robert #Wood, Kelly #Loeffler, Kenny #Troutt and Linda #McMahon – who is also a board director of Trump Media which owns Truth Social.

The Trump campaign claimed it raised over $50 million at the event.

#Mercer #Malik #McEvoy #Kurtz

Donald Trump is facing a cash crunch that puts him at a severe disadvantage to President Joe Biden

No surprise that in March he dined with a small group of donors
including hedge fund billionaire Robert #Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, according to two people with knowledge of the event.

Trump’s dinner companions also included entrepreneur Omeed #Malik, cosmetics firm founder Trish #McEvoy and real estate management billionaire Richard #Kurtz, one of the people said.

The Mercers, McEvoy and Kurtz did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Malik declined to comment, and a Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The Mercers were a critical source of support behind Trump’s win in the 2016 presidential election. The family was conspicuously quiet during Trump’s 2020 reelection effort.
But both Robert and Rebekah Mercer have lent their names for an invitation to a high-dollar fundraiser April 6, along with Malik. And their appearance with Trump at the dinner is additional evidence of a rekindled relationship

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/03/30/trump-rekindles-relationships-with-key-2016-donors-2/

Leonard Leo’s ambitions extend beyond the courts.

Organizations within his network have reportedly funded at least 40 groups advising Project 2025, per NBC News. 

Leo is also linked to
💥Project 2025 💥co-author #Roger #Severino
—VP of 💥Domestic Policy at Heritage💥
—who served as the Director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Trump.

Severino began his career at the💥 “Becket Fund for Religious Liberty” 💥where Leo sits on the board of directors.

Severino is one half of a “Catholic Right” power couple.
The other half is Leonard Leo protégé Carrie Severino, who previously clerked for Becket and #Clarence #Thomas.  

It was Roger Severino who wrote the section of Project 2025 outlining a ⭐️plan to withdraw the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill ⭐️(mifepristone),
which is also under attack in a case pending before the Supreme Court.

If the religious right fails to convince the Supreme Court, Project 2025 is their “Plan B” (pun intended). 

Leo and his network are also linked to #Kevin #Roberts,
a rabidly partisan fundamentalist Catholic activist,
who has served as president of Heritage since 2021. 

In 2020, Roberts had been featured on the Resources page of “WhereYouAre,” which calls itself a “collaboration of people in touch with … centers of Opus Dei in Texas.”

#Opus #Dei is a “small but powerful”  group “within the Catholic Church” whose members “abide by strict conservative teachings''
and “believe they are called to serve God” not only in their personal lives, but also in their professions, per the Australian Broadcasing Center.

Many of Opus Deis’ members keep their membership a secret. 

Leo reportedly belongs to Opus Dei. 

Leo also sits on the 💥Napa Legal Institute’s 💥board of directors,
a faith based organization whose chairman of the board is #Timothy #Busch,
one of Leo’s closest allies.

Bush co-founded Napa Legal’s sister organization, the 💥Napa Institute💥, whose annual conference in July 2022 included Kevin Roberts as a speaker. Leo is a Napa Institute donor. 

In December that year, Busch announced that the Napa Institute would open an office near the U.S. Capitol within the headquarters of the 💥Eternal World Television Network  💥(EWTN),
a global Catholic-themed television and radio network. 

The month before, Kevin Roberts had been interviewed during an EWTN broadcast where he called himself an abortion “purist”
and said that he wanted “not a single abortion happening in this country.”

Roberts reconnected with Leo’s network in 2023 when he spoke during⭐️ “A Duty to God and Country,” ⭐️
an event organized by the 💥Catholic Information Center 💥(CIC) and Napa Institute.

As noted, Leo sits on CIC’s board of directors. 

Meanwhile, Project 2025 (Heritage) Director #Paul #Dans belongs to the New York chapter of the 💥Federalist Society, 💥which is co-chaired by Leo at the national level,
while #Steve #Bannon, Project 2025’s unofficial media partner, has served with Leo on the board of directors of 💥Reclaim New York 💥(founded by #Rebekah #Mercer). 

Bannon, you may recall, has closely aligned himself with proponents of the so-called “rad trad” (radical traditional) Catholicism movement
and specifically said that he wants to destroy the administrative state,
an express goal of Project 2025.

As observed by Media Matters, Bannon has repeatedly used his War Room perch to normalize Project 2025’s radical agenda. 

https://crownewsletter.substack.com/p/christian-right-observer-weekly-volume-fd1

Many GOP billionaires balked at Jan. 6. They’re coming back to Trump.

Trump’s team has used a soft touch with the billionaires and has shown more sophistication than some expected

At the center of some of the discussions has been top Trump aide #Susie #Wiles, who often comes armed with data and is viewed as “impressive and professional,”

Trump is also growing his fundraising team in Palm Beach, where Republican National Committee employees and others are expecting to move to raise money.

At Wiles’s suggestion, Trump has engaged in “#call #time,” dialing billionaires himself. In the past, he had been resistant to such measures.

Trump could desperately use the cash infusion as his campaign and the RNC trail Biden and the Democratic National Committee, and as he faces growing legal bills.

Next month, he is planning a fundraiser hosted by a range of billionaires, including
oil tycoon #Harold #Hamm,
sugar magnate #Jose “Pepe” #Fanjul,
real estate mogul #Howard #Lutnick,
megadonors #Rebekah and #Bob #Mercer,
wealthy business executives #Todd #Ricketts and #Warren #Stephens
and real estate magnate #Steve #Witkoff,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/29/trump-billionaires-gop-donors/

Donald Trump, facing a cash crunch that puts him at a severe disadvantage to President Biden, dined on Thursday night with a small group of donors including the hedge fund billionaire #Robert #Mercer and his daughter #Rebekah, according to two people with knowledge of the event.
Mr. Trump’s dinner companions also included the entrepreneur #Omeed #Malik, the cosmetics firm founder #Trish #McEvoy and the real estate management billionaire #Richard #Kurtz, one of the people said.
The Mercers, Ms. McEvoy and Mr. Kurtz did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Mr. Malik declined to comment, and a Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

The Mercers were a critical source of support behind Mr. Trump’s win in the 2016 presidential election.
In addition to giving donations, they pushed him to make changes to his political team, including making #Kellyanne #Conway his campaign manager and #Stephen #Bannon his chief executive.

The Mercer family was conspicuously quiet during Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election effort

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/30/us/politics/trumper-mercer-dinner.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Ministers square up over plight of Afghan special forces abandoned by Britain | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/johnny-mercer-afghan-james-heappey-special-force-b2464042.html

#AfghanSpecialForces
#Taliban
#TheTriples
#Torture
#PuttingTheirLivesOnTheLineForTgeUK
#Sunak
#MOD
#Mercer
#ARAP
#Heappey
#HomeOffice
#WillasleyWilsey
#AfghansWhoWorkedWithBritish
#Herbert
#Jarvis

Government ‘failing Afghans’ as only 233 people come to UK on flagship resettlement scheme | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/afghan-asylum-backlog-resettlement-home-office-b2398856.html

#AfghanRefugees
#ResettlementScheme
#SmallBoats
#HomeOffice
#Taliban
#AfghansWhoWorkedWithBritish
#Rwanda
#Pakistan
#ACRS
#IRC
#IRCUK
#IllegalMigrationBill
#AsylumBan
#ARAP
#Mercer
#Homelessness

Thousands of Afghans in limbo two years after fall of Kabul despite pledge to save those who helped UK troops | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/afghan-refugees-kabul-taliban-pakistan-b2390923.html

#Afghans
#AfghansWhoWorkedWithBritish
#ARAP
#Pakistan
#ACRS
#Sunak
#Tories
#Dubs
#Richards
#Lewis
#Jarvis
#McColl
#Mercer
#Dannatt
#Hopkins
#Labour
#AfghanRefugees
#AfghanRelocations

Kotaku: Critical Role’s Matt Mercer Solves Baldur’s Gate 3 Problems In The Most D&D Way https://kotaku.com/baldurs-gate-3-matt-mercer-critical-role-stream-boxes-1850709257 #gaming #tech #kotaku #forgottenrealmsadventures #roleplayingvideogames #dungeonsdragons #larianstudios #baldursgate #mattmercer #swenvincke #mercer #arrow #swen #rpg #dd

Kotaku: Critical Role’s Matt Mercer Solves Baldur’s Gate 3 Problems In The Most D&D Way https://kotaku.com/baldurs-gate-3-matt-mercer-critical-role-stream-boxes-1850709257 #gaming #tech #kotaku #forgottenrealmsadventures #roleplayingvideogames #dungeonsdragons #larianstudios #baldursgate #mattmercer #swenvincke #mercer #arrow #swen #rpg #dd

Kotaku: Critical Role’s Matt Mercer Solves Baldur’s Gate 3 Problems In The Most D&D Way https://kotaku.com/baldurs-gate-3-matt-mercer-critical-role-stream-boxes-1850709257 #gaming #tech #kotaku #forgottenrealmsadventures #roleplayingvideogames #dungeonsdragons #larianstudios #baldursgate #mattmercer #swenvincke #mercer #arrow #swen #rpg #dd

Kotaku: Critical Role’s Matt Mercer Solves Baldur’s Gate 3 Problems In The Most D&D Way https://kotaku.com/baldurs-gate-3-matt-mercer-critical-role-stream-boxes-1850709257 #gaming #tech #kotaku #forgottenrealmsadventures #roleplayingvideogames #dungeonsdragons #larianstudios #baldursgate #mattmercer #swenvincke #mercer #arrow #swen #rpg #dd