Silenced by Arrest?

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Forbes SBF Arrested just in time to avoid Congress 

Sam Bankman-Fried, Democrats 2nd largest campaign donor after Soros, was arrested 1 day before he was to be questioned by Congress, thus protecting his Democrat beneficiaries from exposure. The SEC added charges of campaign finance fraud thus allowing him to claim self-incrimination to avoid naming names.  

Published by Don Tabor

I am a former Chairman of the Tidewater Libertarian Party and was the 2007 LP candidate for the 14th district VA Senate. Previously, I was the Volunteer State Director for the FairTax. I am married 50 years with two grown children and 5 grandchildren.

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60 thoughts on “Silenced by Arrest?”

  1. The ugly stench of desperation. Always looking for something, anything that could be a credible “whatabout” to shield MAGA-Republican corruption.

    And yet another absolutely juvenile and clueless conspiracy theory. Here is something that you obviously do not know – you can take the Fifth to answer any question no matter what you have been charged with or not charged at all. The idea that the SEC is helping this fellow take the Fifth to protect someone is asinine.

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    1. Desperation?

      The Democrats 2nd largest donors defrauded pension plans and investors to give the money to Democrat politicians, and you think I’M desperate?

      Just more proof that the Democrats are the party of corruption.

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      1. So, no wealthy Republicans or their donors are corrupt?
        Desperate was the right word. Or maybe pitiful.

        If you want to go down the list of which party is more corrupt you are going to lose. Bigly.

        Let’s skip over the convicted tax criminal Trump for now. Let’s start with the GOP Senator from Florida whose wealth is based on defrauding Medicare. And he is not some criminal about to go to jail. He is the Leader of the Senatorial Campaign Committee.

        https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/

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  2. I don’t know if SBF’s arrest is meant to silence him. I expect, though, that the demise of his crypto company will be leveraged for propaganda purposes to help sell the implementation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in the U.S. The storyline will be: You can’t trust private digital currencies, but you CAN trust government digital currencies that are backed by the full faith and credit of Uncle Sam.

    A side note: Twitter is well positioned to become the platform of choice for the rollout of FedCoin. Once Musk establishes Twitter’s bona fides as a free speech platform, he’ll add a digital wallet and various commerce functions to convert Twitter into an “Everything App.”

    The thing to remember as the story of SBF’s scandal plays out is that the crimes of which he is accused would be the exactly the same if his company had operated with “real” dollars instead of digital currency. Digital currencies and hard currencies are functionally equivalent, except for the extra features that digital currencies offer.

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    1. “Once Musk establishes Twitter’s bona fides as a free speech platform…”

      Here is some advice. Do not hold your breath.

      Since 2016 Twitter has employed a Trust and Safety Advisory Group of volunteer outside experts to provide assistance in areas of hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other such problems on the platform. Before the meeting scheduled for today the Group was summarily disbanded.

      https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-twitter-dissolves-trust-and-safety-council-just-days-after-its-members-speak-out-12767148

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        1. “That’s a good example of your confused thinking.”

          If it floats your boat to think that I am confused, knock yourself out.

          My point was that Musk will never establish any sort of bona fides with the kind of chaotic management he has exhibited so far. The “free speech” of your imagination will spell commercial ruin for ANY social media platform. This group that has been summarily dismissed fulfilled a needed function. It is now not apparent how that function will be fulfilled. So, again, don’t hold your breath.

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        2. RE: “My point was that Musk will never establish any sort of bona fides with the kind of chaotic management he has exhibited so far.”

          My point was that “free speech bona fides” need only exist as a marketing narrative. Don’t let your assumptions trip you up.

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          4. “In this case, that free speech “bona fides” require actual free speech.”

            That was NOT my assumption.

            My comment was based on the belief that he could only achieve free speech bona fides to the extent where people would trust him with their money would be by effective management and policing of the platform. Musk’s chaotic management and steps to de-police the content are taking Twitter away from those bona fides.

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          5. Your assumption was that Musk’s free speech initiative is about real free speech and doomed to failure because it doesn’t meet your standards. This blinded you to the substance of my comment which you inappropriately criticized, that “Twitter is well positioned to become the platform of choice for the rollout of FedCoin.”

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          6. “Twitter is well positioned to become the platform of choice for the rollout of FedCoin.”

            I offered no criticism of that statement. However, you made it conditional on Twitter establishing its bona fides. I simply suggested that you should not hold your breath waiting for that to happen given Musk’s obviously bad start as the boss at Twitter. That was a criticism of Musk. It is odd you take it as a criticism of you.

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          7. I think Musk is doing pretty well. He fired 2/3rds of the employees and as far as I can see, Twitter is running better, fewer Bots and less spam, than ever before.

            He’d make a good chief of staff for the net GOP President if he’ll take the pay cut.

            NASA, NOAA, the CDC and EPA could all benefit from the refocusing cutting half the staff brings. The Dept of Education and BATF could stand a 90% cut.

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          8. “He’d make a good chief of staff for the net GOP President”

            Yeah, too bad he cannot be the next Trumpy President. But my oh my do you people admire your oligarchs.

            There is almost nothing in Musk’s history that shows he has any kind of administrative or technical talent. And his purchase of Twitter for probably twice what it was worth says little about his deal making savvy. You think firing 2/3 of the staff and driving away the best of the rest was smart management? Really? He did not even know what many of them did.

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          11. “NASA, on its best day . . .”

            Great video. Thanks.

            It is very easy to forget that NASA made SpaceX possible. It appears that you have. And not just with decades of space R&D but also directly. NASA has been funding SpaceX – bigly -since 2014.

            I have said nothing about Musk the dreamer. He does dream big and has backed some very talented engineers in his various endeavors. He is, in effect, a venture capitalist. Smart venture capitalists don’t try to micro-manage the companies they invest in. When they do, things often go wrong as at Tesla, Boring and Twitter.

            https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/23/23475730/elon-musk-twitter-tesla-stock-acquisition-lawsuits

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          12. Sure, NASA subcontracted out the space program so it could concentrate on lying about the climate.

            As I said, they would benefit from cutting half the staff to refocus them on their mission.

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          15. “You need to stop worshipping government . . .”

            A very questionable critique of a tiny part of NASA’s oeuvre published on a questionable pseudo-scientific political web site eight years ago? Really? That is how you defend your obsession?

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          17. “One should be enough . . .”

            Another fossil fuel propaganda web site? No thanks. Fool me once . . .

            I have no interest in quibbling about esoteric studies done by partisan nitpickers. The climate is warming a geologically unprecedented rates. The evidence is everywhere for anybody to see. Personally, I have visited glaciers in Iceland, Alaska and Europe in the last few years. Glaciers all over the world tell the same story. All are disappearing compared to where they were just a few decades ago. So, any link to anyone who claims global warming is a NASA hoax is of zero interest to me. I will stick with the evidence of my eyes.

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          18. As usual, you just don’t read anything that might pierce your bubble. NASA’s “adjustments” to measured data are indefensible.

            As those glaciers retreat, we find evidence of human occupation, such as post holes and home foundations, there from the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods.

            Glaciers advance and retreat, most recently advancing during the Little Ice Age.

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          19. “Glaciers advance and retreat, most recently advancing during the Little Ice Age.”

            So you are trying to tell us that AGW is a NASA hoax?

            And by the way, those short term advances of glaciers in the “Little Ice Age” have been traced with good probability to specific volcanic events and are not part of some cycle.

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          20. The Little Ice Age was global and whatever the cause, accounts for the “retreat” of glaciers.

            Unless you want to believe that medieval farmers lifted up the glaciers and dug foundations and post holes under them just to fool future archeologists.

            AGW is not a hoax, but the degree of it is grossly exaggerated. Much of the warming since the Little Ice Age is cyclical, but NASA assigns all of it to AGW, That results in models that exaggerate future effects of CO2 by about 3X its actual effect.

            We now have enough data to disprove the models

            There is also the problem of moving goalposts. We are now told that 2°C above “preindustrial temperature” is catastrophic and we should try for 1.5°C. But we are already at 1.1°C.

            It is idiocy to think that we should strive for Preindustrial Temperatures, advancing glaciers and shorter growing seasons.

            Our efforts are far better directed toward adaptation.

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          21. You are welcome to all your opinions. Some of them may even be spot on even if they are shared by relatively few people.

            What I find objectionable and react to is your constant aspersions and slanders against people with different opinions. NASA is not just wrong, they are “corrupt” or deliberately lying. Mainstream climate scientists are not just wrong, they are on some sort of gravy train or have some sort of globalist, totalitarian agenda. Biden’s policy in Ukraine is not just wrong, he is being blackmailed over his life of crime. Democrats are not just wrong, they are evil. etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.

            It is this aspect of what you are constantly posting that prompts me to urge you to get some help. What you post frequently borders on derangement. IMHO.

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          23. “Climate alarmism has long ceased to be science and is now a fanatical, anti-capitalist religion.
            Truth, from that point of view, is heresy.”

            So, there you go again. Can’t help yourself, apparently

            What is “climate alarmism?”
            Easy, it is an opinion that you do not agree with. And such “alarmists” are not just wrong, they are “fanatical, anti-capitalist, dogmatists.”

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          24. Alarmism is the unrealistic idea that any deviation from the climate of 1880 is harmful and that a return to the temperatures of the Roman and Medieval warm periods(when civilization made its greatest advances) is catastrophic.

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          25. Alarmism . . .

            First you set up a straw man by framing a position that nobody takes and then you beg any question by hanging the definition on “unrealistic idea.” Concerns you don’t agree with are “unrealistic?” You are talkin in circles.

            But, the real point here is that disagreeing with you about what is “alarmism” or what are “realistic” concerns are does not make someone a “fanatical, anti-capitalist” dogmatist.

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          26. OK, tell me how 2°C above 1880 temps (we’re 1.1°C over already} create a catastrophe?

            1880 was a pretty tough time for much of the world. That’s why we had so many immigrants from Europe.

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          27. “OK, tell me how 2°C above 1880 temps (we’re 1.1°C over already} create a catastrophe?”

            Define catastrophe.

            End of life on earth?
            End of human civilization?
            Countless extra deaths and millions forced to migrate or starve?

            I would say that most people referring to “climate catastrophe” have in mind the later. These effects are already happening though maybe not directly effecting you – Yet.

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          28. 0.9°C above where we are now in average global temperatures is going to cause that?

            That would be about the same as the Medieval Warm Period, a little lower than the Roman or Minoan Warm periods, and about 3°C less than the Holocene Optimum, when civilization was born.

            Accompanied by higher CO2 making plant life more vigorous, 2°C higher is a better world than today.

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          29. “Accompanied by higher CO2 making plant life more vigorous, 2°C higher is a better world than today.”

            I understand that such is your opinion. But to the hundreds of millions of people who will be affected by drought, flood, extreme weather, and rising sea levels it will not be all that peachy.

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          30. Well, then we better keep our economy strong so we can adapt.

            China has already revoked its promises to lower emissions on the pretense of Nancy Pelosi visiting Taiwan (they would have anyway, they necer intended to )

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          31. “Well, then we better keep our economy strong so we can adapt.”

            Sure, China has been taking off economically. If they were not manufacturing most of the products that we consume their CO2 would be lower and ours would be higher. They are still at about half of our level on a per capita basis, so, per capita, we have a lot more room for improvement than they do.

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          32. The atmosphere doesn’t care about per capita.

            At most, per unit of production would make a difference and we are far more efficient.

            There is no benefit to climate to send production to China.

            It takes a certain amount of CO2 to make a locomotive, give or take a bit for efficiency, making it in China makes us poorer and doesn’t help climate.

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          34. I have read the IPCC reports.

            In each case, the Summary for Policy makers contradicts the underlying reports by scientists, but I bet you didn’t know that.

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  3. Let’s consider the complete stupidity of your current conspiracy theory to wit that Democrats, the DOJ and the SEC have organized the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried in order to prevent his testimony before Congress and allow him to take the Fifth.

    1. If the Democrats wanted to keep him from speaking publicly why did a committee THEY control subpoena his testimony?

    2. Contrary to your claim, the SEC is not the charging agency. They have nothing to do with campaign finance laws.

    3. Anyone can plead the Fifth for any reason. No need for a conspiracy to make it possible.

    4. SBF is under investigation for contributing fraudulently to both Republican and Democratic organizations. In 2022 it is alleged in a form complaint to the FEC that he gave $37 million to GOP dark money organizations. And he has publicly stated that if his dark money contributions were counted he would have given to both parties equally. You would know that if you ever bothered to check your “facts.”

    5. SBF has been indicted for numerous crimes. Why shouldn’t he be arrested? Especially while in a location from which flight would be possible.

    I used the word “desperate” to describe your attempt to slander Democrats with this nonsense. That was generous.

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    1. Why do you post without doing your homework? Here are some things you need to learn more about:

      • SBF was arrested by Bahamian authorities on Monday based on a sealed indictment provided by U.S. authorities.

      • The indictement is expected to be unsealed today.

      • The SEC is charging SBF with securities fraud based on the diversion of FTX customer funds to SBF’s personal control, which presumably is the source of substantial political donations SBF made, primarily and overwhelmingly to the Democratic Party.

      • Prior to his arrest, SBF was not facing prosecution and — ill advisedly — made public comments about the scandal. After his arrest, it is necessary to his legal defense that he avoid self-incrimination by keeping quiet.

      https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/sec-files-separate-charges-against-ftx-ceo-sbf-years-long-fraud

      https://jonathanturley.org/2022/12/13/enough-of-that-the-justice-department-faces-questions-after-effectively-preventing-bankman-fried-from-testifying-in-congress/

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      1. There is nothing in your defense of Tabor’s nonsense that I did not already know. And none of it is relevant to the points I made about Dr. Tabor’s stupid slanders.

        I do my research before commenting. You people should try it. I have already read the indictment unsealed earlier today. Partisan hacks like Turley “raising questions?” Ho hum. He says DOJ should have waited to arrest him since he was making damaging public statements. How long should they have waited? How much evidence do they need? Who should have been fired if he left the Bahamas for some safe haven while they were waiting?

        The point is there is nothing about this case that is supportive of Dr. Tabor’s partisan slanders. There is no credible reason to believe that his arrest was to stop testimony that the Democrats had subpoenaed him to provide. Saying that he was arrested for that reason – as Dr. Tabor did – is just plain stupid as I explained above.

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        1. RE: “There is no credible reason to believe that his arrest was to stop testimony that the Democrats had subpoenaed him to provide.”

          Bull. The very credible reason would be the extent of SBF’s political donations.

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          1. “… the extent of SBF’s political donations.”

            I’m confused, if Bankman-Fried gave equal amounts to each party, as he said, and the GOP donation was $37 million of dark money, maybe the Republicans should be concerned. Perhaps the right wing set him up for arrest to avoid a scandal.

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          2. Hard to know where dark money goes, but if it did go to the GOP, then why did SBF feel ha had to go that way? Afraid to have the Democrats know he was bribing both sides?

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          3. Trump bragged often about bribing/donating to both sides. I have many times suggested that the only people that should donate are the ones who vote for that particular candidate. You have retorted that donations are free speech plus distant companies may have business affected.

            So there you are. You got what you wanted, but now you call them bribes.

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          4. “The very credible reason would be the extent of SBF’s political donations.”

            So, why was he subpoenaed to testify by the supposed beneficiaries of his political donations? DUH!

            And if you read the complaint filed with the FEC by CREW you would know that SBF has claimed that his dark money contributions to GOP means he is giving to both parties equally.

            Click to access SBF-FEC-Complaint-FINAL.pdf

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          7. RE: “Afraid to have the Democrats know he was bribing both sides?”

            I don’t think ideology is a factor. The SBF scandal is useful to the rollout of FedCoin, so it helps to contain the story within the boundaries of private crypto currency. Discouraging public commentary about political donations helps to focus the narrative.

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    1. Also, form he lead prosecutor from SDNY: “Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said he authorized charges a week ago and Bankman-Fried was indicted last Friday. The timing “was dictated by law enforcement as opposed to any other considerations including the timing of his testimony in Congress,” he said.”

      Let the conspiracy monsters loose.

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      1. “Does Forbes also have a transcript of the answers to the questions the committee members will now never get to ask?”

        The hearing is about the failure of the firm and the crypto industry. It had nothing to do with his illegal contributions to dark money Republican PACS. If he had not been arrested as he should have been, you would be squealing about the DOJ conspiring to give a big Democratic donor a break. You squeal no matter what happens.

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