October 31, 2024

Thursday, October 31, 2024. 🎃 Annette’s News Roundup.

Kamala is always busy.

Whatever will Republicans do!

Consumers are spending. Inflation is cooling. And the U.S. economy looks as strong as ever.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. That came close to the 3 percent growth rate in the second quarter and was the latest indication that the surprisingly resilient recovery from the pandemic recession remained on solid footing.

“The economy right now is firing on nearly all cylinders,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting and consulting firm RSM.

The report was the first of three crucial indicators on the nation’s economy scheduled for release this week, just days before the presidential election and the next policymaking meeting of the Federal Reserve.

The strength in the third quarter was again driven by robust consumer spending, which grew at a 3.7 percent rate, adjusted for inflation. Rising wages and low unemployment meant that Americans continued to earn more, while inflation continued to ease: Consumer prices rose at a 1.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter and were up 2.3 percent from a year earlier. (New York Times)

Yesterday, flying from place to place

Harrisburg

Touch to see the crowd. 👇

Raleigh, North Carolina

Madison, Wisconsin

Harris to NV with JLo & AZ, Walz to PA and MI on Thursday

Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Friday

Philadelphia on Monday night.

New Ads

Touch to watch. 👇

Touch to watch. 👇

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Billionaires.

They have disrupted our colleges. They have disrupted our elections by hand-choosing candidates.

Peter Thiel and Elon Musk chose JD Vance as Trump’s running mate.

They have cast doubt on the fairness of political and legal processes.

Billionaire Harlan Crow has bestowed lavish gifts on two SCOTUS Justices. The Adelsons -Sheldon and Miriam - have set Trump’s foreign policy in Israel. One man, Jeff Bezos owns Amazon, the aerospace company, Blue Origin, and the one of our major newspapers. He has damaged our Press and our Democracy by stopping that paper from endorsing Kamala Harris for President.

They have funded the most anti-Democratic powerhouses: the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, Project 2025. They picked Supreme Court Judges. All Trump’s appointees to SCOTUS were hand-picked by the Federalist Society billionaires.

We should know who they are. What they do. What they get.

We need policies to contain them.

Remember- they are the icing. We are the cake. Grassroot donors are also voters and sharers. Icing is sweet and pretty but it is useless unless there is cake.

One of Theirs.

Elon Musk.

Musk speaking at Trump’s racist rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on October 27, 2024.

Elon Musk, enemy of ‘open borders,’ launched his career working illegally.

October 27, 2024 at 11:54 a.m. ET
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Long before he became one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors and campaign surrogates, South African-born Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States as he launched his entrepreneurial career after ditching a graduate studies program in California, according to former business associates, court records and company documents obtained by The Washington Post.


Musk in recent months has amplified the Republican presidential candidate’s claims that “open borders” and undocumented immigrants are destroying America, broadcasting those views to more than 200 million followers on the site formerly known as Twitter, which Musk bought in 2022 and later renamed X.


What Musk has not publicly disclosed is that he did not have the legal right to work while building the company that became Zip2, which sold for about $300 million in 1999. It was Musk’s steppingstone to Tesla and the other ventures that have made him the world’s wealthiest person — and arguably America’s most successful immigrant.

What Musk has not publicly disclosed is that he did not have the legal right to work while building the company that became Zip2, which sold for about $300 million in 1999. It was Musk’s steppingstone to Tesla and the other ventures that have made him the world’s wealthiest person — and arguably America’s most successful immigrant.



Musk and his brother, Kimbal, have often described their immigrant journey in romantic terms, as a time of personal austerity, undeterred ambition and a willingness to flout conventions. Musk arrived in Palo Alto in 1995 for a graduate degree program at Stanford University but never enrolled in courses, working instead on his start-up.
Leaving school left Musk without a legal basis to remain in the United States, according to legal experts.
Foreign students cannot drop out of school to build a company, even if they are not immediately getting paid, said Leon Fresco, a former Justice Department immigration litigator.
“If you do anything that helps to facilitate revenue creation, such as design code or try to make sales in furtherance of revenue creation, then you’re in trouble,” Fresco said.


Musk’s freewheeling business approach soon conflicted with Zip2’s hopes of becoming a public company or entering a high-profile merger, which would have subjected it to scrutiny by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to former associates.
When the venture capital firm Mohr Davidow Ventures poured $3 million into Musk’s company in 1996, the funding agreement — a copy of which was obtained by The Post — stated that the Musk brothers and an associate had 45 days to obtain legal work status. Otherwise, the firm could reclaim its investment.


“Their immigration status was not what it should be for them to be legally employed running a company in the U.S.,” said Derek Proudian, a Zip2 board member at the time who later became chief executive. Investors agreed, Proudian said: “We don’t want our founder being deported.”

Another large shareholder at the time, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said a minor problem drew additional attention to the Musk brothers’ unresolved immigration issues. Musk told co-workers he was in the country on a student visa, according to six former associates and Zip2 shareholders.


“We want to take care of this long before there’s anything that could screw up” the company’s path to an initial public offering, Proudian recalled.


In Elon Musk’s public retelling of his immigration story, he has never acknowledged having worked without proper legal status. In 2013, he joked about being in a “gray area” early in his career. And in 2020, Musk said he had a “student-work visa” after deferring his studies at Stanford.


“I was legally there, but I was meant to be doing student work,” he said in a 2020 podcast. “I was allowed to do work sort of supporting whatever.”
Musk, his attorney Alex Spiro and the manager of Musk’s family office did not respond to emailed requests for comment. U.S. immigration records generally are not open to the public, making it difficult to independently confirm a person’s legal status. Musk denied having worked illegally in the United States over X early Sunday.


In 2005, Musk acknowledged in a late-night email that he did not have authorization to be in the United States when he founded Zip2. The email, from Musk to Tesla co-founders Martin Eberhard and JB Straubel, was submitted as evidence in a long-since-closed California defamation lawsuit and said he applied to Stanford so he could remain in the United States legally.
“Actually, I didn’t really care much for the degree, but I had no money for a lab and no legal right to stay in the country, so that seemed like a good way to solve both issues,” Musk wrote. “Then the internet came along, which seemed like a much surer bet.”


Musk never enrolled at Stanford. In a May 2009 deposition, he said he called the department chair two days after the start of the semester to say he wasn’t going to attend. In the same deposition, he said he began working at Zip2 — originally called Global Link Information Network — in August or September 1995.


Upon not enrolling, Musk would have had to leave the country, according to legal experts and immigration laws at the time. He would not have been allowed to work.


While overstaying a student visa is somewhat common and officials have at times turned a blind eye to it, it remains illegal.


The revelation that Musk lacked the legal right to work in the United States stands at odds with his recent focus on undocumented immigrants and U.S. border security, among the issues that have led him to spend more than $100 million helping Trump return to the White House. If Trump wins on Nov. 5, both men have said Musk could have a high-profile role in his administration.


On X, Musk has become an avid booster of anti-immigrant rhetoric, falsely accusing Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats of “importing voters.” Undocumented immigrants are legally barred from voting in state and federal elections. In February, he wrote that “illegals in America can get … insurance, driver’s licenses.”

Musk would have been required to have both to drive a vehicle, which associates attested he frequently did during the time he lacked a legal work permit.

U.S. immigration regulations for foreign students were more lax in the 1990s, before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted an overhaul, according to immigration law experts. Musk, who obtained Canadian citizenship through his mother, would not have needed a visa from the State Department to study at a U.S. university. He could simply show U.S. university enrollment documents to U.S. border officers and enter the United States with student status, legal experts said.
Foreign students enrolled in U.S. degree programs may be authorized to work part time and for limited periods to complete their degree requirements. Adam Cohen, author of “The Academic Immigration Handbook” and an attorney who specializes in employment visas, said Musk could obtain work authorization as a student, but that would have required him to be engaged in a full course of study at Stanford.
Otherwise, “that would have been a violation,” Cohen said. If he didn’t go to school, “he wasn’t maintaining his status.”
Ira Kurzban, an immigration law expert and the author of a legal sourcebook used widely by attorneys and judges, agreed.
Kurzban said the brothers’ subsequent applications for work visas and to become U.S. permanent residents and naturalized citizens would have asked whether they worked in the United States without authorization. “If you tell them you worked illegally in the U.S., it’s highly unlikely you’d get approved,” Kurzban said.

U.S. immigration regulations for foreign students were more lax in the 1990s, before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted an overhaul, according to immigration law experts. Musk, who obtained Canadian citizenship through his mother, would not have needed a visa from the State Department to study at a U.S. university. He could simply show U.S. university enrollment documents to U.S. border officers and enter the United States with student status, legal experts said.

Foreign students enrolled in U.S. degree programs may be authorized to work part time and for limited periods to complete their degree requirements. Adam Cohen, author of “The Academic Immigration Handbook” and an attorney who specializes in employment visas, said Musk could obtain work authorization as a student, but that would have required him to be engaged in a full course of study at Stanford.
Otherwise, “that would have been a violation,” Cohen said. If he didn’t go to school, “he wasn’t maintaining his status.”


Ira Kurzban, an immigration law expert and the author of a legal sourcebook used widely by attorneys and judges, agreed.


Kurzban said the brothers’ subsequent applications for work visas and to become U.S. permanent residents and naturalized citizens would have asked whether they worked in the United States without authorization. “If you tell them you worked illegally in the U.S., it’s highly unlikely you’d get approved,” Kurzban said.

A 2023 authorized biography by Walter Isaacson asserted that the Musks had needed visas and investors at Mohr Davidow Ventures lined them up with an attorney to secure them, but it included few further details. Biographer Ashlee Vance also reported that the investment firm got the brothers visas. Neither reported that Musk had been working without authorization.


Mohr Davidow Ventures did not respond to a request for comment.


Documents obtained by The Post show that Zip2’s executives met with immigration attorney Jocelyne Lew on Feb. 21, 1996, to discuss potential visa pathways for the Musk brothers and another Canadian co-founder. Lew advised the men to downplay their leadership roles with the company and scrub their résumés of U.S. addresses that might suggest they were already living and working in the United States, the documents show.


Lew encouraged Musk to seek another student visa from the University of Pennsylvania, where he had studied as an undergraduate, the documents show. She also directed him to obtain passport-size photos that would allow him to apply to the U.S. “visa lottery,” according to the files.
Lew did not respond to requests for comment.


Proudian, the former Zip2 board member and investor, said the board worried that the founders’ lack of legal immigration status would have to be disclosed in an SEC filing if the company were to go public. He recalled the Musks’ work authorizations coming through around 1997.


A person who joined Zip2’s human resources department in 1997 remembers processing work visas for the Musks and other family members under a category available to Canadians under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).


Legal experts said Elon Musk also might have violated the law by persuading his brother to come run the company. A 1986 federal law made it a crime to knowingly hire someone who does not have work authorization. Musk said in 2003 and 2009 that he “convinced” Kimbal to come from Canada to work for his company.


Records filed with the California secretary of state show Elon Musk was the registered agent for Global Link Information Network when it incorporated in November 1995. On Feb. 26, 1996, the company listed Kimbal as president and CEO and Elon as secretary.
“I tried to get a visa, but there’s just no visa you can get to do a start-up,” Kimbal said in a 2021 interview. “I was definitely illegal.” (The Washington Post)

NEW YORK — President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk for hypocrisy on immigration after a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked illegally in the United States. The South Africa-born Musk denies the allegation.

“That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here. No, I’m serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn’t in school. He was violating the law. And he’s talking about all these illegals coming our way?” Biden said while campaigning on Saturday in Pittsburgh at a union hall. (Associated Press).

One of Ours.

Bloomberg, After Months of Pressure, Donates $50 Million to Help Harris.

Michael Bloomberg attended the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City this month

The former mayor of New York City is known for making political donations late in the campaign season. Democrats had been lobbying him to spend more.

Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, under extraordinary pressure from friends and fellow billionaires to do more to help Vice President Kamala Harris, recently donated about $50 million to a nonprofit organization that is supporting her presidential run, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The donation followed months of arm-twisting from associates such as Bill Gates, investor Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn. Mr. Bloomberg recently spoke with Ms. Harris in a private phone call, according to two people briefed on the conversation.

Mr. Bloomberg’s decision conforms to a strategy that has become his trademark: Confounding Democratic operatives by refusing to make early investments — only to come in hot and heavy in the homestretch. But unlike his previous big gifts, this one was intended to be kept under wraps, and that secrecy has made unaware Democrats more anxious than they have been most autumns.

His contribution was made to Future Forward USA Action, the dark-money vehicle of Future Forward, Ms. Harris’s main super PAC.

Mr. Bloomberg, who is 82 years old and has an estimated net worth of $105 billion, is the second largest disclosed individual donor to Democrats in this election cycle, after the investor and philanthropist George Soros. But publicly, Democrats observed that Mr. Bloomberg was donating nowhere close to what he had spent during the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

The $47 million he had given in federally disclosed political contributions during this election cycle, before his new nonprofit donation, was less than half of the $95 million he disclosed to help Democrats retake Congress in the 2018 midterms.

And so in recent months, frustrated Democrats in his close orbit had urged him to consider a large donation to help Ms. Harris in an election expected to be decided by razor-thin margins. Mr. Bloomberg’s advisers, to say nothing of the man himself, have fielded jittery queries for months about what Democrats saw as his relatively conspicuous absence.

Mr. Bloomberg declined to comment for this article.

Mr. Bloomberg became a registered Democrat only in 2018, but he has been counted upon in Democratic circles, perhaps overly so, for his late-in-the-cycle gifts.

It is now, officially, late.

The former mayor, a self-described “data nerd,” has a logic: He tells others that he believes he can find strategic gaps — “unmet needs,” in the language of his philanthropy — once candidates and other donors place their own bets.

“I very clearly disagree with that strategy because time, not late money, is always our best weapon — but that’s where we are this cycle,” said Quentin James, who runs the Collective PAC, a group aimed at building Black political power that got over $2 million from Mr. Bloomberg in 2020, but hasn’t been funded in 2024.

Mike Smith, the head of House Majority PAC, which has received almost $70 million from Mr. Bloomberg over the past decade, including $10 million this year, defended Mr. Bloomberg’s “deliberate” and “sophisticated” approach to late spending.

“There should be no expectation that any individual donor is just going to give to you,” he said. “Mike’s not giving money to anyone just to give money.”

Mr. Bloomberg started his own super PAC in 2012 and the independent injected $10 million that October to help former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. He spent $29 million in 2014 and $24 million in 2016, with over half coming after late August each time.

His spending skyrocketed in the Trump era. In the 2018 and 2020 elections, not counting his own short-lived and self-financed run for president, he gave over $250 million combined, in mostly late contributions.

When Mr. Bloomberg ran for president in 2020, he spent $1.1 billion in a real-world experiment on whether enormous money could buy votes. It couldn’t. He got creamed in the Democratic primaries.

But he had also promised that, win or lose, he would spend his fortune to defeat Mr. Trump. And so in mid-September of that year, his advisers unveiled a splashy, ultimately unsuccessful $100 million commitment to help Joseph R. Biden win in Florida. All told, excluding what he spent on his own campaign, he spent about $173 million on the 2020 elections — $126 million more than Mr. Bloomberg’s public giving in this presidential cycle.

Mr. Bloomberg’s defenders say his 2020 budget was unique since he was a former candidate. But Mr. Bloomberg, associates say, had been reluctant to fully engage in 2024 for other reasons. He found his 2020 presidential run not just expensive but scarring.

He left in a sour mood, sulking at people like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York for not endorsing him. Democrats spent months trying to get him re-engaged in liberal causes, even pitching his team on buying the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group.

And Mr. Bloomberg, a titan of industry, has had a somewhat frosty relationship with Mr. Biden, his former primary rival, associates say. When Mr. Biden endorsed Ms. Harris, Mr. Bloomberg issued a statement that pointedly did not, and he was dismissive of her capabilities in a private conversation at the time, according to a person who heard his remark.

Mr. Bloomberg slowly warmed up, speaking fondly of her at a dinner at the mansion of the business executive Ken Chenault in Sag Harbor around the time of the convention, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

But despite detesting Mr. Trump, Mr. Bloomberg was initially reluctant to give more than the $19 million he donated to Future Forward’s super PAC in May. Associates said he believed there was not the same unmet need this year, given Ms. Harris’s fund-raising success. A better use of his money, he believed, might be initiatives in states to expand abortion access, which have received $5 million of his largess.

But a few weeks ago, Mr. Bloomberg met with Ms. Harris’s economic team at Bloomberg headquarters, and he gave his feedback on her economic and housing plan, said a person with knowledge of the meeting. Ms. Harris made a check-in phone call. The efforts were part of a concerted push to make Mr. Bloomberg feel appreciated by the party and its nominee. And then, finally, came the $50 million check.

It is not clear why Mr. Bloomberg, whose political investments are typically announced with much fanfare, preferred to give to an undisclosed vehicle this time around. But plenty of Democrats are just thankful for the gift. (New York Times)

Consumers Keep U.S. Economy Growing at Healthy Pace
In a key economic report released just days before the presidential election, gross economic product rose at a 2.8 percent rate in the third quarter.

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Endorsements

Tap to see all of what Arnold Schwarzenegger has to say. 👇

Las Vegas Sun.

Donald Trump’s racism, sexism, xenophobia and penchant for corruption have long made him unfit for any public office, let alone the presidency. But as he continues his bid for a second term in the White House, there is an unsettling and undeniable shift that is leading many experts, observers and even some Trump supporters to conclude that the former president’s mental acuity and sharpness are also in decline, that his physical health and stamina are waning and that his frustration and anger are boiling over.

Americans from both sides of the political spectrum should be alarmed by Trump’s words and behavior. The nation must confront the fact that beyond his hateful character, he is crippled cognitively and showing clear signs of mental illness.

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Trump is always crazy.

Trump is deranged and dangerous.

Touch to watch one of the many times Trump called Americans garbage.👇

Touch to watch a wobbly Trump heading to a garbage truck.👇

Touch to watch Trump riding in a circle.👇

Ooh! And today is Halloween.

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Your Daily Reminder

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

The Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th and September 18th. He will now be sentenced on November 26.

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Halloween can be scary, but Election Day shouldn’t be.

Do one thing more to elect Kamala and not that Orange Garbage Man.

Have a sweet day!

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