💡The Streisand Effect, and Trump Going Broke

Good Morning,

Have you guys seen the new Apple Vision Pro goggles? Its one of the craziest pieces of consumer technology I’ve ever seen. A headset that can overlay HD quality videos and interactive apps that connect right to your eyes.

It is also incredibly goofy looking, and if I was a betting man I’d wager the current iteration of this headset gets culturally meme’d to death. Just like the Segway!

Today’s post covers:

• ✈️ Taylor Swift just Streisand’d herself over her private jet usage

• ⚖️ An update on Trump’s civil cases and resulting financial penalties

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The Streisand Effect

The Streisand effect is a beautiful phenomenon. If you are unfamiliar with the phrase, its an observation of what happens when someone attempts “to suppress a juicy piece of online information, and because of that attempted suppression ends up making things worse for themselves”

The term is aptly named for Barbara Streisand, a famous singer who once sued photographer Kenneth Adelman for distributing aerial pictures of her mansion in Malibu on his website. Adelman was not the paparazzi however, but rather a scientist taking aerial photos to study coastal erosion.

Before Streisand’s lawsuit, the images of her property were only downloaded six times (including by her own lawyers). After filing her lawsuit, news outlets around the country aired stories about it. The result? The images of her coastal property were viewed millions of times, and she ended up losing her lawsuit anyway.

By filing a questionable lawsuit because she did not want images of her property publicly available, Barbara Streisand ended up drawing millions of more eyes to her home. That’s the Streisand effect in action.

Our girl Taylor Swift is in a similar situation right now.

Jack Sweeney is a college student who has amassed a large social media following from his ongoing efforts to track celebrity private jet usage. His objective is to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the rich and powerful who publicly decry climate change, yet in private make frequent trips on their carbon guzzling personal jets.

Flight tracking is of course publicly available information. All Jack is doing is posting about celebrity flight usage. For example, Jack highlighted how Taylor’s jet made the following flight from late January:

Taylor’s jet appears here to have flown from St Louis, Missouri, to Cahokia/St Louis, Illinois; an approximately 26 minute flight (lol).

In response to this, and previous flights tracked, Taylor Swift has reportedly threatened legal action against Jack Sweeney. And just like Barbara Streisand, Taylor Swift’s legal threat has similarly led to a dramatically higher level of attention to her flying habits.

Dozens of topline media stories and thousands of social media users have covered, meme’d and become privy to Taylor’s excessive private jet usage. The Streisand Effect people!!

Trump Is About To Go Broke

As we inch closer to the November General Election, so to do we inch closer to finding out Trump’s legal fate in his numerous civil and criminal trials.

On Thursday, The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Colorado Ballot case. This is the landmark case that could have far reaching consequences should the Colorado ruling be upheld, and Trump deemed ineligible to be on Colorado’s state ballot. However, its very likely that SCOTUS overturns the Colorado court’s ruling and Trump is left on the ballot.

Despite all the media coverage alluding to the possibility of SCOTUS upholding the ruling, the reality is it was always a pipedream. During the oral arguments, even the more liberal wing of the Court sounded skeptical. So don’t be shocked if this ends up being a 7-2 or even 8-1 ruling

But this case also might not matter anyway.

Trump is currently awaiting to hear his fate in a different case: his civil fraud trial in New York; a case being overseen by Judge Arthur Engoron.

This is the case about Trump’s business, the Trump Organization. Trump’s business empire that he built his brand on was sued by New York State for massively inflating the value of Trump’s properties in order to receive more favorable loans.

Most importantly, Trump and his business have already found to have committed fraud in this case. All we are waiting to hear about now is Judge Engoron’s Summary Judgement and resulting financial penalty.

Its expected to be huge. Hundreds of millions of dollars huge. In fact, the expected penalty could be as high as $300-400 million, and there are lots of signs that the Judge is going to hit that mark.

Just last month, Trump was also found liable in a different defamation suit brought forth by E. Jean Carroll, the woman he was previously found liable for sexual assaulting. In this most recent suit, he has been ordered to pay an additional $83.3 million dollars.

So if you are keeping score at home, Trump is currently looking at nearly half a billion dollars in civil penalties. A monumental number that could not only dissolve his business empire, but also puts additional pressure on his major donors in an election year.

You need a mountain of money to run for President, and with Trump now likely owing a kings ransom in civil penalties and legal fees, pressure has been put on his backers. Will his large donors continue to pay is increasingly large legal fees? Will his individual MAGA donors continue to throw money his way? Will it even be enough?

Trump’s Political Action Committees (PACs) last year reportedly chucked over $50 million to pay for previous Trumps legal fees. A ridiculous number that appears likely to be dwarfed by his pending 2024 penalties.

A final twist to this tail: Ronna McDaniel, the Chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) which is the literal bedrock of the Republican party, just resigned this past week.

The RNC has only a reported $8 million dollars left on hand; the lowest in 20 years.