'Looking down their nose at you': GameStop frenzy showed a fresh contempt for hedge funds. Why do Americans hate them? Updated 2:25 pm EST Feb. 11, 2021 In the middle of a pandemic and slow economic recovery, Americans think they’ve identified their Wall Street villain: hedge funds. Their nemesis is summed up in a few searing images: a hedge fund manager who makes millions betting that the subprime mortgage market will collapse, without warning them. Or another relaxing on a yacht as the economy tanks. Years of anger culminated late last month when a group of angry small-time investors on Reddit took on a few of those firms in the GameStop “short squeeze” frenzy. That spurred millions of others to join in, as their effort to drive up the price of a stock perceived as undervalued soon shifted to a campaign to “Stick it to Wall Street." They used the "squeeze" to rally the share price and make profits for themselves while forcing the hedge funds who had bet it would fall to buy it to prevent greater losses. What are these funds, and where does this resentment come from? Hedge funds, known for using higher risk investing strategies, are private investment vehicles that typically wealthy individuals use to get higher returns. They control more than $3 trillion in assets globally. They've angered many Americans by gutting companies such as former American retail icon Sears, causing layoffs and engaging in questionable financial practices that contributed to the near collapse of the U.S. financial system in 2008, experts say. 'This is life changing': Meet the Redditors behind the GameStop saga “Most people see it as guys in suits looking down their nose at you,” says Adam Bixler, 28, an active user on the WallStreetBets Reddit forum, whose members led the charge against the funds. “How I feel is probably how a lot of people feel when thinking about the financial crisis and the massive wealth inequality that exists in this country.” Radio Shack, Toys ‘R’ Us and Payless ShoeSource, along with mall-based retailers such as the Limited, Wet Seal, Claire’s and Aeropostale faced further financial woes after hedge funds and private equity firms loaded them up with debt. A fight is raging in the stock market: Should you worry about your 401(k)? Where to get vaccines: CVS, Walgreens to begin delivering COVID-19 vaccines on Friday “The idea that you can crack open a hedge fund like a piñata and redistribute all this money to people in the form of a short squeeze is very appealing,” says Bixler, who lives in Boonton, New Jersey, and works as a product manager for a company that makes software and tools for the advertising industry. “These are the stimulus checks that everyone wanted.” Proponents of hedge funds say the firms identify and support distressed industries such as retailers and newspapers. These funds are owned by groups of big investors pooling the savings of millions of unionized workers, such as teachers and firefighters, who count on hedge funds to grow and protect their nest eggs. Even so, hedge funds are viewed as vultures by many Americans. Kaysha Apodaca, an emergency room nurse in Dallas, was furious last summer when she lost thousands of dollars after CytoDyn, a biotechnology company she owns, was hammered following a negative report from a “short selling” research firm, about one of CytroDyn's drugs in clinical trials. The post with the research was later pulled. This year, Apodaca thought she missed the opportunity to jump in and buy GameStop or AMC, so she supported the Reddit campaign against hedge funds by investing a few thousand dollars into shares of Nokia, another beaten-down stock discussed on the forum. “I hate hedge funds. Even if this goes to zero, I’m OK with it. I’m not selling, just to prove a point,” Apodaca said. “Hedge funds have unfairly made money off retail investors for years. Now they’re getting a taste of their own medicine.” For Iris Findlay of Orlando, Florida, joining the movement was a way for Americans to show their strength in numbers. “I’m definitely not OK that there are so many billionaires hoarding their wealth while people are struggling, especially during the pandemic,” said Findlay, 31, who is disabled and retired from the Air Force. A large portion of hedge-fund assets are owned by institutional investors, such as pension funds and endowments. Hedge fund research has been critical in exposing an array of accounting fraud scandals in recent decades, including the one involving energy firm Enron. “Hedge funds do play a very important role in the financial ecosystem, but at the same time, they have a PR problem,” says Andrew Lo, a finance professor at MIT Sloan School of Management. They are an easy target, experts say, because some high-profile managers' massive wealth offends Americans who struggle to make ends meet. Michael Burry, founder of Scion Asset Management, is an investor whose billion-dollar bet against the housing market was chronicled in Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short." He personally collected $100 million and made $750 million in profits for his investors. These managers “are seen as multibillionaires that really don’t care about the public good and are focused on enriching themselves and their investors,” Lo says. “But I think that’s a caricature, especially given that hedge funds now have become much more institutionalized as pension funds and endowments are investing in these financial vehicles.” Who do Americans blame? When asked who was the “most in the wrong” in the trading mania that set off one of the biggest short squeezes in history, nearly half of Americans polled said it was either hedge funds (27%) or online brokerage Robinhood (22%), according to a Harris Poll survey conducted Jan 29-31 that was given to USA TODAY exclusively. Just 8% said it was the Reddit retail investors on the WallStreetBets forum, who angered hedge funds that had bet GameStop's stock would remain low. The small-time investors used the forum to help drive up the prices for shares such as GameStop, theater chain AMC Entertainment and several other companies. Many respondents were angry that hedge funds were shorting stocks – betting that the share prices would fall – of companies that average people use and love, according to John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. “This wasn’t just an attack on a few weak companies,” Gerzema says. “These are companies that are a part of middle-class America and ordinary people’s lives.” How did these funds begin, and how did they grow into such big villains in the minds of so many? What are hedge funds? Hedge funds are financial partnerships between a professional fund manager and investors who pool their money into the fund to earn active returns. Hedge funds can be traced back to the 1940s when Alfred Winslow Jones, an investor, sociologist and former Fortune magazine writer, created a "hedge" by “shorting" stocks he thought were poised to fall. The "hedge" was meant to reduce risk and protect against market fluctuations. It was unconventional at the time but remains the basic strategy for these funds. Hedge fund strategies today are more diverse and run the gamut of extremely risky to fairly conservative. There's another theory about the origin of hedge funds, and this one is connected to a more beloved figure. Some people credit the founding of hedge funds to Benjamin Graham, a mentor to Warren Buffett and the author of "The Intelligent Investor" – the bible of everyone who loves Buffett's method of investing. Buffett, one of the world's richest people and a folksy inspiration to small-time investors, argued that Graham managed a fund with a "hedge"-like strategy in the 1920s. So you made a bundle on GameStop: Get ready to pay the taxes How did hedge funds evolve? Hedge funds have gained in popularity over the past two decades after many of them delivered hefty outsize returns in either up or down markets, an attractive selling point for savvy investors. Some of the world's largest hedge funds include Bridgewater Associates, founded by billionaire Ray Dalio; Renaissance Technologies, founded by billionaire Jim Simons; and Pershing Square, run by Wall Street billionaire Bill Ackman. They have historically charged much higher fees than mutual funds, which are professionally managed funds that invest in stocks, bonds or money market instruments. Since hedge fund managers are nearly always paid a performance fee, or percentage of the gains they create, they have a strong incentive to make money for their investors. For the hedge fund managers to earn performance fees, their investors have to make money first. Hedge funds charge an expense ratio and a performance fee. The common fee structure is known as two and twenty – a 2% asset management fee and a 20% cut of generated gains. How did they become villains? While many Americans lost money during the depths of the financial crisis, some big-time investors did astonishingly well, including those who predicted and profited from the buildup and collapse of the housing and credit bubble in 2007 and 2008. For those Americans who had their livelihoods upended in the financial crisis, it left a bad taste in their mouths, experts say. “They’re associated with ruthless financial institutions that are out there to make money and not care where it’s coming from,” says Itay Goldstein, a professor of finance and economics at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. A big winner from that time is billionaire investor John Paulson, a hedge fund manager who netted $20 billion in profits when he bet against subprime mortgages at the peak of the credit bubble in 2007. In general, short sellers keep stock prices in check by voicing their opinion on where they believe a stock is valued, says Dennis Dick, head of markets structure and a proprietary trader at Bright Trading in Las Vegas. “I’m concerned with this public image that ‘evil short sellers are betting against America’ and that it’s ‘un-American to short stocks,’” Dick says. “It’s not like every short seller is making bets against America. They’re making calls on whether a stock is overvalued or not.” GameStop: Reddit ran a 5-second Super Bowl ad in honor of WallStreetBets, GameStop stock volatility The hedge fund industry has faced a rough stretch in recent years and underperformed the broader stock market but produced its best return in a decade at 11.6% in 2020, according to data provider Hedge Fund Research. Some received a boost from shares of technology firms and companies that focused on goods that people used when stuck at home during the pandemic. Americans who don’t invest directly in hedge funds still receive a benefit from the returns that hedge funds generate, according to Daniel Smith, a partner at ACA Compliance Group, an advisory firm for financial services. Of the $4.5 trillion in state and local pension plans, about 6.9% is allocated to hedge funds, according to data published by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. ”Hedge funds help secure the retirement of more than 26 million teachers, firefighters and other public employees by helping pensions navigate all market conditions and meet long-term financial obligations,” says Bryan Corbett, president and CEO at Managed Funds Association, a hedge fund lobby group. GameStop and questions of power The rollercoaster involving GameStop, Reddit and Robinhood has prompted Capitol Hill’s harshest criticisms of Wall Street in years. Several prominent lawmakers on Capitol Hill have warned of such moments, cautioning that companies and hedge funds have too much power. One of these lawmakers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is well known for her disapproval of Wall Street, called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to address the dramatic swings surrounding these companies. Warren wrote in a letter that it is “long beyond time for the SEC to act” and asked it to investigate the rallies in GameStop, AMC Entertainment and others that “have seen huge shifts in their share price driven by similar internet reading schemes.” "These wild fluctuations are just the latest indication that many private equity firms, hedge funds, and other investors, big and small, are treating the stock market like a casino, giving little consideration to the companies, communities, workers, and consumers that may be affected by these risky bets," she wrote. The House Financial Services Committee will hold a virtual hearing Feb. 18 regarding “recent market volatility” involving GameStop and the other companies. According to Politico, the CEO of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, is likely to testify. GameStop-Robinhood stock revolution: Not a secure retirement plan Does the movement have legs? Questions have been raised as to whether the populist movement threatening to disrupt the financial system will be sustained. It’s too early to tell, experts say. “It has the potential to gather momentum. It depends on whether we see other related episodes in the next few weeks that show the same kind of patterns in the financial markets," Goldstein says. "We live in a period of so many unusual things going on that it will probably take the edge off this event." Hedge funds such as Melvin Capital Management took the brunt of losses from soaring stock prices of GameStop and other heavily shorted stocks. Others made a ton of money on the rally, including Senvest Management, which had a profit of nearly $700 million, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Is it sticking it to Wall Street? Only temporarily, but in the long term probably not,” Goldstein says. “At the end of the day, the sophisticated financial institutions will find ways to recuperate and make money out of this.” Lo of MIT agrees. “This incident highlights the growing dissatisfaction, distrust and dislocation that many people feel with respect to the financial sector,” Lo says. “It suggests that people are sick and tired of being disenfranchised and being pushed around by large financial institutions.” Contributing: Savannah Behrmann

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What a USL D1 league might look like

TL;DR: Man with too much time on his hands goes deep down the rabbit hole on a concept this sub already didn’t seem that enthusiastic about. If you really want to skip ahead, CTRL+F “verdict” and it’ll get you there.
Two days ago, u/MrPhillyj2wns made a post asking whether USL should launch a D1 league in order to compete in Concacaf. From the top voted replies, it appears this made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
But I’ve been at home for eight weeks and I am terribly, terribly bored.
So, I present to you this overview of what the USL pyramid might look like if Jake Edwards got a head of steam and attempted to establish a USSF-sanctioned first division. This is by no means an endorsement of such a proposal or even a suggestion that USL SHOULD do such a thing. It is merely an examination of whether they COULD.
Welcome to the ~~Thunderdome~~ USL Premiership
First, there are some base-level assumptions we must make in this exercise, because it makes me feel more scientific and not like a guy who wrote this on Sunday while watching the Belarusian Premier League (Go BATE Borisov!).

All D1 teams must comply with known USSF requirements for D1 leagues (more on that later).
MLS, not liking this move, will immediately remove all directly-owned affiliate clubs from the USL structure (this does not include hybrid ownerships, like San Antonio FC – NYCFC). This removes all MLS2 teams but will not affect Colorado Springs, Reno, RGVFC and San Antonio.
The USL will attempt to maintain both the USL Championship and USL League One, with an eventual mind toward creating the pro/rel paradise that is promised in Relegations 3:16.
All of my research regarding facility size and ownership net worth is correct – this is probably the biggest leap of faith we have to make, since googling “NAME net worth” and “CITY richest people” doesn’t seem guaranteed to return accurate results.
The most a club can increase its available seating capacity to meet D1 requirements in a current stadium is no more than 1,500 seats (10% of the required 15,000). If they need to add more, they’ll need a new facility.
Let’s pretend that people are VERY willing to sell. It’s commonly acknowledged that the USL is a more financially feasible route to owning a soccer club than in MLS (c.f. MLS-Charlotte’s reported $325 million expansion fee) and the USSF has some very strict requirements for D1 sanctioning. It becomes pretty apparent when googling a lot of team’s owners that this requirement isn’t met, so let’s assume everyone that can’t sells to people who meet the requirements.

(Known) USSF D1 league requirements:
- League must have 12 teams to apply and 14 teams by year three
- Majority owner must have a net worth of $40 million, and the ownership group must have a total net worth of $70 million. The value of an owned stadium is not considered when calculating this value.
- Must have teams located in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones
- 75% of league’s teams must be based in markets with at a metro population of at least 1 million people.
- All league stadiums must have a capacity of at least 15,000
The ideal club candidate for the USL Premiership will meet the population and capacity requirements in its current ground, which will have a grass playing surface. Of the USL Championship’s 27 independent/hybrid affiliate clubs, I did not find one club that meets all these criteria as they currently stand.
Regarding turf fields, the USSF does not have a formal policy regarding the ideal playing surface but it is generally acknowledged that grass is superior to turf. 6 of 26 MLS stadiums utilize turf, or roughly 23% of stadiums. We’ll hold a similar restriction for our top flight, so 2-3 of our top flight clubs can have turf fields. Seem fair?
Capacity is going to be the biggest issue, since the disparity between current requirements for the second-tier (5,000) and the first tier (15,000) is a pretty massive gap. Nice club you have there, triple your capacity and you’re onto something. As a result, I have taken the liberty of relocating certain (read: nearly all) clubs to new grounds, trying my utmost to keep those clubs in their current markets and –importantly--, ensure they play on grass surfaces.
So, let’s do a case-by-case evaluation and see if we can put together 12-14 teams that meet the potential requirements, because what else do you have to do?
For each club’s breakdown, anything that represents a chance from what is currently true will be underlined.
Candidate: Birmingham Legion FC
Location (Metro population): Birmingham, Ala. (1,151,801)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Legion Field (FieldTurf, 71,594)
Potential owner: Stephens Family (reported net worth $4 billion)
Notes: Birmingham has a pretty strong candidacy. Having ditched the 5,000-seater BBVA Field for Legion Field, which sits 2.4 miles away, they’ve tapped into the city’s soccer history. Legion Field hosted portions of both the men’s and women’s tournaments at the 1996 Olympics, including a 3-1 U.S. loss to Argentina that saw 83,183 pack the house. The Harbert family seemed like strong ownership contenders, but since the death of matriarch Marguerite Harbert in 2015, it’s unclear where the wealth in the family is concentrated, so the Stephens seem like a better candidate. The only real knock that I can think of is that we really want to avoid having clubs play on turf, so I’d say they’re on the bubble of our platonic ideal USL Prem.
Candidate: Charleston Battery
Location (Metro population): Charleston, S.C. (713,000)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Johnson Hagood Stadium (Grass, ~14,700)
Potential owner: Anita Zucker (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: Charleston’s candidacy isn’t looking great. Already disadvantaged due to its undersized metro population, a move across the Cooper River to Johnson Hagood Stadium is cutting it close in terms of capacity. The stadium, home to The Citadel’s football team, used to seat 21,000, before 9,300 seats on the eastern grandstand were torn down in 2017 to deal with lead paint that had been used in their construction. Renovation plans include adding 3,000 seats back in, which could hit 15,000 if they bumped it to 3,300, but throw in a required sale by HCFC, LLC (led by content-creation platform founder Rob Salvatore) to chemical magnate Anita Zucker, and you’ll see there’s a lot of ifs and ands in this proposal.
Candidate: Charlotte Independence
Location (Metro population): Charlotte, N.C. (2,569, 213)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Jerry Richardson Stadium (Turf, 15,314)
Potential owner: James Goodnight (reported net worth $9.1 billion)
Notes: Charlotte ticks a lot of the boxes. A move from the Sportsplex at Matthews to UNC-Charlotte’s Jerry Richardson stadium meets capacity requirements, but puts them on to the dreaded turf. Regrettably, nearby American Legion Memorial Stadium only seats 10,500, despite a grass playing surface. With a sizeable metro population (sixth-largest in the USL Championship) and a possible owner in software billionaire James Goodnight, you’ve got some options here. The biggest problem likely lies in direct competition for market share against a much better-funded MLS Charlotte side due to join the league in 2021.
Candidate: Hartford Athletic
Location (Metro population): Hartford, Conn. (1,214,295)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Pratt & Whitney Stadium (Grass, 38,066)
Potential owner: Ray Dalio (reported net worth $18.4 billion)
Notes: Okay, I cheated a bit here, having to relocate Hartford to Pratt & Whitney Stadium, which is technically in East Hartford, Conn. I don’t know enough about the area to know if there’s some kind of massive beef between the two cities, but the club has history there, having played seven games in 2019 while Dillon Stadium underwent renovations. If the group of local businessmen that currently own the club manage to attract Dalio to the table, we’re on to something.
Candidate: Indy Eleven
Location (Metro population): Indianapolis, Ind. (2,048,703)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lucas Oil Stadium (Turf, 62,421)
Potential owner: Jim Irsay (reported net worth of $3 billion)
Notes: Indy Eleven are a club that are SO CLOSE to being an ideal candidate – if it weren’t for Lucas Oil Stadium’s turf playing surface. Still, there’s a lot to like in this bid. I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what current owner and founder Ersal Ozdemir is worth, but it seems like there might be cause for concern. A sale to Irsay, who also owns the NFL Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts, seems likely to keep the franchise there, rather than make a half-mile move to 14,230 capacity Victory Field where the AAA Indianapolis Indians play and expand from there.
Candidate: Louisville City FC
Location (Metro population): Louisville, Ky. (1,297,310)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lynn Family Stadium (Grass, 14,000, possibly expandable to 20,000)
Potential owner: Wayne Hughes (reported net worth $2.8 billion)
Notes: I’m stretching things a bit here. Lynn Family stadium is currently listed as having 11,700 capacity that’s expandable to 14,000, but they’ve said that the ground could hold as many as 20,000 with additional construction, which might be enough to grant them a temporary waiver from USSF. If the stadium is a no-go, then there’s always Cardinal Stadium, home to the University of Louisville’s football team, which seats 65,000 but is turf. Either way, it seems like a sale to someone like Public Storage founder Wayne Hughes will be necessary to ensure the club has enough capital.
Candidate: Memphis 901 FC
Location (Metro population): Memphis, Tenn. (1,348,260)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Liberty Bowl Stadium (Turf, 58,325)
Potential owner: Fred Smith (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: Unfortunately for Memphis, AutoZone Park’s 10,000 seats won’t cut it at the D1 level. With its urban location, it would likely prove tough to renovate, as well. Liberty Bowl Stadium more than meets the need, but will involve the use of the dreaded turf. As far as an owner goes, FedEx founder Fred Smith seems like a good local option.
Candidate: Miami FC, “The”
Location (Metro population): Miami, Fla. (6,158,824)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Riccardo Silva Stadium (FieldTurf, 20,000)
Potential owner: Riccardo Silva (reported net worth $1 billion)
Notes: Well, well, well, Silva might get his wish for top-flight soccer, after all. He’s got the money, he’s got the metro, and his ground has the capacity. There is the nagging issue of the turf, though. Hard Rock Stadium might present a solution, including a capacity of 64,767 and a grass playing surface. It is worth noting, however, that this is the first profile where I didn’t have to find a new potential owner for a club.
Candidate: North Carolina FC
Location (Metro population): Durham, N.C. (1,214,516 in The Triangle)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Carter-Finley Stadium (Grass/Turf, 57,583)
Potential owner: Steve Malik (precise net worth unknown) / Dennis Gillings (reported net worth of $1.7 billion)
Notes: We have our first “relocation” in North Carolina FC, who were forced to trade Cary’s 10,000-seat WakeMed Soccer Park for Carter-Finley Stadium in Durham, home of the NC State Wolfpack and 57,583 of their closest friends. The move is a whopping 3.1 miles, thanks to the close-knit hub that exists between Cary, Durham and Raleigh. Carter-Finley might be my favorite of the stadium moves in this exercise. The field is grass, but the sidelines are artificial turf. Weird, right? Either way, it was good enough for Juventus to play a friendly against Chivas de Guadalajara there in 2011. Maybe the move would be pushed for by new owner and medical magnate Dennis Gillings, whose British roots might inspire him to get involved in the Beautiful Game. Straight up, though, I couldn’t find a net worth for current owner Steve Malik, though he did sell his company MedFusion for $91 million in 2010, then bought it back for an undisclosed amount and sold it again for $43 million last November. I don’t know if Malik has the juice to meet D1 requirements, but I suspect he’s close.
Candidate: Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
Location (Metro population): Pittsburgh, Penn. (2,362,453)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Heinz Field (Grass, 64,450)
Potential owner: Henry Hillman (reported net worth $2.5 billion)
Notes: I don’t know a ton about the Riverhounds, but this move in particular feels like depriving a pretty blue-collar club from its roots. Highmark Stadium is a no-go from a seating perspective, but the Steelers’ home stadium at Heinz Field would more than meet the requirements and have a grass surface that was large enough to be sanctioned for a FIFA friendly between the U.S. WNT and Costa Rica in 2015. As for an owner, Tuffy Shallenberger (first ballot owner name HOF) doesn’t seem to fit the USSF bill, but legendary Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Hillman might. I’m sure you’re asking, why not the Rooney Family, if they’ll play at Heinz Field? I’ll tell you: I honestly can’t seem to pin down a value for the family. The Steelers are valued at a little over a billion and rumors persist that Dan Rooney is worth $500 million, but I’m not sure. I guess the Rooneys would work too, but it’s a definite departure from an owner in Shallenberger who was described by one journalist as a guy who “wears boots, jeans, a sweater and a trucker hat.”
Candidate: Saint Louis FC
Location (Metro population): St. Louis, Mo. (2,807,338)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Busch Stadium (Grass, 45,494)
Potential owner: William DeWitt Jr. (reported net worth $4 billion)
Notes: Saint Louis has some weirdness in making the jump to D1. Current CEO Jim Kavanaugh is an owner of the MLS side that will begin play in 2022. The club’s current ground at West Community Stadium isn’t big enough, but perhaps a timely sale to Cardinals owner William DeWitt Jr. could see the club playing games at Busch Stadium, which has a well established history of hosting other sports like hockey, college football and soccer (most recently a U.S. WNT friendly against New Zealand in 2019). The competition with another MLS franchise wouldn’t be ideal, like Charlotte, but with a big enough population and cross marketing from the Cardinals, maybe there’s a winner here. Wacko idea: If Busch doesn’t pan out, send them to The Dome. Sure, it’s a 60k turf closed-in stadium, but we can go for that retro NASL feel and pay homage to our nation’s soccer history.
Candidate: Tampa Bay Rowdies
Location (Metro population): Tampa, Fla. (3,068,511)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Raymond James Stadium (Grass, 65,518)
Potential owner: Edward DeBartolo Jr. (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: This one makes me sad. Despite having never been there, I see Al Lang Stadium as an iconic part of the Rowdies experience. Current owner Bill Edwards proposed an expansion to 18,000 seats in 2016, but the move seems to have stalled out. Frustrated with the city’s lack of action, Edwards sells to one-time San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., who uses his old NFL connections to secure a cushy lease at the home of the Buccaneers in Ray Jay, the site of a 3-1 thrashing of Antigua and Barbuda during the United States’ 2014 World Cup Qualifying campaign.
Breather. Hey, we finished the Eastern Conference teams. Why are you still reading this? Why am I still writing it? Time is a meaningless construct in 2020 my friends, we are adrift in the void, fueled only by brief flashes of what once was and what may yet still be.
Candidate: Austin Bold FC
Location (Metro population): Austin, Texas (2,168,316)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 95,594)
Potential owner: Michael Dell (reported net worth of $32.3 billion)
Notes: Anthony Precourt’s Austin FC has some unexpected competition and it comes in the form of tech magnate Michael Dell. Dell, were he to buy the club, would be one of the richest owners on our list and could flash his cash in the new first division. Would he have enough to convince Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (I’m not kidding, that’s its actual name) to go back to a grass surface, like it did from ’96-’08? That’s between Dell and nearly 100,000 UT football fans, but everything can be had for the right price.
Candidate: Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
Location (Metro population): Colorado Springs, Colo. (738,939)
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Falcon Stadium (FieldTurf, 46,692)
Potential owner: Charles Ergen (reported net worth $10.8 billion)
Notes: Welcome to Colorado Springs. We have hurdles. For the first time in 12 candidates, we’re back below the desired 1 million metro population mark. Colorado Springs actually plans to build a $35 million, 8,000 seat venue downtown that will be perfect for soccer, but in our timeline that’s 7,000 seats short. Enter Falcon Stadium, home of the Air Force Academy Falcons football team. Seems perfect except for the turf, right? Well, the tricky thing is that Falcon Stadium is technically on an active military base and is (I believe) government property. Challenges to getting in and out of the ground aside, the military tends to have a pretty grim view of government property being used by for-profit enterprises. Maybe Charles Ergen, founder and chairman of Dish Network, would be able to grease the right wheels, but you can go ahead and throw this into the “doubtful” category. It’s a shame, too. 6,035 feet of elevation is one hell of a home-field advantage.
Candidate: El Paso Locomotive FC
Location: El Paso, Texas
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Sun Bowl (FieldTurf, 51,500)
Potential owner: Paul Foster (reported net worth $1.7 billion)
Notes: God bless Texas. When compiling this list, I found so many of the theoretical stadium replacements were nearly serviceable by high school football fields. That’s insane, right? Anyway, Locomotive don’t have to settle for one of those, they’ve got the Sun Bowl, which had its capacity reduced in 2001 to a paltry 51,500 (from 52,000) specifically to accommodate soccer. Sure, it’s a turf surface, but what does new owner Paul Foster (who is only the 1,477th wealthiest man in the world, per Forbes) care, he’s got a team in a top league. Side note: Did you know that the Sun Bowl college football game is officially, through sponsorship, the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl? Why is it not the Frosted Flakes Sun Bowl? Why is the cereal mascot the promotional name of the football game? What are you doing, Kellogg’s?
Candidate: Las Vegas Lights FC
Location: Las Vegas, Nev. (2,227,053)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Allegiant Stadium (Grass, 61,000)
Potential owner: Sheldon Adelson (reported net worth $37.7 billion)
Notes: Sin City. You had to know that the club that once signed Freddy Adu because “why not” was going to go all out in our flashy hypothetical proposal. Thanks to my narrative control of this whole thing, they have. Adelson is the second-richest owner in the league and has decided to do everything first class. That includes using the new Raiders stadium in nearby unincorporated Paradise, Nevada, and spending boatloads on high profile transfers. Zlatan is coming back to the U.S., confirmed.
Candidate: New Mexico United
Location: Albuquerque, N.M.
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Isotopes Park – officially Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park (Grass, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion)
Potential owner: Maloof Family (reported net worth $1 billion)
Notes: New Mexico from its inception went deep on the community vibe, and I’ve tried to replicate that in this bid. The home field of Rio Grande Cr---I’m not typing out the whole thing—Isotopes Park falls just within the expansion rules we set to make it to 15,000 (weird, right?) and they’ve found a great local ownership group in the Lebanese-American Maloof (formerly Maalouf) family from Las Vegas. The only thing to worry about would be the metro population, but overall, this could be one of the gems of USL Prem.
Candidate: Oklahoma City Energy FC
Location: Oklahoma City, Okla. (1,396,445)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (Grass, 13,066)
Potential owner: Harold Hamm (reported net worth $14.2 billion)
Notes: There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow and it says it’s time to change stadiums and owners to make it to D1. A sale to oil magnate Harold Hamm would give the club the finances it needs, but Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (home of the OKC Dodgers) actually falls outside of the boundary of what would meet capacity if 1,500 seats were added. Could the club pull off a move to Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma – home of the Oklahoma Sooners? Maybe, but at 20 miles, this would be a reach.
Candidate: Orange County SC
Location: Irvine, Calif. (3,176, 000 in Orange County)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Angels Stadium of Anaheim (Grass, 43,250)
Potential owner: Arte Moreno (reported net worth $3.3 billion)
Notes: You’ll never convince me that Rangers didn’t choose to partner with Orange County based primarily on its name. Either way, a sale to MLB Angels owner Arte Moreno produces a fruitful partnership, with the owner choosing to play his newest club out of the existing Angels stadium in OC. Another baseball conversion, sure, but with a metro population of over 3 million and the closest thing this hypothetical league has to an LA market, who’s complaining?
Candidate: Phoenix Rising FC
Location: Phoenix, Ariz. (4,857,962)
Time zone: Arizona
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): State Farm Stadium (Grass, 63,400)
Potential owner: Ernest Garcia II (reported net worth $5.7 billion)
Notes: We’re keeping it local with new owner and used car guru Ernest Garcia II. His dad owned a liquor store and he dropped out of college, which is making me feel amazing about my life choices right now. Casino Arizona Field is great, but State Farm Stadium is a grass surface that hosted the 2019 Gold Cup semifinal, so it’s a clear winner. Throw in Phoenix’s massive metro population and this one looks like a lock.
Candidate: Reno 1868 FC
Location: Reno, Nev. (425,417)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Mackay Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000)
Potential owner: Nancy Walton Laurie (reported net worth $7.1 billion)
Notes: The Biggest Little City on Earth has some serious barriers to overcome, thanks to its low metro population. A sale to Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and 1.6 mile-move to Mackay Stadium to split space with the University of Nevada, Reno makes this bid competitive, but the turf surface is another knock against it.
Candidate: Rio Grande Valley FC
Location: Edinburg, Texas (900,304)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): McAllen Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion)
Potential owner: Alice Louise Walton (reported net worth $45 billion)
Notes: Yes, I have a second straight Walmart heiress on the list. She was the first thing that popped up when I googled “McAllen Texas richest people.” The family rivalry has spurred Walton to buy a club as well, moving them 10 miles to McAllen Memorial Stadium which, as I alluded to earlier, is a straight up high school football stadium with a full color scoreboard. Toss in an additional 1,500 seats and you’ve met the minimum, despite the turf playing surface.
Candidate: San Antonio FC
Location: San Antonio, Texas (2,550,960)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Alamodome (FieldTurf, 64,000)
Potential owner: Red McCombs (reported net worth $1.6 billion)
Notes: I wanted to keep SAFC in the Spurs family, since the franchise is valued at $1.8 billion. That said, I didn’t let the Rooneys own the Riverhounds based on the Steelers’ value and it felt wrong to change the rules, so bring on Clear Channel co-founder Red McCombs. Toyota Field isn’t viable in the first division, but for the Alamodome, which was built in 1993 in hopes of attracting an NFL franchise (and never did), San Antonio can finally claim having *a* national football league team in its town (contingent on your definition of football). Now if only we could do something about that turf…
Candidate: San Diego Loyal SC
Location: San Diego, Calif. (3,317,749)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): SDCCU Stadium (formerly Qualcomm) (Grass, 70,561)
Potential owner: Phil Mickelson (reported net worth $91 million)
Notes: Yes, golf’s Phil Mickelson. The existing ownership group didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to meet requirements, and Phil seemed to slot right in. As an athlete himself, he might be interesting in the new challenges of a top flight soccer team. Toss in a move to the former home of the chargers and you might have a basis for tremendous community support.
Candidate: FC Tulsa
Location: Tulsa, Okla. (991,561)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000)
Potential owner: George Kaiser ($10 billion)
Notes: I’m a fan of FC Tulsa’s rebrand, but if they want to make the first division, more changes are necessary. A sale to Tulsa native and one of the 100 richest men in the world George Kaiser means that funding is guaranteed. A move to Chapman Stadium would provide the necessary seats, despite the turf field. While the undersize population might be an issue at first glance, it’s hard to imagine U.S. Soccer not granting a waiver over a less than a 10k miss from the mark.
And that’s it! You made it. Those are all of the independent/hybrid affiliates in the USL Championship, which means that it’s time for our…
VERDICT: As an expert who has studied this issue for almost an entire day now, I am prepared to pronounce which USL Championships could be most ‘ready” for a jump to the USL Prem. A reminder that of the 27 clubs surveyed, 0 of them met our ideal criteria (proper ownership $, metro population, 15,000+ stadium with grass field).
Two of them, however, met almost all of those criteria: Indy Eleven and Miami FC. Those two clubs may use up two of our three available turf fields right from the outset, but the other factors they hit (particularly Silva’s ownership of Miami) makes them difficult, if not impossible to ignore for the top flight.
But who fill in the rest of the slots? Meet the entire 14-team USL Premier League:
Hartford Athletic
Indy Eleven
Louisville City FC
Miami FC
North Carolina FC
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
Tampa Bay Rowdies
Saint Louis FC
San Antonio FC
New Mexico United
Phoenix Rising FC
Las Vegas Lights FC
Orange County SC
San Diego Loyal SC
Now, I shall provide my expert rationale for each club’s inclusion/exclusion, which can be roughly broken down into four categories.
Firm “yes”
Hartford Athletic: It’s a good market size with a solid stadium. With a decent investor and good community support, you’ve got potential here.
Indy Eleven: The turf at Lucas Oil Stadium is no reason to turn down a 62,421 venue and a metro population of over 2 million.
Louisville City FC: Why doesn’t the 2017 & 2018 USL Cup champion deserve a crack at the top flight? They have the market size, and with a bit of expansion have the stadium at their own SSS. LCFC, you’re in.
Miami FC, “The”: Our other blue-chip recruit on the basis of ownership value, market size and stadium capacity. Yes, that field is turf, but how could you snub Silva’s chance to claim victory as the first division 1 club soccer team to play in Miami?
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC: Pittsburgh sacrificed a lot to be here (according to my arbitrary calculations). Their market size and the potential boon of soccer at Heinz Field is an important inclusion to the league.
Saint Louis FC: Willie hears your “Busch League” jokes, Willie don’t care. A huge market size, combined with the absence of an NFL franchise creates opportunity. Competition with the MLS side, sure, but St. Louis has serious soccer history and we’re willing to bet it can support two clubs.
Tampa Bay Rowdies: With a huge population and a massive stadium waiting nearby, Tampa Bay seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up for the USL Prem.
Las Vegas Lights FC: Ostentatious, massive and well-financed, Las Vegas Lights FC is everything that the USL Premier League would need to assert that it didn’t intend to play second fiddle to MLS. Players will need to be kept on a short leash, but this is a hard market to pass up on.
Phoenix Rising FC: Huge population, big grass field available nearby and a solid history of success in recent years. No brainer.
San Diego Loyal SC: New club? Yes, massive population in a market that recently lost an absolutely huge sports presence? Also yes. This could be the USL Prem’s Seattle.
Cautious “yes”
New Mexico United: You have to take a chance on New Mexico United. The club set the league on fire with its social media presence and its weight in the community when it entered the league last season. The market may be slightly under USSF’s desired 1 million, but fervent support (and the ability to continue to use Isotopes Park) shouldn’t be discounted.
North Carolina FC: Carter-Finley’s mixed grass/turf surface is a barrier, to be sure, but the 57,000+ seats it offers (and being enough to offset other fully-turf offerings) is enough to put it in the black.
Orange County SC: It’s a top-tier club playing in a MLB stadium. I know it seems unlikely that USSF would approve something like that, but believe me when I say “it could happen.” Orange County is a massive market and California likely needs two clubs in the top flight.
San Antonio FC: Our third and only voluntary inclusion to the turf fields in the first division, we’re counting on San Antonio’s size and massive potential stadium to see it through.
Cautious “no”
Birmingham Legion FC: The town has solid soccer history and a huge potential venue, but the turf playing surface puts it on the outside looking in.
Memphis 901 FC: Like Birmingham, not much to dislike here outside of the turf playing surface at the larger playing venue.
Austin Bold FC: See the other two above.
FC Tulsa: Everything’s just a little bit off with this one. Market’s slightly too small, stadium has turf. Just not enough to put it over the top.
Firm “no”
Charleston Battery: Small metro and a small potential new stadium? It’s tough to say yes to the risk.
Charlotte Independence: A small new stadium and the possibility of having to compete with an organization that just paid over $300 million to join MLS means it’s best for this club to remain in the USL Championship.
Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC: When a club’s best chance to meet a capacity requirement is to host games at a venue controlled by the military, that doesn’t speak well to a club’s chances.
El Paso Locomotive FC: An undersized market and a turf field that meets capacity requirements is the death knell for this one.
Oklahoma City Energy FC: Having to expand a baseball field to meet requirements is a bad start. Having to potentially play 20 miles away from your main market is even worse.
Reno 1868 FC: Population nearly a half-million short of the federation’s requirements AND a turf field at the hypothetical new stadium makes impossible to say yes to this bid.
Rio Grande Valley FC: All the seat expansions in the world can’t hide the fact that McAllen Memorial Stadium is a high school stadium through and through.
Here’s who’s left in the 11-team Championship:
Birmingham Legion FC
Charleston Battery
Charlotte Independence
Memphis 901 FC
Austin Bold FC
Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
El Paso Locomotive FC
Oklahoma City Energy FC
Reno 1868 FC
Rio Grande Valley FC
FC Tulsa
With MLS folding the six affiliates it has in USL League One, the league is a little bit thin (especially considering USSF’s requirements for 8 teams for lower level leagues), but seems definitely able to expand up to the necessary numbers with Edwards’ allusions to five new additions this year:
Chattanooga Red Wolves SC
Forward Madison FC
Greenville Triumph SC
Union Omaha
Richmond Kickers
South Georgia Tormenta
FC Tucson
Format of Assorted Leagues – This (like everything in this post) is pure conjecture on my part, but here are my thoughts on how these leagues might function in a first year while waiting for additional expansion.
USL Premier – We’ll steal from the 12-team Scottish Premiership. Each club plays the other 11 clubs 3 times, with either one or two home matches against each side. When each club has played 33 matches, the top six and bottom six separate, with every club playing an additional five matches (against each other team in its group). The top club wins the league. The bottom club is automatically relegated. The second-bottom club will enter a two-legged playoff against someone (see below) from the championship playoffs.
USL Championship -- 11 clubs is a challenge to schedule for. How about every club plays everyone else three times (either one or two home matches against each side)? Top four clubs make the playoffs, which are decided by two-legged playoffs. The winner automatically goes up. I need feedback on the second part – is it better to have the runner-up from the playoffs face the second-bottom club from the Premiership, or should the winner of the third-place match-up get the chance to face them to keep drama going in both playoff series? As for relegation, we can clearly only send down the last place club while the third division is so small.
USL League One – While the league is so small, it doesn’t seem reasonable to have the clubs play as many matches as the higher divisions. Each club could play the other six clubs four times – twice at home and twice away – for a very equitable 24-match regular season, which would help restrict costs and still provide a chance to determine a clear winner. Whoever finishes top of the table goes up.
And there you have it, a hypothetical look at how the USL could build a D1 league right now. All it would take is a new stadium for almost the entire league and new owners for all but one of the 27 clubs, who wouldn’t feel that their property would be massively devalued if they got relegated.
Well that’s our show. I’m curious to see what you think of all of this, especially anything that you think I may have overlooked (I’m sure there’s plenty). Anyway, I hope you’re all staying safe and well.

Backpacking the length of the richest and most densely populated place in the world

Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho dies at 98

NYT article/The Weekly Episode on Epstein Hotlist

Just finished watching The Weekly (it’s kind of a Vice rip-off by the NYT) on Hulu where they went into detail about their story published this week about a « hacker » named Patrick Kessler who claimed to have tens of thousands of hours of Epstein’s private videos.
Turns out, Patrick did not released the videos and there is a lot of questions with his credibility, nonetheless, he clearly exposed two lawyers (Bois and Pottinger) for attempting to profit by offering to reach large settlements in which they would take 40%.
The article is here: Jeffrey Epstein, Blackmail, and a Lucrative Hotlist
Even though it sounds like this guy Kessler is full of shit, I REALLY wish that he wasn’t and at some point these troves of photos and videos get released and a bunch of rich and powerful people get what they deserve for abusing these women.
For those who need access to NYT- it is a long article, but here’s the full text:
By Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Emily Steel, Jacob Bernstein and David Enrich Nov. 30, 2019 Soon after the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein died in August, a mysterious man met with two prominent lawyers.
Towering, barrel-chested and wild-bearded, he was a prodigious drinker and often wore flip-flops. He went by a pseudonym, Patrick Kessler — a necessity, he said, given the shadowy, dangerous world that he inhabited.
He told the lawyers he had something incendiary: a vast archive of Mr. Epstein’s data, stored on encrypted servers overseas. He said he had years of the financier’s communications and financial records — as well as thousands of hours of footage from hidden cameras in the bedrooms of Mr. Epstein’s properties. The videos, Kessler said, captured some of the world’s richest, most powerful men in compromising sexual situations — even in the act of rape.
Kessler said he wanted to expose these men. If he was telling the truth, his trove could answer one of the Epstein saga’s most baffling questions: How did a college dropout and high school math teacher amass a purported nine-figure fortune? One persistent but unproven theory was that he ran a sprawling blackmail operation. That would explain why moguls, scientists, political leaders and a royal stayed loyal to him, in some cases even after he first went to jail.
Kessler’s tale was enough to hook the two lawyers, the famed litigator David Boies and his friend John Stanley Pottinger. If Kessler was authentic, his videos would arm them with immense leverage over some very important people.
Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger discussed a plan. They could use the supposed footage in litigation or to try to reach deals with men who appeared in it, with money flowing into a charitable foundation. In encrypted chats with Kessler, Mr. Pottinger referred to a roster of potential targets as the “hot list.” He described hypothetical plans in which the lawyers would pocket up to 40 percent of the settlements and could extract money from wealthy men by flipping from representing victims to representing their alleged abusers.
The possibilities were tantalizing — and extended beyond vindicating victims. Mr. Pottinger saw a chance to supercharge his law practice. For Mr. Boies, there was a shot at redemption, after years of criticism for his work on behalf of Theranos and Harvey Weinstein.
In the end, there would be no damning videos, no funds pouring into a new foundation. Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger would go from toasting Kessler as their “whistle-blower” and “informant” to torching him as a “fraudster” and a “spy.”
Kessler was a liar, and he wouldn’t expose any sexual abuse. But he would reveal something else: The extraordinary, at times deceitful measures elite lawyers deployed in an effort to get evidence that could be used to win lucrative settlements — and keep misconduct hidden, allowing perpetrators to abuse again.
Mr. Boies has publicly decried such secret deals as “rich man’s justice,” a way that powerful men buy their way out of legal and reputational jeopardy. This is how it works.
7 men and a headless parrot
The man who called himself Kessler first contacted a Florida lawyer, Bradley J. Edwards, who was in the news for representing women with claims against Mr. Epstein. It was late August, about two weeks after the financier killed himself in a jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Mr. Edwards, who did not respond to interview requests, had a law firm called Edwards Pottinger, and he soon referred Kessler to his New York partner. Silver-haired and 79, Mr. Pottinger had been a senior civil-rights official in the Nixon and Ford administrations, but he also dabbled in investment banking and wrote best-selling medical thrillers. He was perhaps best known for having dated Gloria Steinem and Kathie Lee Gifford.
Mr. Pottinger recalled that Mr. Edwards warned him about Kessler, saying that he was “endearing,” “spooky” and “loves to drink like a fish.”
After an initial discussion with Kessler in Washington, Mr. Pottinger briefed Mr. Boies — whose firm was also active in representing accusers in the Epstein case — about the sensational claims. He then invited Kessler to his Manhattan apartment. Kessler admired a wall-mounted frame containing a headless stuffed parrot; on TV, the Philadelphia Eagles were mounting a comeback against the Washington Redskins. Mr. Pottinger poured Kessler a glass of WhistlePig whiskey, and the informant began to talk.
In his conversations with Mr. Pottinger and, later, Mr. Boies, Kessler said his videos featured numerous powerful men who were already linked to Mr. Epstein: Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister; Alan Dershowitz, a constitutional lawyer; Prince Andrew; three billionaires; and a prominent chief executive.
All seven men, or their representatives, told The New York Times they never engaged in sexual activity on Mr. Epstein’s properties. The Times has no reason to believe Kessler’s supposed video footage is real.
In his apartment, Mr. Pottinger presented Kessler with a signed copy of “The Boss,” his 2005 novel. “One minute you’re bending the rules,” blares the cover of the paperback version. “The next minute you’re breaking the law.” On the title page, Mr. Pottinger wrote: “Here’s to the great work you are to do. Happy to be part of it.”
Mr. Pottinger also gave Kessler a draft contract to bring him on as a client, allowing him to use a fake name. “For reasons revealed to you, I prefer to proceed with this engagement under the name Patrick Kessler,” the agreement said.
Despite the enormities of the Epstein scandal, few of his accusers have gotten a sense of justice or resolution. Mr. Pottinger thought Kessler’s files could change everything. This strange man was theatrical and liked his alcohol, but if there was even a chance his claims were true, they were worth pursuing.
“Our clients are said to be liars and prostitutes,” Mr. Pottinger later said in an interview with The Times, “and we now have someone who says, ‘I can give you secret photographic proof of abuse that will completely change the entire fabric of your practice and get justice for these girls.’ And you think that we wouldn’t try to get that?”
A victim becomes a hacker
Mr. Pottinger and Mr. Boies have known each other for years, a friendship forged on bike trips in France and Italy. In legal circles, Mr. Boies was royalty: He was the one who fought for presidential candidate Al Gore before the Supreme Court, took on Microsoft in a landmark antitrust case, and helped obtain the right for gays and lesbians to get married in California.
But then Mr. Boies got involved with the blood-testing start-up Theranos. As the company was being revealed as a fraud, he tried to bully whistle-blowers into not speaking to a Wall Street Journal reporter, and he was criticized for possible conflicts of interest when he joined the company’s board in 2015.
Two years later, Mr. Boies helped his longtime client Harvey Weinstein hire private investigators who intimidated sources and trailed reporters for The Times and The New Yorker — even though Mr. Boies’s firm had worked for The Times on other matters. (The Times fired his firm.)
By 2019, Mr. Boies, 78, was representing a number of Mr. Epstein’s alleged victims. They got his services pro bono, and he got the chance to burnish his legacy. When Mr. Pottinger contacted him about Kessler, he was intrigued.
On Sept. 9, Mr. Boies greeted Kessler at the offices of his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, in a gleaming new skyscraper at Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side. Kessler unfurled a fantastic story, one he would embroider and alter in later weeks, that began with him growing up somewhere within a three-hour radius of Washington. Kessler said he had been molested as a boy by a Bible school teacher and sought solace on the internet, where he fell in with a group of victims turned hackers, who used their skills to combat pedophilia.
Kessler claimed that a technology executive had introduced him to Mr. Epstein, who in 2012 hired Kessler to set up encrypted servers to preserve his extensive digital archives. With Mr. Epstein dead, Kessler boasted to the lawyers, he had unfettered access to the material. He said the volume of videos was overwhelming: more than a decade of round-the-clock footage from dozens of cameras.
Kessler displayed some pixelated video stills on his phone. In one, a bearded man with his mouth open appears to be having sex with a naked woman. Kessler said the man was Mr. Barak. In another, a man with black-framed glasses is seen shirtless with a woman on his lap, her breasts exposed. Kessler said it was Mr. Dershowitz. He also said that some of the supposed videos appeared to have been edited and cataloged for the purpose of blackmail.
“This was explosive information if true, for lots and lots of people,” Mr. Boies said in an interview.
Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger had decades of legal experience and considered themselves experts at assessing witnesses’ credibility. While they couldn’t be sure, they thought Kessler was probably legit.
A chance to sway the Israeli election
Within hours of the Hudson Yards meeting, Mr. Pottinger sent Kessler a series of texts over the encrypted messaging app Signal.
According to excerpts viewed by The Times, Mr. Pottinger and Kessler discussed a plan to disseminate some of the informant’s materials — starting with the supposed footage of Mr. Barak. The Israeli election was barely a week away, and Mr. Barak was challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The purported images of Mr. Barak might be able to sway the election — and fetch a high price. (“Total lie with no basis in reality,” Mr. Barak said when asked about the existence of such videos.)
“Can you review your visual evidence to be sure some or all is indisputably him? If so, we can make it work,” Mr. Pottinger wrote.
Kessler said he would do so. Mr. Pottinger sent a yellow smiley-face emoji with its tongue sticking out.
“Can you share your contact that would be purchasing,” Kessler asked.
“Sheldon Adelson,” Mr. Pottinger answered.
Mr. Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate in Las Vegas, had founded one of Israel’s largest newspapers, and it was an enthusiastic booster of Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Pottinger wrote that he and Mr. Boies hoped to fly to Nevada to meet with Mr. Adelson to discuss the images.
“Do you believe that adelson has the pull to insure this will hurt his bid for election?” Kessler asked the next morning.
Mr. Pottinger reassured him. “There is no question that Adelson has the capacity to air the truth about EB if he wants to,” he said, using Mr. Barak’s initials. He said he planned to discuss the matter with Mr. Boies that evening.
Mr. Boies confirmed that they discussed sharing the photo with Mr. Adelson but said the plan was never executed. Boaz Bismuth, the editor in chief of the newspaper, Israel Hayom, said its journalists were approached by an Israeli source who pitched them supposed images of Mr. Barak, but that “we were not interested.”
‘These are wealthy wrongdoers’
The men whom Kessler claimed to have on tape were together worth many billions. Some of their public relations teams had spent months trying to tamp down media coverage of their connections to Mr. Epstein. Imagine how much they might pay to make incriminating videos vanish.
You might think that lawyers representing abuse victims would want to publicly expose such information to bolster their clients’ claims. But that is not how the legal industry always works. Often, keeping things quiet is good business.
One of the revelations of the #MeToo era has been that victims’ lawyers often brokered secret deals in which alleged abusers paid to keep their accusers quiet and the allegations out of the public sphere. Lawyers can pocket at least a third of such settlements, profiting off a system that masks misconduct and allows men to abuse again.
Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger said in interviews that they were looking into creating a charity to help victims of sexual abuse. It would be bankrolled by private legal settlements with the men on the videos.
Mr. Boies acknowledged that Kessler might get paid. “If we were able to use this to help our victims recover money, we would treat him generously,” he said in September. He said that his firm would not get a cut of any settlements.
Such agreements would have made it less likely that videos involving the men became public. “Generally what settlements are about is getting peace,” Mr. Boies said.
Mr. Pottinger told Kessler that the charity he was setting up would be called the Astria Foundation — a name he later said his girlfriend came up with, in a nod to Astraea, the Greek goddess of innocence and justice. “We need to get it funded by abusers,” Mr. Pottinger texted, noting in another message that “these are wealthy wrongdoers.”
Mr. Pottinger asked Kessler to start compiling incriminating materials on a specific group of men.
“I’m way ahead of you,” Kessler responded. He said he had asked his team of fellow hackers to search the files for the three billionaires, the C.E.O. and Prince Andrew.
“Yes, that’s exactly how to do this,” Mr. Pottinger said. “Videos for sure, but email traffic, too.”
“I call it our hot list,” he added.
Image The Grand Sichuan restaurant in Manhattan. The Grand Sichuan restaurant in Manhattan.Credit...Stephanie Diani for The New York Times A quiet table at the back of Grand Sichuan
In mid-September, Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger invited reporters from The Times to the Boies Schiller offices to meet Kessler. The threat of a major news organization writing about the videos — and confirming the existence of an extensive surveillance apparatus — could greatly enhance the lawyers’ leverage over the wealthy men.
Before the session, Mr. Pottinger encouraged Kessler to focus on certain men, like Mr. Barak, while avoiding others. Referring to the reporters, he added, “Let them drink from a fountain instead of a water hose. They and the readers will follow that better.”
The meeting took place on a cloudy Saturday morning. After agreeing to leave their phones and laptops outside, the reporters entered a 20th-floor conference room. Kessler was huge: more than 6 feet tall, pushing 300 pounds, balding, his temples speckled with gray. He told his story and presented images that he said were of Mr. Epstein, Mr. Barak and Mr. Dershowitz having sex with women.
Barely an hour after the session ended, the Times reporters received an email from Kessler: “Are you free?” He said he wanted to meet — alone. “Tell no one else.” That afternoon, they met at Grand Sichuan, an iconic Chinese restaurant in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. The lunch rush was over, and the trio sat at a quiet table in the back. A small group of women huddled nearby, speaking Mandarin and snipping the ends off string beans.
Kessler complained that Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger were more interested in making money than in exposing wrongdoers. He pulled out his phone, warned the reporters not to touch it, and showed more of what he had. There was a color photo of a bare-chested, gray-haired man with a slight smile. Kessler said it was a billionaire. He also showed blurry, black-and-white images of a dark-haired man receiving oral sex. He said it was a prominent C.E.O.
Soup dumplings and Gui Zhou chicken arrived, and Kessler kept talking. He said he had found financial ledgers on Mr. Epstein’s servers that showed he had vast amounts of Bitcoin and cash in the Middle East and Bangkok, and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver and diamonds. He presented no proof. But it is common for whistle-blowers to be erratic and slow to produce their evidence, and The Times thought it was worth investigating Kessler’s claims.
The conversation continued in a conference room at a Washington hotel five days later, after a text exchange in which Kessler noted his enthusiasm for Japanese whiskey. Both parties brought bottles to the hotel, and Kessler spent nearly eight hours downing glass after glass. He veered from telling tales about the dark web to professing love for “Little House on the Prairie.” He asserted that he had evidence Mr. Epstein had derived his wealth through illicit means. At one point, he showed what he said were classified C.I.A. documents.
Kessler said he had no idea who the women in the videos were or how the lawyers might go about identifying them to act on their behalf. From his perspective, he said, it seemed like Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger were plotting to use his footage to demand huge sums from billionaires. He said it looked like blackmail — and that he could prove it.
‘We keep it. We keep everything’
Was Kessler’s story plausible? Did America’s best-connected sexual predator accumulate incriminating videos of powerful men?
Two women who spent time in Mr. Epstein’s homes said the answer was yes. In an unpublished memoir, Virginia Giuffre, who accused Mr. Epstein of making her a “sex slave,” wrote that she discovered a room in his New York mansion where monitors displayed real-time surveillance footage. And Maria Farmer, an artist who accused Mr. Epstein of sexually assaulting her when she worked for him in the 1990s, said that Mr. Epstein once walked her through the mansion, pointing out pin-sized cameras that he said were in every room.
“I said, ‘Are you recording all this?’” Ms. Farmer said in an interview. “He said, ‘Yes. We keep it. We keep everything.’”
During a 2005 search of Mr. Epstein’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate, the police found two cameras hidden in clocks — one in the garage and the other next to his desk, according to police reports. But no other cameras were found.
Kessler claimed to have been an early investor in a North Carolina coffee company, whose sticker was affixed to his laptop. But its founder said no one matching Kessler’s description had ever been affiliated with the company. Kessler insisted that he invested in 2009, but the company wasn’t founded until 2011.
The contents of Kessler’s supposed C.I.A. documents turned out to be easily findable using Google. At one point, Kessler said that one of his associates had been missing and was found dead; later, Kessler said the man was alive and in the southern United States. He said that his mother had died when he was young — and that he had recently given her a hug. A photo he sent from what he said was a Washington-area hospital featured a distinctive blanket, but when The Times called local hospitals, they didn’t recognize the pattern.
After months of effort, The Times could not learn Kessler’s identity or confirm any element of his back story.
“I am very often being purposefully inconsistent,” Kessler said, when pressed.
A Weinstein cameo
On the last Friday in September, Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger sat on a blue leather couch in the corner of a members-only dining room at the Harvard Club in Midtown Manhattan. Antlered animal heads and oil paintings hung from the dark wooden walls.
The lawyers were there to make a deal with The Times. Tired of waiting for Kessler’s motherlode, Mr. Pottinger said they planned to send a team overseas to download the material from his servers. He said he had alerted the F.B.I. and a prosecutor in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.
Mr. Boies told an editor for The Times that they would be willing to share everything, on one condition: They would have discretion over which men could be written about, and when. He explained that if compromising videos about particular men became public, that could torpedo litigation or attempts to negotiate settlements. The Times editor didn’t commit.
Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger later said those plans had hinged on verifying the videos’ authenticity and on having clients with legitimate legal claims against the men. Otherwise, legal experts said, it might have crossed the line into extortion.
The meeting was briefly interrupted when Bob Weinstein, the brother of Harvey Weinstein, bounded up to the table and plopped onto the couch next to Mr. Boies. The two men spent several minutes talking, laughing and slapping each other on the back.
While Mr. Boies and Mr. Weinstein chatted, Mr. Pottinger furtively displayed the black-and-white shot of a man in glasses having sex. Both lawyers said it looked like Mr. Dershowitz.
‘You don’t keep your glasses on when you’re doing that’
One day in late September, Mr. Dershowitz’s secretary relayed a message: Someone named Patrick Kessler wanted to speak to him about Mr. Boies.
“The problem is that they don’t want to move forward with any of these people legally,” Kessler said. “They’re just interested in trying to settle and take a cut.”
“Who are these people that you have on videotape?” Mr. Dershowitz asked.
“There’s a lot of people,” Kessler said, naming a few powerful men. He added, “There’s a long list of people that they want me to have that I don’t have.”
“Who?” Mr. Dershowitz asked. “Did they ask about me?”
“Of course they asked about you. You know that, sir.”
“And you don’t have anything on me, right?”
“I do not, no,” Kessler said.
“Because I never, I never had sex with anybody,” Mr. Dershowitz said. Later in the call, he added, “I am completely clean. I was at Jeffrey’s house. I stayed there. But I didn’t have any sex with anybody.”
What was the purpose of Kessler’s phone call? Why did he tell Mr. Dershowitz that he wasn’t on the supposed surveillance tapes, contradicting what he had said and showed to Mr. Boies, Mr. Pottinger and The Times? Did the call sound a little rehearsed?
Mr. Dershowitz said that he didn’t know why Kessler contacted him, and that the phone call was the only time the two men ever spoke. When The Times showed him one of Kessler’s photos, in which a bespectacled man resembling Mr. Dershowitz appears to be having sex, Mr. Dershowitz laughed and said the man wasn’t him. His wife, Carolyn Cohen, peeked at the photo, too.
“You don’t keep your glasses on when you’re doing that,” she said.
Data set (supposedly) to self-destruct
In early October, Kessler said he was ready to produce the Epstein files. He told The Times that he had created duplicate versions of Mr. Epstein’s servers. He laid out detailed logistical plans for them to be shipped by boat to the United States and for one of his associates — a very short Icelandic man named Steven — to deliver them to The Times headquarters at 11 a.m. on Oct. 3.
Kessler warned that he was erecting a maze of security systems. First, a Times employee would need to use a special thumb drive to access a proprietary communications system. Then Kessler’s colleague would transmit a code to decrypt the files. If his instructions weren’t followed precisely, Kessler said, the information would self-destruct.
Specialists at The Times set up a number of “air-gapped” laptops — disconnected from the internet — in a windowless, padlocked meeting room. Reporters cleared their schedules to sift through thousands of hours of surveillance footage.
On the morning of the scheduled delivery, Kessler sent a series of frantic texts. Disaster had struck. A fire was burning. The duplicate servers were destroyed. One of his team members was missing. He was fleeing to Kyiv.
Two hours later, Kessler was in touch with Mr. Pottinger and didn’t mention any emergency. Kessler said he hoped that the footage would help pry $1 billion in settlements out of their targets, and asked him to detail how the lawyers could extract the money. “Could you put together a hypothetical situation,” Kessler wrote, not something “set in stone but close to what your thinking.”
In one, which he called a “standard model” for legal settlements, Mr. Pottinger said the money would be split among his clients, the Astria Foundation, Kessler and the lawyers, who would get up to 40 percent.
In the second hypothetical, Mr. Pottinger wrote, the lawyers would approach the videotaped men. The men would then hire the lawyers, ensuring that they would not get sued, and “make a contribution to a nonprofit as part of the retainer.”
“No client is actually involved in this structure,” Mr. Pottinger said, noting that the arrangement would have to be “consistent with and subject to rules of ethics.”
“Thank you very much,” Kessler responded.
Mr. Pottinger later said that the scenario would have involved him representing a victim, settling a case and then representing the victim’s alleged abuser. He said it was within legal boundaries. (He also said he had meant to type “No client lawsuit is actually involved.”)
Such legal arrangements are not unheard-of. Lawyers representing a former Fox News producer who had accused Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment reached a settlement in which her lawyers agreed to work for Mr. O’Reilly after the dispute. But legal experts generally consider such setups to be unethical because they can create conflicts between the interests of the lawyers and their original clients.
‘I just pulled it out of my behind’
The lawyers held out hope of getting Kessler’s materials. But weeks passed, and nothing arrived. At one point, Mr. Pottinger volunteered to meet Kessler anywhere — including Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
“I still believe he is what he purported to be,” Mr. Boies wrote in an email on Nov. 7. “I have to evaluate people for my day job, and he seemed too genuine to be a fake, and I very much want him to be real.” He added, “I am not unconscious of the danger of wanting to believe something too much.”
Ten days later, Mr. Boies arrived at The Times for an on-camera interview. It was a bright, chilly Sunday, and Mr. Boies had just flown in from Ecuador, where he said he was doing work for the finance ministry. Reporters wanted to ask him plainly if his and Mr. Pottinger’s conduct with Kessler crossed ethical lines.
Would they have brokered secret settlements that buried evidence of wrongdoing? Did the notion of extracting huge sums from men in exchange for keeping sex tapes hidden meet the definition of extortion?
Mr. Boies said the answer to both questions was no. He said he and Mr. Pottinger operated well within the law. They only intended to pursue legal action on behalf of their clients — in other words, that they were a long way from extortion. In any case, he said, he and Mr. Pottinger had never authenticated any of the imagery or identified any of the supposed victims, much less contacted any of the men on the “hot list.”
Then The Times showed Mr. Boies some of the text exchanges between Mr. Pottinger and Kessler. Mr. Boies showed a flash of anger and said it was the first time he was seeing them.
By the end of the nearly four-hour interview, Mr. Boies had concluded that Kessler was probably a con man: “I think that he was a fraudster who was just trying to set things up.” And he argued that Kessler had baited Mr. Pottinger into writing things that looked more nefarious than they really were. He acknowledged that Mr. Pottinger had used “loose language” in some of his messages that risked creating the impression that the lawyers were plotting to monetize evidence of abuse.
Several days later, Mr. Boies returned for another interview and was more critical of Mr. Pottinger, especially the hypothetical plans that he had described to Kessler. “Having looked at all that stuff in context, I would not have said that,” he said. How did Mr. Boies feel about Mr. Pottinger invoking his name in messages to Kessler? “I don’t like it,” he said.
But Mr. Boies stopped short of blaming Mr. Pottinger for the whole mess. “I’m being cautious not to throw him under the bus more than I believe is accurate,” he said. His longtime P.R. adviser, Dawn Schneider, who had been pushing for a more forceful denunciation, dropped her pen, threw up her arms and buried her head in her hands.
In a separate interview, The Times asked Mr. Pottinger about his correspondence with Kessler. The lawyer said that his messages shouldn’t be taken at face value because, in reality, he had been deceiving Kessler all along — “misleading him deliberately in order to get the servers.”
The draft retention agreement that Mr. Pottinger had given to Kessler in September was unsigned and never meant to be honored, Mr. Pottinger said. And he never intended to sell photos of Mr. Barak to Mr. Adelson. “I just pulled it out of my behind,” he said, describing it as an act to impress Kessler.
As for the two hypotheticals about how to get money out of the men on the list, Mr. Pottinger said, he never planned to do what he carefully articulated. “I didn’t owe Patrick honesty about this,” he said.
Mr. Pottinger said that he had only one regret — that “we did not get the information that this liar said he had.”
He added, “I’m building legal cases here. I’m trying not to engage too much in shenanigans. I wish I didn’t, but this guy was very unusual.”

Summer 2019 - The Swimsuit Swordmaster Seven Colored Showdown: The First Casino - Section 1

As always, lemme know if you see any typos!

Prologue
Start - Part 1 , Part 2

The First Casino

Section 1 – Himeji Survival Casino

With Iori’s know-how, we’ve set our sights on Osakabe’s casino. The section begins with a quote.

“---When people escape from reality, power unbeknownst to them surges forth.”
- By Princess Wall

From this statement, we move to a jungle.

???:
---This world is fun. Because there are no manuscripts.
---This world is cruel. Because there are manuscripts.
The speaker fires gunshots into the underbrush.
???:
Ahahahaha! So! Much! Fuuun!
Ammo from the sky. The howling of guns.
And this princess can stay far away from the the burden of manuscripts and the like with all the stuff to do here.
I mean.
Since the manuscripts never end, Osakabehime needs to keep escaping from the high-strung reality. A-duh.

Osakabehime, now an archer, stays hidden among the jungle foliage.

Osakabehime:
Survival games are the best. Having drinks once it’s over is the best.
Drinking some ice cold ciders, washing off your sweat with a hot shower, forgetting about manuscripts, and continuing on into the night as you please.
Aaahhh ---Vegas is the best!

Lancer Kiyo sneaks into frame.

Osakabehime:
Oh yeah, about those manuscripts…I probably won’t even have time for them.

Closer.

Osakabehime:
I’ve got a wishy-washy feeling that my stick in the mud, demonic editor (Kiyohi) is getting close.

Closer…

Osakabehime:
…But, try as she might. Nothing can tear me away from my escapist fantasy.

Almost at her back…

Osakabehime:
This princess, is gonna beat her in a flash, then I’ll keep having fun however I want!

Everything goes black…and we move back to our own group, still on main street.

Mash:
We’re finally here, Master.
Following her advice from before, we’ve found what has to be the casino she mentioned.
The one Iori-san told us about I mean. The [HIMEJI Survival Casino].
Since it’s called “HIMEJI”, it has to be Osakabehime’s.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Who’s that ye speak of? Ain’t they from my home country too?
Siegfried:
Indeed. But, whenever you mention Himeji...
You all tend to appear bothered in some way. Does it have something to do with the location?
[Well...we're just thinking about Okki ] [Well, there was the Čachtice Pyramid Himeji Castle incident...]

Option 1:

Katsushika Hokusai:
Really. Mayhaps Miyamoto Musashi is having drinks with them somewhere else then!
Miyamoto Iori:
…………

Option 2

Katsushika Hokusai:
Really. The famous Čachtice Pyramid Himeji Castle…
….
…No. Wait. What the heck is that?
Mash:
Err…
Seeing that building is making us dizzy, because of some past memories (trauma) from it...

Branch Merge

Miyamoto Iori:
W-Well, let’s not get wrapped up in whatever you mean. You have the chips we need to get in, right?
Then let’s get goin’! Let’s challenge them to a Swimsuit Swordmaster match!

You enter the HIMEJI, which is a mix of western style casinos with red carpet flooring and tables, but with Japanese sliding doors and architecture for everything else.

Mash:
So this is the HIMEJI casino…
The interior resembles a Japanese style, but it winds up as pretty off-putting.
Oh, but there’s slots, roulette, poker…and hanafuda too.
Fou:
Fo-u! Fo-u!
Mash:
Fou-san really loves hanafuda. But there’s someone over there already…is that Jaguar Man-san?
Jaguar Man:
Mu.
I wonder why looking at these hanafuda cards gives me such bizarre nostalgia pangs.
Sitonai:
Hmm, you’re right. Somehow, I feel it too…
It’s like, [A small feeling of nostalgia towards memories that didn't really matter]
Jaguar Man & Sitonai:
Fu fu fu…
Jaguar Man:
So, you throwing in the towel yet? How's one more match say to you?
Sitonai:
When I get involved with you, there’s a super big feeling of danger, but…
If I always got frightened like some puppy, then the goddesses inside me would complain!
Jaguar Man:
Kuhahahaha! That’s the spirit! Bring it on, complex Divine Spirit from icy lands!
Sitonai:
Bring! It! On!

The two of them bash together in a violent game of hanafuda.

Mash:
Huh?
I thought that if you didn’t have a Swimsuit, you couldn’t reyshift to Las Vegas…

[That’s what he said…]

Siegfried:
…I have my doubts too, but let’s shelf that for now.
What's more important right now is seeking out the manager of this casino, it's Swimsuit Swordmaster.

On the other side of the casino, Bartholomew and his pirates are waiting in front of Mecha Eli 2.

Eli Mark 2:
So, you have come to challenge this casino’s Swimsuit Swordmaster. Please take your ticket.
Mash:
There’s a huge line already…
Katsushika Hokusai:
Seems like she’s popular.
Mash:
Well, let’s go and let Osakabehime-san know we’re here, at least. Or maybe she did this to avoid stuff like that…

Kiyohime pops up again.

Kiyohime:
MA!
STER~!
<3 <3!

[…!] / [Morning. What’re you up to?]
Option 1:

Kiyohime:
Sorry to keep you waiting, Master~. Your love slave, Kiyohi is here (note)

Option 2:

Kiyohime:
GLARF!

Kiyohi spits up blood.

Kiyohime:
Fu, fufu…such wickedness, to be so assertive…it makes me want to avert my gaze, and thrust my spear at reality…
Mash:
(Up to no good then)

Branch merge

Kiyhoime:
Ah, I see there’s others with you. Could you have come here for the Swimsuit Swordmaster challenge?
Katsushika Hokusai:
A’ course! I, Katsushika Ōi…nay, the legendary Hokusai, has come to do just thus!
Kiyohime:
I'm loving the enthusiasm.
Mash:
Kiyohime-san, what’re you doing here?
Kiyohime:
…I came here to urge Okki to do her manuscripts, but she’s being persistent about this Swimsuit Swordmaster business.
Uuuu, I don’t want to have to keep covering for her alone like this…
Our Doujin Circle’s going to get renamed from [Princess x 2] into [Princess x 1]…
Mash:
Osakabehime-san is being difficult about her manuscripts here too then…
Well, if I were put under the same pressure she has for them, I’d probably feel the same way…
Kiyohime:
The only way to get her back on track with her manuscripts is to have her know the feeling of defeat as a Swordmaster.
But since I haven’t been able to get any party members…I’ve been in a rough spot.
Musashi Iori:
Well, that’s all fine now. Since we came here specifically to challenge Swimsuit Master Osakabehime.
We’ll make give her last words in a flash, then give you the chance to swoop in and have her do her manuscripts!
Siegfried:
(This dry, matter-of-fact attitude makes it undeniable that she’s Miyamoto Musashi…)
(But since she insisted on calling herself Iori for now, I shall keep calling her that. Yes)
Kiyohime:
Thank you all so much…
But, you have a [Letter of Challenge], right?

[“Letter of Challenge”?] / [I need more than chips?]

Kiyhoime:
Yes. To challenge a Swimsuit Swordmaster, you must present one as proof of skill to your opponent.
In other words, you must use an exclusive [Letter of Challenge] to face any of them.
Mash:
Now that you mention it, the Swimsuit Lion King mentioned something like that before…
Kiyohime:
…If you don’t have one, then how about you spend some time here and take in some Japanese sights?
There’s a lot to do aside from the Swimsuit Swordmaster fights. I recommend going on some serious sightseeing first, too.
Siegfried:
Hmph, you pose some truth in that.
Know the enemy, and know yourself --- Sun Tzu said that.
We should plan our moves forward as intellectually...yes, intellectually.

He pushes up his glasses.
[ (He pridefully, purposefully, said that so he could jiggle his glasses…!) ]

Gordolf:
Do Servants even need glasses?
…Actually, I don’t think he’s even worn them before now.
Da Vinchi:
Hmm, is it his attitude that’s bugging you? It’s because his WIS stat has gone up.
Gordolf:
I see…
…Hey, wait. We don’t even record a WIS stat, do we!?
Miyamoto Iori:
Anyway. Let’s do what we can about Osakabehime.
We should try to find out what kind of style she has as a Swimsuit Swordmaster before anything else.

Back inside the jungle…

Rushing Guy:
There’s two teams left. Go, go, go!
Impudent Guy:
Leave HP restoration to me!
Sharpshooter Guy:
I’ll take care of sniping!
Gang Member:
They won't even know what hit 'em’! We’ll wipe ya’ out in a jiffy!
Three Guys:
Shut up, moron!
Osakabehime:
Hello, valued customers~.

Osakabe shoots down the Gang man.

Gang Member:
Gue--!
Rushing Guy:
What’d we tell you!
Impudent Guy:
Stupid gang member dude!
Sharpshooter Guy:
Now I can snipe her though…

He gets hit before he can act!

Sharpshooter Guy:
Nowaah---!

From across the jungle, Summer Anne keeps her gun drawn.

Anne:
Too bad, you gotta be quicker than that ♪
Rushing Guy:
Geh, there’s only two of us now! It’s over---!
Impudent Guy:
It’s not too late to get away---!
Blackbeard:
C’mon, don’t say that, you guys are so buddy-buddy! Swoon~!

The two of them get taken down.

Announcer:
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner: Swimsuit Swordmaster, Osakabehime~.
Osakabehime:
We won! Yea boi!
Anne:
Yay!

The two girls high five!

Blackbeard:
Yay!

Osakabe and Blackbeard do a secret handshake.

Osakabehime:
Bing bang bop.
Mark II:
…I was on shift. But I am grateful to have been able to conserve my energy.
Osakabehime:
It’s cool, it’s cool. Because you're our best soldier, Mecha Eli Mk. 2!
Mark II:
Praise through such an obvious statement is unnecessary…I will be returning to my prior duties at once now.
The heat index for battles in the secret village is high. I am rust-proof, but will conduct a routine service checkup before getting busier.

Mecha Eli flies away.

Osakabehime:
Fufu, fufufu, fufufufufu.
Whatever you do, it’ll be for protecting the peace of the world, and this princess!
I am Swimsuit Swordmaster, Osakabehime. I’ll take on anyone’s challenge!
All to eliminate the urge for manuscripts! I won’t be held back as the Champion---
And this summer vacay will never end!

Back in the casino…

Kiyohime:
…To summarize, Okki has shut her eyes away from the harsh reality of manuscripts and the like, and Kiyohi wants to do something about it.

[I sense a double lover’s...solution]

Kiyohime:
Honestly now. I'll have you know it's a school parody this time!
Mash:
School…?
Kiyohime:
Fufufu, but the manuscripts aren’t done yet, so it's still a dream. Yes, it’s only a dream (delusion)...
Master~, I beg you, lead a group to take down team HIMEJI!

[What else can I do…alright!]

Katsushika Hokusai:
A’ course! Our enemy is the Castle Yokai of Himeji Castle, Osakabehime!
We shall pull out all the stops for ‘em!
Heheh, dontcha’ worry, she’ll be just fine. I can metamorphasize my katana to beat her without a care.
This nymph has decisively foreseen herself as the strongest swordsman, and her katana’s gonna show wonders!
I shall use the clarity of my talents to compose a portrait of Futsu-no-Mitama, and crush evil with a glimmer!
Siegfried:
Actually, I think we should keep cool for a moment---
And find a place to stay.
Katsushika Hokusai:
(Kuooh….he keep cool! Of course he kept cool!)
(He saw through me so easily, again! …but yeah, we still need to do that…)

[Let’s do that!]

Siegfried:
Phew…as I thought, the clarity of these glasses allows me to strike through all with intellect.
Gordolf:
Did you notice somewhere earlier?
Actually, can you even make reservations normally on a trip like this?
Siegfried:
But how should we go about this---
Miyamoto Iori:
We could just sleep in a straight line outdoors…Servants should be able to do that easily, but…
Mash-san and [Guda] have some luggage with them, which makes things complicated...
…Mu?
Katsushika Hokusai:
Eh?
Was that…a flower petal…?

Flower petals burst in front of you!

Fou:
Fou, Kill Fo----u! (Translation: That smell hits you like a truck! And it’s so wasteful!)

Merlin appears, in a fresh new outfit for summer.

Mysterious Big Bro:
Hahahahaha, aloha. A-lo-haaaaaa!
Oops, my bad. We aren’t in Luluhawa for this one. What a shame. I wanted to enjoy myself somewhere tropical.
But I’m not overly fixated on that stuff. I already missed my chance to go to that, and I'm here in the now.
Yes. This time, the setting is Las Vegas. As such, I’ve put on a temporary outfit to suit the scene.
Hello, children. (English). Tonight makes for a perfectly fabulous, fateful rendezvous. Don’t you think?

[ (I get his point, but) ] / [Who’re you?]

Mysterious Big Bro:
I’m just some mysterious guy. Regardless, my existence can't actually get in your way.
Don’t see me as some enemy, or a spirit that can create Heroic Spirits. I only wish for you to call me your Mysterious Big Bro.
Siegfried:
He gives off no feelings of hostility, from my perspective.
Mysterious Big Bro:
Fufufu…I wouldn’t say that.
I have the capacity to be a temporary enemy, but you can relax, sine I’m just a nice big brother. Any problems?

[Why is your character portrait so dubious right now?]

Mash (Whispering): ^Senpai, ^manners…
Mysterious Big Bro:
Ah, if you happen to be looking for a place to say, I’ve got a big tip for you.
Go a little bit past here, and find the Gildalay Hotel.
There may still be openings at the condominiums.
And why would that be? The truth lies with the owner.
"If there's something you can do for me, then maybe I won't have a reason to deny you."
They might say something like that. Whew. Being able to use clairvoyance certainly is useful.
Mash:
O-okay then…
Mysterious Big Bro:
Although to win the favor of the owner, you might have a battle ahead of you, ok?
And more that will cost you quite a bit of QP to reach.
Siegfried:
We are grateful, Mysterious Big Bro. But why give us this information…?
Mysterious Big Bro:
Oh, this is nothing. I just want all of you guys to experience Las Vegas to the fullest.
I’ll find my fun in leading you guys there.
Fufufu…aside from you guys screwing around and having your shenanigans, I want to see that scary Swimsuit Lion King defeated…
Is that reason (bit) not enough? Fufufu…fufufu…fufufufufu…
Well, victory will be yours in the end. I’ll do my part to help in that.

With more flowers scattering, he disappears again.

Fou:
Fouuuuuu… (Translation: We should’ve beat you here while we had the chance…)
Miyamoto Iori:
……
Well, he didn’t seem like an enemy, so let’s take his words in pride.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Haah…?
That Big Bro was such a sight…Big Bro, right? Not actually a Big Sis?
Gordolf:
Fmph.
“You should hurry up if you want a hotel reservation.” That was obvious.
Also, did he mention a “Luluhawa”? Why do I feel like…I’ve heard of that…before…?

Following the advice, we move down main street to a golden hotel.

Mash:
T-this place would go neck and neck with Luluhawa’s hotel…!

[It’s spectacular…!]

Miyamoto Iori:
Oh man, there’s a pool! This place is too ritzy!
Siegfried:
Let us speak to the owner ASAP…hm?
???:
Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!
You mongrels are as foolish as ever to present yourselves so openly like this!

[That voice!] / [Oh, where’s D’eon and Dollarcent?]
Option 1:

Mash:
King Gilgamesh! It’s been a while.
Gilgamesh:
Umu. We haven’t seen each other since New York.
Mash:
Oh, where are the two you were with in Luluhawa…?
Gilgamesh:
D’eon is on duty at another casino, and Dollarcent lost herself in one as well.

Option 2:

Gilgamesh:
I respect your foolhardy venture to ask of them first, mongrel!
This and that happened, and right now, D’eon is on duty at another casino.
Dollercent saw herself more fitting for another casino also. Thus, she departed to be among the staff of the Pharoh casino.

Branch merge

Mash:
So you’re by yourself this time, King Gilgamesh…?
Gilgamesh:
Fool.
I am the owner of the Gildalay Hotel, the richest hotel in this Singularity, revered throughout Dazzling Las Vegas.
My resources and recruits hit the data cap…yes, I have earned my bragging rights through my quality control.

Gorgeous P flashbacks to his humble beginnings…

Astolfo:
I saw your recruitment flyers---! I don’t really know what it’s all about though!
Elizabeth:
I saw your flyers, and I think my singing would make this place better!
Red Hare:
I would be content with being paid in carrots! Wait, haven’t I done something like that already?

End flashback.

Prince of Lanling:
After many twists in turns, in the end, I was called to be the secretary this year.

[You chose the right guy…] / [I did see you as a secretary-type]
Option 1:

Prince of Lanling:
I am grateful to be here.

Option 2:

Gilgamesh:
Umu. Such is the reason for accepting him into my ranks at all.

Branch merge

Mash:
By the way, you don’t seem to be in a swimsuit, Prince of Lanling-san.
I thought that you weren’t able to reyshift into this Singularity unless you had one…
Prince of Lanling:
Hm? There’s no such restriction on this Singularity…

[Then…Yagyū-san…] / [He said you couldn’t unless you had one!]
You and Mash share a surprised look.

Mash:
Remember what he said!?
“…this Singularity needs a swimsuit befitting it”…that’s what Yagyū-san told us!
Miyamoti Iori:
That so…that old man’s really good at getting out of trouble…
Gilgamesh:
Well.
From my perspective, you lot have come to Vegas without even booking a reservation somewhere…
Naïve! How very naïve!
“We can make a killing in the Vegas casinos, right? Doors will open up for us with fat cash, right?”
Your lofty dreams are filled with naiveté! 100 out of 100 people would know better than to hope on such a sweet delusion!
Umu. But I’ll show some generosity in the spirit of summer vacation. Camping in Vegas would be harsh for you.
I shall allow it. You may stay at my hotel…so long as you defeat us in battle!
Mash:
A battle for lodging! It’ll be tough, but let’s do it, Master!
Gilgamesh:
Hahahahaha, it’s rare to see you so worked up, Shielder! Come to my side, Prince of Lanling!
Prince of Lanling:
Very well. Come, have at you---

Suddenly, the Prince’s cellphone goes off.

Prince of Lanling:
[Just a minute] (English). Ah, don’t worry, I’m alright to keep fighting.
Gilgamesh:
Fu…no matter where, my secretary will keep doing their very best!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
The battle begins with the Prince taking 2 turns of self-stun to answer his phone call, but eventually you beat him and Gorgeous P.

Gilgamesh:
…I’m a bit regretful that I gave your consent to take that call. Was it worth it for the stun?
Prince of Lanling:
Apologies. I am a leader who takes precedents for their work.
Gilgamesh:
…Tsk. That’s giving me memories as a ritual chieftan. Very well. I will go through with my special offer.
The ferocity in your eyes proved amusing to me, and so I will stay reliant with your whim.
With the space left by Dollarcent, I may have to watch my steps.
Prince of Lanling:
Come this way for your hotel ticket. An employee will explain the rest to you inside.
Please present this room key to her as well.
Gilgamesh:
The casino managers are Swimsuit Swordmasters, all of whom have obtained power in this reality from the Holy Grail.
…I take it you have you been negligent as usual then, mongrel?

Iori and Gorgeous P stare down each other for a moment.

Gilgamesh:
Now, be off with you.
I hope that you warm up to the matter of using QP for the casinos of this place.
Fuhahahaha!
Prince of Lanling:
Yes, hello? Ah, yes, regarding that matter---

The two of them leave.

Kiyohime:
Well then, Master~.
I’ll be waiting in the bedroom for you, so make sure you come alone, okay?
Siegfried:
(Without a second though…!)

[Everyone’s getting a single-type bed]

Kiyohime:
How wicked of you…but I can work with that!
Katsushika Hokusai:
Ah, mayhaps the hotel employees are Sahvants as well?
Let’s go check it out.

You enter the hotel, and get greeted by Tawawa Assassin!

???:
Welcome!
An overnight stay, is it an overnight stay? Apologies for any inconveniences!
I am this hotel’s concierge, Charlotte Corday.
Charlotte Corday:
……Wow, I said it right!
I’ve had to say it a bunch of times already, but it’s so hard to pronounce “Concierge” in Japanese!
Sometimes I say it wrong, like Kon-sheru-ju, or myon-mier-ju, or even Luminosité Eternelle! It’s just been gnawing away at me!
Ufufu, but getting it right may be a sign of good things to come.
Now then, let me direct you towards your condominium-type room. The bedroom has been made to accommodate you all.
We have food laid out for you, assembled with the most subtle of flavors, and…
If you wish to purchase anything else, please alert me.
There is a nearby supermarket, where you I can buy vegetables, meat, and fish for you, if you so please.
If anything inconveniences you, please just let me know!

[That was a mouthful…]

Siegfried:
She spoke with high vigor and energy that people refer to as, “Machine Gun Talk”.
First things first: let’s head for our bedroom and put all of our luggage down.
Everyone:
Agreed!

You enter your bedroom, which is an enormous, two-storied room with a private kitchen and winding staircase.

Katsushika Hokusai:
I wonder why the room is splendored in gold like this.
Why oh why. Havin’ so much of it ain’t in good taste.
Miyamoto Iori:
Ok, now then---
Siegfried:
Ah, please wait a moment. It’s almost time for my spy to return.
Miyamoto Iori:
Spy?

Fūma Kotarō appears out of nowhere.

Fūma Kotarō:
My Lord. My investigation is complete.

[Kotarō!] / [Kotarō-kun!]

Fūma Kotarō:
Hello.
Going by what Siegfried-dono told me, I went to, and gathered info, about the HIMEJI casino.

[Sorry for the off-season work…]

Fūma Kotarō:
Please, it’s nothing.
Aside from my Spiritron Outfit, I know the fun to be had is time-limited too.
…Ahem. I-In any case.
Firstly, let me explain to you the survival game based rules in the HIMEJI.
Teams are comprised of 4 people, with 20 teams in all.
Every team fights at once, and one with the last person standing is the winner.
Since it’s a brawl of Servants and enemies, reviving others is fundamentally barred.
Please take a look at these next.

He shows you pictures of a jungle, a desert, and a cityscape.

Fūma Kotarō:
The casino also has a [Zone] among the battlegrounds.
But over time, the [Zone] ---
[It gradually gets smaller?] / [What’s this “Zone”?]

Option 1:

Fūma Kotarō:
You guessed it.
Over time, the battleground shrinks, leaving the final competitors to clash whether they want to or not.

Option 2:

Fūma Kotarō:
Over time, it shrinks. It's a system designed to have the final competitors force to fight close by.

Branch merge

Fūma Kotarō:
Next up is the actual team HIMEJI, whose members are as follows.
Tampering her own Saint Graph to change to the Archer Class is the former hikikomori princess, Osakabehime.
Popping up in the jungle, city, and all other locations with bravado and shootouts, is the marksman Anne Bonny.
Big, scary, and would rather be cooling near the AC, is none other than that Servant. Blackbeard.
The goddess who shoots from the sky when she gets a chance, and kinda unfair? “Report her pls”, Mecha Eli Mk. 2.
Siegfried:
Aha. So all of them are gunslingers then? They’re quite fearsome enemies.
So far, we have Katsushika Hokusai and Miyamoto Iori as definite team members.
Mash should serve as a battle adviser as well, taking precedence as she fights with us.
Mash:
U-understood. I’ll give it my all.
Fūma Kotarō:
I’m very sorry, but unfortunately I still have other duties to perform…
But of course, all of my busywork is for the sake of my Lord.
Siegfried:
That just leaves me…
But I can only fight in close quarters combat. It would be better for us to find someone who is a long-range fighter.
I fiercely recommend recruiting someone else for this battle, and leave me aside for now.
Gordolf:
Umu. You want to have the most basic of basics with a balanced team.
Really we just need one more member…
Meuniere:
I know we keep saying it, but don’t get disheartened from the sudden problem, ok?
Miyamoto Iori:
Hmhmhmmm.
Well, maybe we can go and find a Servant to fit our needs among the ones who came to Vegas.
We should definitely look for an Archer…or maybe a local Caster that gets used a lot normally?
Siegfried:
Lancelot has that gatling gun, but he’s also a Berserker…
The problem is recruiting someone who’s also long distance. Cooperation is crucial too.
Miyamoto Iori:
Putting it together, an Archer is still our top priority. Let’s get out there and start looking before we change plans!

The group heads back out onto the strip, and we run into an old frenemy in his bartender outfit.

Moriarty:
Aww, sowwy! Joining you would mean tons of stress on my lower back, right?
Ah, and also…there’s that bit…about the event…needing…QP…

[Are you a bookmaker again?] / [Do you have anyone in mind then?]
Option 1:

Moriarty:
~Hum ♪
Perhaps an Archer with more than enough free time on their hands…
But nobody comes to mind when I say that…My memories gone foggy. Is it my age catching up?

Option 2:

Moriarty:
No, I'm sorry to say it, but this fifty-something old man is lacking in the friend department...
Yes, woefully lacking...

Branch merge

Katsushika Hokusai:
Lessee see, someone to join...my, are those the same flowers from earlier…?

With more petals bursting out of nowhere the Mage of Flowers reappears.

Mysterious Big Bro:
Hail and well met, travelers. It appears we meet again.
Oh, where’s Cath Pa-…Fou? Are they rolling around in the hotel to escape the heat?
Ahaha, I don’t have to worry about any sudden kicks then. I can safely set my scene of flowers.
Mash:
Mysterious Big Broski…! No, Mysterious Big Bro.
Do you happen to know an Archer that’ll join us?
Siegfried:
Actually, you can probably be an Archer, right?
Mysterious Big Bro:
Unfortunately, I can’t. Oh, but I can shoot swordbeams.
Miyamoto Iori:
(OOH…)
Mysterious Big Bro:
Regardless, there may be an Archer from Chaldea who would be happy to join you.
Maybe a sweet girl, who treats you like a grandchild---
Oops, that’s too big of a hint. Guess this is adieu for now, from Mysterious Big Bro.

With more flowers, he vanishes.
[A Grandchild…]

Mash:
I got it! I know who it is!

With Mash leading the way, we eventually run into Archer Helena.

Helena:
Aah, that sounds like fun! I’m in!

[Nice!]

Mash: Thank you very much, Helena-san.
Helena:
It’s fine, just leave it to granny!
As a Mahatma Archer, I’ll be sure to lead you all to victory!
Ah, but there’s one thing I’d like you to answer. What is Master going to do?
Mash:
Oh, that’s a good point. We need to figure out what to do about Master being needed on the battlefield.
Miyamoto Iori:
Hmm…what if we just label them as equipment?
[That’d be so cruel!] / [I…doubt that’d work?]
Miyamoto Iori:
The opinion’s mutual. But we’ll need you there with us to make sure we can really win.
Of course, we’ll totally keep your safety as the top priority, but the enemies---
Well, maybe since it’s your first time doing something like this, it’ll be fun! I have no doubts that you’ll be absolutely crucial to our win!
Mash:
I-I think I understand. With the confidence Iori-san has…alright.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Aye. There’s a great difference between havin’ ye on the rearguard or vanguard. And yer our precious pal, ain’tcha?
…Aint’cha?

Nod.

Katsushika Hokusai:
Nyahaha.
Siegfried:
Then its settled. Let’s go and practice some coordination tactics.
Lucky for us, the HIMEJI casino has it’s practice fields open for all use.
I think it’d be good of us to get our practice in, while we accumulate chips to purchase the [Letter of Challenge] as well.
Fūma Kotarō:
Very well. I’ll head out to HIMEJI and scout out info for stronger teams among the heads themselves.

Fūma shadowsteps away.

Helena:
That’s right.
Knowing your allies strengths is necessary for battle, so let’s have one too!
Katsushika Hokusai:
Aye, fine by me.
Ye have laid yer eyes upon the unequalled swordsman, Katsushika Ōi, and will bear witness to my clear talents with the blade!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
You have a friendly bout with Helena.

Helena:
That was so fun! Mhm, I have no issues with joining your team now!
C’mon, let’s go take down Osakabehime!
Let’s do our best, and nab that [Letter of Challenge] to challenge that Swimsuit Swordmaster!
Hey, hey, whoaaaa!

[Hey, hey, whoaaaa!!] / [………]
Option 2 only:

Helena:
**...**H-hey! You gotta do it too!
Hey, hey, whoaaaa! Hey, hey, whoaaaa!
Helena jumps up and down.
Miyamoto Iori:
She's hopping around like a cute lil' bunny!
...But, uh, let's keep in mind that she's mentally someone old!
In this world, I believe that appearances are important!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

If I were investigating Trump, I would have started with his largest contributors and it isn't a long list.

Sheldon Adelson

Is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and is the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operates The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He also owns the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom and the American daily newspaper Las Vegas Review-Journal. Adelson, a donor and philanthropist to a variety of causes, also founded the Adelson Foundation in 2007, at the initiative of his wife, Miriam. He is a member of the Republican Party, and made the largest single donation to any U.S. presidential inauguration when he gave the Trump inaugural committee US$5 million
As of October 2018, Adelson was listed by Forbes as having a fortune of US$33.3 billion, making him the 15th-richest person in the world. He is a major contributor to Republican Party candidates. He has been the largest donor, of any party, in both the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. He had sat out the Republican primary season for the 2016 presidential election and on September 23, he announced a $25 million donation to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, making him the largest donor to the Trump campaign and the largest donor in the presidential election

Open Secrets Make American Number 1 PAC - Trump's main campaign PAC
The list is so short until you start to see contributions of just a few hundred dollars.
How utterly incompetent is Robert Mueller not to follow these ties? Less than a dozen individuals/families and most of the names are well known. Simple pay for play.

Robert Mercer of the still smoking gun Renaissance Technologies infamy.
- James Simons who plays the Democrat side along with his extended family trust funds. Has similar financial interests since the money comes from the same fund.
- John Bolton who received millions of dollars from Mercer and Renaissance Technologies and is now Trump's National Security Adviser - that is no coincidence. Bolton was a director of the Project for a New American Century and has made his life career trying to blow up the world in a perpetual war to which the military industrial complex loves for perpetual profits.
- Bill Kristol who is John Bolton's partner in perpetual war crime and has been trying to blame everything bad in the world on Russia and falsely tagging people as Kremlin agents under the German Marshall Fund (why is this still a thing?) along with another GW Bush Spook Mike Chertoff who has monetary interests in increased security contrasts. In such I think the German Marshall Fund and their funders archive should be investigated. The offshoot is the Atlantic Council , which has been more or less the enforcement wing of this establishment game. I would investigate their funders as well.

Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot and founder of the 'Job Creators Network' that is attacking AOC.
Peter Thiel co founder of e-bay and way to close to big data anlayitics, wall street, and the military industrial complex. Facebook, data analytics, government information warfare and data with his Plantir Technologies. What else was about this election with Facebook and Data Analytics and information warfare?....Cambridge Analytica perhaps?

During questioning in front of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, Christopher Wylie, the former research director of Cambridge Analytica, said that several meetings had taken place between Palantir and Cambridge Analytica, and that Alexander Nix, the chief executive of SCL, had facilitated their use of Aleksandr Kogan's data which had been obtained from his app "thisismydigitallife" by mining personal surveys. Kogan later established Global Science Research to share the data with Cambridge Analytica and others. Wylie confirmed that both employees from Cambridge Analytica and Palantir used Kogan's Global Science Research data together in the same offices
Palantir hosts Palantir Night Live at Palantir’s McLean and Palo Alto offices. The event brings speakers from the intelligence community and technology space to discuss topics of common interest. Past speakers include Garry Kasparov; Nart Villeneuve from Information Warfare Monitor; Andrew McAfee, author of Enterprise 2.0; Nelson Dellis, memory athlete; and Michael Chertoff.

Cherna Moskowitz

Survivng wife of Irving Moskowitz (January 11, 1928 – June 16, 2016) was an American physician, businessman, and philanthropist. His philanthropy, in part, sought to create a Jewish majority in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem by purchasing land.

John W Childs

John W. Childs (born 1941/1942) is an American billionaire businessman, the CEO and founder of J.W. Childs Associates, a private equity firm.
Childs is a major Republican donor, giving $1 million to Mitt Romney's campaign and $1.1 million to the Club for Growth, as well as donating to the campaigns of Congressmen Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan
In February 2019, Childs was charged with solicitation of prostitution in connection with a police investigation into Florida massage parlors. Childs said "The accusation of solicitation of prostitution is totally false. I have retained a lawyer."
Net Worth $1.2 Billion

Eric Prince

Blackwater, war criminal, private mercenary, Religious fundamentalist

Elsa Prince(Erik's mother) Religious fundamentalist
Thomas Saunders III

In April 2009, Saunders was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. During his tenure, the sister organization Heritage Action was founded and Jim DeMint was hired as President.
American investment banker and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of the private equity firm Saunders Karp & Megrue and the chairman of the Heritage Foundation.

Jerrold M. Jung

Mr. Jerrold M. Jung, Jerry serves as Chief Executive Officer of Michigan Tractor and Machinery Co. and has been its President since July 18, 1988. Mr. Jung has experience in the areas of economic development and transportation. He served as the Chairman at Washington State Transportation Commission.

Carl Lindner III

American businessman. He has served as the co-chief executive officer of American Financial Group since January 2005. He has also acted as chief executive officer and majority owner of FC Cincinnati since the club's founding in 2015. He is the son of Carl Lindner Jr. and a prominent member of the Lindner family.

Sandra E. Gale

Coolidge Foundation.
A long-time executive at Del Monte, Sandra went into business on her own. She and her late husband founded the Gourmet Center and several other businesses. Their business provided menu items to airlines, and also introduced the Belgian cookie Biscoff to the United States retail market.
Sandra’s husband passed away in 2007 but Sandra continued to run the businesses until 2014, entering new markets such as Canada and Brazil.

Gale and Fred Alger

Investment Management Fund with interesting history.
David Alger died in the 9/11 North tower collapse
Mutual Fund Ex-Executive Is Sentenced To Prison

Jorie Kent

Abmercrombie and Kent, Luxury Travel. Wife of Geoffrey Kent

High School Dropouts Are More Successful

The list below are high school dropouts:
Thomas Haffa – self-made double-digit billionaire German media businessman
J.R. Simplot – self-made billionaire American agricultural businessman
Robert Maxwell – self-made billionaire British publisher
Jim Clark – self-made billionaire American businessman; founder of Netscape – first Internet billionaire (17, U.S. Navy)
Jimmy Dean – singer-songwriter-actor; self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder of the Jimmy
Andrew Jackson – 7th U.S. President; face is pictured on the U.S. twenty dollar bill (13, U.S. Continental Army; orphaned at 14; little formal education; home schooling/life experience; studied law in his late teens and became a lawyer
Leon Uris – best-selling American author (Exodus, etc.) (17, U.S. Marines)
Walter L. Smith – former president of Florida A& M University (equivalency diploma, at age 23.
Clement Stone – self-made multimillionaire (some sources indicate billionaire) American businessman-author; founder of Successâ€ magazine (elementary school dropout; later attended high-school night courses and then some college
Jack London – best-selling American author (dropped out at 14 to work; later gained admission to the University of California; left after one semester
Arthur Ernest Morgan – American flood-control engineer; college, president-author; appointed by President Roosevelt to be director of the Tennessee Valley Authority public works project (left high school after three years; later attended the University of Colorado for six weeks
Maurice Chevalier – Oscar-winning actor-singer; French Legion of Honor inductee/Medal recipient (note: rank bestowed in
Pierce Brosnan – actor
Daniel Gilbert – Harvard University psychology professor (equivalency diploma
Patrick Henry – American Revolutionary War era politician; Virginia’ first governor; famous quote: Give me liberty, or give me death! (little formal education; home schooling/life experience; later studied on his own and earned a law degree
Peter Jennings – Canadian-born American television journalist; evening news anchorman
Ansel Adams – American wilderness photographer;Â photography book author; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
Brooke Astor – wealthy American socialite-philanthropist-author; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
Pearl Bailey – singer-actress, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
Bill Bartman – self-made billionaire American businessman
Lew Grade – British film/TV producer (TV: The Avengers, The Saint, Secret Agent, The Prisoner, The Muppet Show, etc.); knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Lew Grade)
Philip Emeagwali – supercomputer scientist; one of the pioneers of the Internet (high-IQ high-school dropout; left school in native Nigeria due to war conditions and lack of tuition money; continued to study on his own and earned an equivalency diploma; later won a scholarship to Oregon College of Education in the United States; transferred after one year to Oregon State University)
Hiram Stevens – American-born engineering inventor, knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Hiram Stevens)
Kemmons Wilson – self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder of the Holiday Innâ€ hotel chain
Kjell Inge Rokke – self-made billionaire Norwegian businessman
Walter Nash – New Zealand Prime Minister 1957-1960, knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Walter Nash)
Rosa Parks – U.S. civil rights activist-pioneer; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; Congressional Gold Medal recipient
Mary Pickford – Oscar-winning actress; early Hollywood pioneer; co-founder of United Artists Corporationâ€ (little formal education [six months]; home schooling/life experience)
Frederick Freddyâ€ Laker – self-made multimillionaire British businessman; airline entrepreneur; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Frederick [or Freddy] Laker)
Tommy Lasorda – baseball team manager; National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee
Anton van Leeuwenhoek- Dutch microscope maker; world’s first microbiologist; discoverer of bacteria, blood cells, and sperm cells)
Richard Branson – self-made billionaire British businessman; founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways,â€ Virgin Records,â€ etc.; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Richard Branson)
Isaac Merrit Singer – American sewing machine inventor; self-made multimillionaire founder of Singer Industries,â€ I.M. Singer and Company,â€ etc. (elementary school dropout)
Alfred E. Smith – New York Governor; 1928 Democratic U.S. Presidential candidate (elementary school dropout)
Sean Connery – Oscar-winning actor; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Sean Connery)
Jack Kent Cooke – self-made billionaire Canadian-born American media businessman
Charles E. Culpeper – self-made multimillionaire American businessman; early 1900s’ owner and head of The Coca Cola Bottling Company
Robert De Niro – Oscar-winning actor-producer; knighted (France: Chevalier [Knight] of the Legion of Honor; Chevalier [or Chev.] Robert De Niro)
Gerard Depardieu – Oscar-nominated actor; knighted (France: Chevalier [or Chev.] Gerard Depardieu) (elementary school dropout)
Richard Desmond – self-made billionaire British publisher
Joe Lewis – self-made billionaire British businessman
Carl Lindn er – self-made billionaire American businessman
John Llewellyn – U.S. Labor leader pioneer; for 40 years until his retirement, president of the United Mine Workers Union
Marcus Loew – self-made multimillionaire American businessman; early Hollywood pioneer; founder of the Loewsâ€ movie-theater chain; co-fondner of MGM studios (elementary school dropout)
Mary Lyon – American women’s education pioneer; early American teacher; founder of Mount Holyoke College (America’s first women’s college)
Sonny Bono – singer-songwriter-actor, U.S. Congressman (California U.S. Representative)
Horace Greeley – American newspaper publisher-editor; U.S. Congressman; U.S. Presidential candidate; co-founder of the Republican party in the United States
Here is another list of people that dropped out of high school or college. They have gone on to make more money then the rest of their graduating class all together:
Alan Gerry is another billionaire high school dropout. Gerry 71 also filled his bank account by exploiting a new technology. In 1956, ten years after he dropped out of high school, Gerry built the first cable television network in upstate New York. He made his fortune in this new market, and then sold his company, Cablevision, to Time Warner for $2.6 billion four years ago. Now Gerry is chairman of a venture capital firm called Granite Associates. Granite funds entrepreneurs trying to make their money in burgeoning technology industries, just as Gerry made his fortune by getting into cable when it was still in its infancy.
When you have a brilliant idea, nobody is going to ask to see your diploma, Gerry says. You don’t need a four-year college degree if you have burning ambition or a great plan.
Take Spud King John R. Simplot. Simplot, was born on an Idaho farm and left home when he was 14 because he was sick of milking cows.â€ Simplot followed that with a half century of hard work and shrewd investments, he made a killing in Micron (nyse: MU – news – people ). How important was education to his success? Hell, he says, I didn’t even get out of the eighth grade.
Tom Monaghan owner of Dominioes and former owner of the Detroit Tigers:
I floundered during the rest of high school and graduated last in my class. They weren’t even going to graduate me, but I pleaded with a nun. She said, Well, you got good marks in the seminary, so I’ll let you graduate. But don’t ever ask me to recommend you for college.
One day in 1960, my brother told me about a pizza shop in Ypsilanti, Mich., called Dominoes, that a friend of his was selling. My brother was interested but afraid to do it on his own, so he asked if I’d do it with him. I was having problems paying my way through school, so I said yes. It was $500 down, and we borrowed $900. I got a 15-minute lesson in making pizza from Dominick, and I was off. We opened up without an attorney. I didn’t even collect sales tax “didn’t know I had to. The plan was for me to work half the night and my brother to work the other half. But it didn’t work because he didn’t want to leave his full-time job as a mailman. Within about eight months he wanted out, and I bought him out by giving him the Volkswagen we used for deliveries.
Most of you probably know that Dave Thomas the founder of Wendys was a high school dropout.
Peter Jennings-High School Dropout
Here is a couple of notable geniuses that were not billionaires. They were rich with knowledge but not cash. They were high school dropouts.
Albert Einstein Thomas Edison
Hong Kong self-made billionaire Li Ka-Shing, worth $18.8 billion or so, is Asia’s richest man. He is also the richest Chinese in the world, and according to Forbes, the 10th richest man in the world.
When he was just 12 years old, Li and his family fled to Hong Kong when Japan invaded China. When he was 15, Liâ’s father died and he was forced to drop out of high school to support his family.
Li got his start as a salesman selling watches at his uncle’s store, and soon proved to be a diligent worker: he worked 16 hour days, visited customers during the day and worked at the factory at night. Determined to better himself, Li even found a tutor to teach him English every night!
When he was 21, Li opened a plastic manufacturing company and grew his business by selling high quality plastic flowers at bargain prices. When Li was 30, he accidentally got into real estate because he couldn’t renew the lease for his factory and was forced to purchase and develop a site himself.
From there, Li diversified into electronics, telecommunications, retails, ports, and even power and electricity. Li is also noted for his philantrophy: he gave millions to various universities and disaster-relief.
All in all, not bad for a high school drop-out.
Amancio Ortega.
Amancio Ortega was a son of a railway worker turned fashion-mogul and Spain’s richest man. He is worth $14.8 billion.
Ortega started out at the age of 14 as a gofer in a shirt store. At the age of 27, he started his own company to make bathrobes. Twelve years later, he opened his first store called Zara, which would become an enormously popular chain.
Ortega kept a very low profile (so much so that when he did make a public appearance in 2000, it made headlines in Spanish press!) but we’re guessing it’s not because this billionaire dropped out of high school.
FranÃ§ois Pinault.
FranÃ§ois who? You may not recognize the name, but you’ll definitely know his products: through his retail and luxury goods holding company PPR, Franasois Pinault owns (or has owned) Gucci, YSL, Converse sneakers, Samsonite luggage, the Vail ski resort in Colorado, and the auction house Christie’s.
But donâ’t tell the luxury goods buyers that Pinault is a high school dropout – just tell them he’s worth $7 billion.
David Murdock had a tough childhood – he dropped out of high school in ninth-grade and pumped gas until he was drafted into the Army.
Since then, however, life had worked out for him: Murdock did a leveraged buyout of Castle & Cooke, which then bought Dole Food Company and assumed its name.
So, next time you eat a Dole pinapple, remember that the guy that owns it was a high school drop out (and by buying the product, you’re making him that much richer than the $4 billion he’s currently worth)
Kirk Kerkorian.
Self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian was an amateur boxer (Rifle Right Kerkorina) and a pilot. At the age of 30, he got his start by buying a small air-charter service flying gamblers from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 1947.
Seeing opportunities in Las Vegas, Kerkorian bought land and got into the lucrative real estate / casino development. Since the 1960s, Kerkorian had bought (and sold) hot properties like the Caesars Palace, the Las Vegas Hilton, MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, and others.
Kerkorian’s current fortune is estimated to be around $8.7 billion – not bad for someone who was a highschool dropout.
YC Wang.
Can you technically label someone a dropout if he never started high school to begin with? Dunno, but this is too remarkable not to mention.
Wait, there’s a billionaire here that never even set foot in high school?
Yes. That’s YC Wang, a self-made Taiwanese billionaire who made his fortune in plastics and chemicals. The octagenarian is now the head of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics, one of the largest plastic manufacturers in the world.
Wang was born to a tea farmer and was forced to enter the work force with only an elementary school education.
He did well for himself, though – Wang is now worth $5.4 billion.
Virgin’s Richard Branson is worth $2.8 billion and that’s not too shabby for a guy who didn’t even finish high school.
Branson suffered from dyslexia and dropped out of high school at 16 years of age. What he lacked in schooling, however, he made up in curiosity and entrepreneur zeal – when he was 15, he had started two business ventures: growing Christmas trees and raising parrots!
When he was 17, Branson opened his first charity and started his first record business. Along with Nik Powell, Branson opened a small record store in London called Virgin. It specialized in krautrock imports.
Virgin became a veritable giant (branching out into things like airways, telecommunication and so forth) and Branson was knighted in 1999 for services to entrepreneurship.
More education doesn’t mean you’ll be more successful. It’s all about your drive. Your passion in life and sticking to it. Not necessarily playing it safe. I’ve meet many people that have played it safe, with a good job and such and then retire broke. Don’t play it safe. Go for it like these people have.
So, next time you want to call him a high school dropout, remember that it’s Sir high school dropout to you.
From http://blog.christophersherrod.com/high-school-dropouts-are-more-successful/

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