Once again, the Calvary comes to the rescue. Americans can now heave a sigh of relief after months of having to watch their fate hang in the balance as both Democrats and Republicans sparred over stimulus. After foot-dragging and name-calling for several months, Congress decided to approve a $600 stimulus package. However, the incoming Biden administration has promised an additional $1,400 making the total of $2000 in stimulus to be received by Americans.
As expected, some of that money would find its way into the stock market. The explosion of retail trading made possible by apps such as Robinhood and Etoro has meant that more people can trade in stocks for zero or little commission. Flush with cash from the government, people are trying to the stock market to increase their money.
Based on the prevailing macro-economic conditions, financial valuation, and social trends, we have compiled a list of stocks you should be spending your $2000 stimmy on.
DraftKings
As more states become amiable towards online gambling, one of the stocks which would benefit from expected legislation would be DraftKings. The expanding legalization of digital sports betting is an emerging trend. The November election results showed voters in several states largely approved ballot measures that legalized sports betting and other gaming expansion measures.
On the revenue side, DraftKings saw a 98% year-over-year surge to $132.8 million in the latest quarter, reported on Nov. 13. In the quarter, the company raised its full-year 2020 revenue range to $540 million-$560 million, which equates to 25%-30% annual revenue growth.
DraftKings also introduced 2021 revenue guidance of $750 million to $850 million, which equates to 45% year-over-year growth using the midpoints. The resumption of major sports such as the NBA, MLB, and the NHL in the third quarter, as well as the start of the NFL season, has generated tremendous customer engagement and revenue which implies that this stock would definitely see some significant upside.
Square
2020 was a very good year for Square. The company’s share price soared above 250% last year and was one of the pandemic winners in the market. Given the company’s fundamentals, Square's stock price will repeat the type of growth it saw in 2020. The services that Square provides -- particularly its Cash App, which allows people to send and receive money without physical contact -- have become more necessary during these times of social distancing and working from home. Revenue for the Cash App was up a whopping 574% year over year in the third quarter.
The company is also invested in bitcoin having out in seed capital in acquiring bitcoin. With bitcoin estimated to cross the $40,000 mark and possibly running as far as $146,000, this would shore up the company’s reserves.
GM
One reason why investors have been wary of the EV sector is the mounting debt and huge cash burn. This has made investors question the profitability of stocks in the electric vehicle space. With more EV stocks coming through the market through SPACS, investors are already mulling the idea that this may be a bubble. However, one company that many believe to have potential in the EV space is GM. Apart from having the infrastructure necessary to build cars, the company is can leverage its brand to ensure loyalty from customers. In addition, while other EV stocks such as Tesla and NIO may be fully stretched, share prices of General Motors are cheap, plus the company is been raking in profits.
In November, GM announced it plans to invest $27 billion in EV and autonomous vehicles through 2025. GM also plans to release 30 EV models globally by 2025. For comparison, Tesla currently has exactly four EV models. Earlier this week, the company signed a deal with Microsoft for its autonomous vehicles. GM continues to execute well on its Core and Future businesses and remains one of the best-positioned companies in our coverage over the long run. The stock is a good buy for the long haul.
AMD
As the digitalization of the world continues at an astronomic pace, microchips would continue to play a more prominent role. Already, there is a shortage of chips worldwide which means demand and prices would surge. One company poised to benefit from this growing demand is AMD. The company has managed to chip away at Intel's CPU dominance thanks to its superior product line, which is based on a smaller manufacturing node, allowing it to deliver better computing performance and reduce power consumption. The use of chips would continue to grow as more people are drawn to cryptocurrency mining, online gaming, and data center storage. AMD was one of the biggest winners in2020, and the trend is expected to continue well into this year. It is also one stock that may not be affected by the rotation into value as microchips would continue to be in demand.
TSM
Taiwan Semiconductor is a dedicated foundry that manufactures semiconductors for other companies. It aims to lead in both semiconductor technology and manufacturing, providing an open collaboration platform to build enduring trust with its customers.
The core strategy of Taiwan Semiconductor is its flexible business model. TSM does not need to design its own chips and prove its performance against the competitors; it only has to provide the technology and base for producers looking to make the best and fastest chips suited to their products' needs. By maintaining high-quality manufacturing processes and offering a collaborative platform to its customers, Taiwan Semiconductor ensures that it caters to producers across the spectrum even as technology rapidly evolves.
The company has experienced strong growth: From 2015 to 2019, net revenue increased by a solid 26.9%, while net income increased 12.7%. However, as smart technology has become ever more central to lives the company's growth has begun to heat up. In Q3 2020, the company boosted its net revenue by 21.6% year over year, while net income increased by 35.9%.
ETSY
Etsy provides an online e-commerce platform where creators of arts and crafts, vintage items, and other unique goods go to sell their products. Etsy has something that many high-growth companies don't -- a profitable business model. It boasts a trailing-12-month operating margin of 16%, making this unique online marketplace a buy today even at its premium valuation. It has outmaneuvered eBay (EBAY), avoided the Amazon (AMZN) crush, and dodged competition from Overstock.com (OSTK) and Wayfair (W).
When it reported third-quarter results on Oct. 28, Etsy reported a 128% leap in revenue to $451 million, well above Wall Street estimates of $412.7 million. Adjusted earnings came in at 70 cents, vs. estimates of 57 cents. In addition, gross merchandise sales jumped 119% to $2.6 billion.
Sunpower
Interest in renewable energy sources has soared immensely and continues to rise with each passing day. Two key forces are behind this surge: Increased awareness and urgency to address climate change, and falling costs of generation using renewables. Among renewable sources, solar energy looks most promising, due to its more predictable generation pattern. Solar's share in electricity generation is expected to rise from roughly 3% currently to more than 20% by 2050. SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) is one stock poised to benefit from these trends.
With a huge government push, California leads the way in solar adoption. Still, only 9% of homes in California have solar installations, representing a huge untapped market. In the new homes segment, SunPower has headway, having already worked with 18 of the top 20 builders in California. The company captures more than half of California's new homes market.
Its low-cost model positions it well to compete on pricing. The company can leverage its vast customer base to sell its storage products. Moreover, its leading position in the commercial and California's new homes market provide SunPower an edge over others in these segments.
PLUG
Plug power provides hydrogen fuel cell turnkey solutions to electric mobility and stationary power markets. The company continues innovating end-to-end hydrogen fuel solutions by harnessing its unique capabilities and is the largest buyer of liquid hydrogen in North America.
Though the company has not posted any profit, many hedge funds are bullish on the stock, with analysts having high recommendations. The company’s $1.5bn deal with South Korean conglomerate SK Group into American hydrogen company has certainly drawn a lot of attention, with many investors gauging the company’s profitability.
Plug Power’s core business is providing fuel cell-powered forklifts for commercial customers. However, it has expanded to hydrogen production following its acquisition of two hydrogen companies.
These acquisitions expand the plug’s addressable market which has already exceeded $30 billion. The resulting vertical integration of the acquisitions makes Plug Power an even stronger company as can now provide the hydrogen that powers its vehicles.
This definitely allows Plug to leverage on its already existing customer base which includes some of the best companies in the country. Plug Power raised its 2024 guidance to $1.2 billion in revenue and $200 million in operating income. Shares of PLUG have risen by 111% in the last month.
Tesla
Returning to the green-energy theme, Tesla is one stock that has significant upside. The company is positioned to benefit from the clean energy drive of the Biden administration. Apart from that, Tesla is the leader in its sector and continues to increase its delivery numbers. Tesla is now the most valuable auto company in the world. It has recently surpassed Facebook (FB) by market capitalization. The stock has recently received upgrades from analysts and if the EV market continues to evolve, Tesla would continue to be in the pole position, which gives it significant market share and of course revenue.
GrowGeneration Corp.
For those looking at balance sheets and income statements, GrowGeneration Corp is one highly profitable marijuana stock to watch in 2021. The company has the largest chain of specialty hydroponic and organic garden centers in the U.S. with 36 storefront locations. In essence, the company supplies products necessary for growing cannabis and works closely with major marijuana companies in the U.S. market.
Shares of Grow Generation returned a whopping 880.98% in 2020, posting the fastest-growing quarterly results in the industry. It is expected that the company would continue its momentum this year. The shares of the company have so far risen by 20% this year.
Additionally, the company continued strategic acquisition and expansion plans in the quarter, giving GrowGen more growth potential for 2021. It was easily one of the best performing cannabis stocks for 2020. In essence, GRWG stock showed greater market stability than other pot stocks in the U.S. in 2020.
Thanks for reading!
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So I was going through my files and found this list of stocks and “predictions” that I was investing in back in 2007. I think i had planned to post it but never did. I am not sure what the 2 or 3 prices are but I am adding the current 2020 price at the end. This is all unedited other than the current price add. If I put N/A I can’t find current price and don’t really have time to research what happened to the company. If someone else wants to I will edit it later. I also didn’t factor in any splits, dividends or anything.
“My 2007 portfolio (original Purchase price and market close as of 12/28/2007)
The Blackstone Group L.P. -BX ..........22.40..........21.94..........20.27 (2020 $60.42) I don't normally buy recommendations I see in magazines. By that time the stock has normally reached its potential. I think that Blackstone may be a safe bet due to crashing of almost every major company. This selection was pretty much a dart thrown blindfolded.
CombinatoRx, Inc. - CRXX ..........7.63..........4.41..........1.33 (2020 N/A) With America's obsessions with pills to cure everything and anything and our demand for better health coverage, I think medical stocks will see a rise this year.
Starbucks Corporation - SBUX ..........20.21..........20.13..........59.39 (2020 $98.82) I actually build Starbucks retail centers for a living. I built a ton of them in Southern California during 2006-2007. When they stop building the stock will go up. Even with a crashing economy. Why? Because even though other shops may sell coffee for less or people may be out of money, the rich love Starbucks and those who will be hurt by the economy will need a cheap "pick-me-up". So instead of the $2000 plasma TV, they will buy the 4 dollar coffee. Of course, all of this rest on the hope that they will STOP building more. Because that is what is killing their profit margin.
Ford Motor Company - F ..........6.72..........6.70..........13.36 (2020 $9.24) I like underdogs. I think Ford still has potential it just needs a kick in the head. I think they will shape up and realize that America no longer desires gas guzzling SUV. Or the "eco-friendly" hype will fade and people will start buying gas guzzlers again. Either way, Ford has been losing for a long time. They only have two choices now, go bankrupt or get their act together and excel.
Flextronics International Ltd. - FLEX ..........11.04.........12.12..........6.82 (2020 $16.71) This one relates to magazines picks. Money magazine picked Pemco Aviation Group, Inc. - PAGI - as a winner back in early 2007. I took a look at the stock and saw that they were already running on high times. Did some research and found one of their competitors, FLEX, which hadn't had a winning stride in awhile. Pemco has since tanked. Flex has held it's ground and is slowly going up.
Ferro Corporation - FOE ..........21.58.........21.17..........7.05 (2020 $14.56) Over a ten year period of past performance, I felt that now was the time for Ferro to regain its formal potential. It's a nice game of wait and see.
General Electric Company - GE ..........35.80(37.21).........37.34..........21.50 (2020 $10.15) All you ever hear about these days is the success of GE. With our obsession with alternative energy and GE's willingness to explore, I can't see how they can lose.
Insite Vision, Inc. - ISV ..........1.44........0.88..........0.32 (2020 N/A) This is my million dollar stock. I'm counting on it skyrocketing around 2009. That or bankrupting tomorrow.
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - JAVA ..........6.28..........18.21 (2020 N/A) I will probably be selling Sun Micro very soon. It has done well for me. I need to research some more on it.
Northgate Minerals Corporation - NXG ......... 3.08(3.23).........3.08..........3.49 (2020 N/A) All other companies in this sector seemed to be rising. Except Northgate. I don't really understand why, but I am hoping it gets with the program soon. I'd like to sell this one soon. I don't see much long term potential in it.
Origin Agritech Ltd. - SEED ..........7.20..........7.17..........1.75 (2020 $9.55) I just found this stock recently and am hoping it may be a short affair that I can get out of on the top. According to research, it seems they like to pick up every other year. 2008 will be that year.
T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. - TROW .......... 46.61.........60.18..........76.29 (2020 $145.50) We are all becoming more investment savvy. And with the destruction of social security we are seeing more people relying on their own means to retire. This is one of the trusted companies that doesn't seem to be engaged in any scandals nor mortage woes. But it is also at the peak. Gonna be time to get out soon.
American Express Company - AXP ..........63.04.........50.84..........67.45 (2020 $119.93) American Express is one of those companies that doesn't rely so much on APR but more on annual charges. With all of the debt woes and defaults on credit cards and mortgages more people will flow to their cards. They also have more financial savvy customers who can and will pay their bills on time.
Boston Scientific Corp. - BSX ........... 16.15.........11.72..........7.35 (2020 $33.65) Pharma stocks will be king in 2008. And every four years this stock rises. 2008 is the fourth year.
Citigroup Inc. - C ..........33.96 ............29.29..........46.46 (2020 $55.47) Don't buy them now. They have a LOOOOOOONG way to go to the bottom. But once they hit, I think this company has the greatest potential to get through the muck and mess to rise again. I'll be there waiting when the time comes. Late 2008/early 2009.
DepoMed, Inc. - DEPO .......... 4.30 .......... 3.26..........5.45 (2020 N/A) Over a ten year period this stock has its perks and its lows. The perks have been low and the lows have been lowest. I am counting on the next 5 years to be extra perky and full of higher lows.
Genentech, Inc. - DNA .......... 76.97 .......... 67.51..........??? (2020 $94.97) This one is a tough call. It's an expensive pharma stock that seems to be at its peak. But they seem to understand success and what makes it. Can they continue the success rate in 2008? I hope so.
International Paper Company - IP ..........32.55..........32.55..........47.69 (2020 price $49.85) The past three years have been awful for International Paper. Good news for us is that this company is cheap to buy. And of ten years they actually do pretty good. Here's hoping.
Pfizer Inc. - PFE ..........22.90 ..........22.90..........31.08 (2020 $39.47) Once again, the worst years have been the recent ones. Everything changes and the weak will rise again. This one will be a soon purcahse.
Sprint Nextel Corp - S ..........13.16..........13.16..........7.10 (2020 N/A) No one likes Sprint/Nextel right now. They suck. They stink. But they want to be at top. They want it more than the others do. And I'm sure they will do whatever it takes to get to the top. It won't be soon, but eventually, they are gonna hit the top spot. And I'll be selling like hot cakes when they do.
So that's my prediction for 2008. I would love any advice, news or comments you can send my way. Remember, the stockmarket is a gamble. I'm not always right. But I'm not always wrong either. You just got to do your research and hope for the best. It sure beats paying some other guy to do it for me.”
Looking back at this, I sold everything in the housing market crash, not because of the crash but because I desperately needed the money as my business I had started went under and I was going to lose my house. I didn’t have a lot invested as I was still new to it at the time. I remember T Row I could barely afford.
I invested no where near $20,000 but I am curious about an accurate value of what a $1,000 in each stock would now be worth. A quick spreadsheet not accounting for compound interest, dividends, or splits with $1,000 in each stock above I would currently be sitting on $25,990.
I thought some people might find my naive speculation entertaining.

Well, this is going to be a long hot mess, I apologize from the start, like Inigo Montoya I have to say, "There is too much" even trying to sum it up, partly because it's a lot and I mean a LOT of history, also because it's very personal to me. I'm lucky that I don't live with any Qultists, but I deal with it at work, and we all deal with them on some level, as we saw on Jan 6th. I really want to make a joke about a national "Epiphany" but there's just nothing funny about it, even if it has some grotesque comedy.
It's personal because I was raised in a worldview that feeds this, and I feel amazingly lucky, like I was just missed by a meteor by inches, that I got out long enough ago that there was no chance of buy-in. But the whole thing is so triggering for that reason, I have a clear memory of having believed in secret alternate histories full of conspiracism and prophecies, in which every historical event had alternate interpretations explained by Sin, with the greatest sin of all being abortion, where all the media and all of science/medicine was lying to us because they hated God and families and goodness, but we weren't supposed to DO anything but pray because it was part of God's plan (trust the plan!)
So it's like being a fish that has taken to the land, remembering swimming in that sea of delusions, but now breathing air and even trying to recall that mindset feels like drowning today. But it helps explain what is going on and why Q is so potently seductive - it's a very ancient meme that has been constantly refined and tweaked over centuries, with a steroid injection a hundred years ago that took it to all new catastrophic levels culminating in the Holocaust.
That was of course the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a propaganda work created in 1903 by the Russian government to retroactively justify their pogroms by supposedly-leaked documents revealing the secret programs by the secret Jewish leadership to subvert and destroy mainstream Christian society, which was translated in 1919 in English and was promoted and published in America by non other than Henry Ford, whose bigotry and open embrace of fascism somehow never made it into our history books when I was in school and he was praised as an American genius-hero, while the theater class was putting on "Fiddler on the Roof. "
They didn't tell us about IBM then, either.
The Protocols memetic influence can be seen in the David Ickes Lizard people secretly rule the world stuff, but it's also invisibly omnipresent in the entire anti-abortion movement. The Protocols didn't appear in an early 20th century vacuum, instead they drew on a long tradition across Europe of justifying persecution of minorities by claiming they were uniquely wicked and depraved so it was really self defense, and particularly targeting their Jewish neighbors with the accusation of ritually killing and eating Christian children. William of Norwich was the first unsolved crime of a murdered boy whose death was blamed on the local Jewish community, in spite of the local government saying it was unproven at the time, but not the last.
Right there, you can see where we are now, in a "distant mirror" to use historian Tuchman's phrase: the accusation wouldn't have been made if there hadn't already been bigotry, which in turn led them to reject the official government statement that persons unknown committed the crime, and an entire fictional account being treated as "the truth" since it didn't have the uncomfortable possibility that it was one of US who did it, and we could be breaking bread with a murderer! No, no, it must have been one of those heretical THEM!
And it never goes away, even if serious respectable people in positions of authority tried to debunk and disprove and defuse the mob mentality - that just proves that they've been turned or bought or are part of the child-sacrificing cult too. The Freemasons get pulled into it, as rivals to the established churches, and eventually abortion too, because Jewish tradition says not a child until born, and the life/health/safety of the mother always took priority. So "Jewish doctors" in pre-WW2 writings where there doesn't seem to be any relevance to a doctor's religion really means abortion, in the censorship of the early 20th century.
And abortion means "good" women running around having sex for fun, with all the fears of being "cucked" that have never left conservative masculinity. "Jews will not replace us" as they chanted at Charlottesville, this "Great Replacement" theory, has it that the secret plan is to use the degenerate arts and media made by (((Hollywood Liberals))) to convince pure white women to race mix, or to not want godly white husbands, so feminism too is part of the plot, and tolerance of gay rights, along with Communism which rebels against the rightful authority of rich white Christian men, whose money means they're blessed by God, unlike the bad people who shouldn't be rich because they're NOT white Christian men, in the horrible hash of memes which fed the rise of the Reich as it had the Tsars' pogroms the last generation.
And so the whole world dealt with the consequences of letting these conspiracies fester and interbreed from the old media of pulpits and bars to the new media of cheap printing, then radio waves, then movie reels. The "blood-dimmed tide" reached everywhere, but that's cold comfort to the victims.
And then the same people who had been preaching the Blood Libel until they got their genocide turned around and cynically applied the term "Holocaust" to legalized abortion. The people who were fans of Fr. Coughlin the "Radio Priest" who did an early Horsehoe Theory going from supporting FDR to supporting Hitler, who rejected Vatican II because it rejected the former ritual blaming "The Jews" for killing poor baby Jesus, and also rejected any and all calls to social justice of every kind.
The Catholic conservatives rebranded by changing "the Jews" to "secular humanists" and "Hollywood liberals" and added "environmentalists" to the long list of child-sacrificers in their conspiracy, and the Fundamentalist conservatives jumped on the bandwagon as a way to erase the stink of supporting segregation and reclaim a moral high ground by protecting innocent babies. Who's more innocent than anyone? The unborn! They've never done anything, so they can't be Milkshake Ducks. (Once they're born? Fuck 'em.)
And YOU don't need to do anything either, just pray and vote Republican! It's so easy! You get to bask in the righteous glow of hating the worst people in the world, people who KILL BABIES for fun & profit, because OBVIOUSLY the doctors are lying when they say pregnancy is dangerous, it's NATURAL, so it must be a highly-profitable industry because otherwise why would they do it? This is straight out of 1930s fascist propaganda, only by 1975 they had so thoroughly erased the word "Jews" that a younger generation never knew it had been there. So there's your distrust of science and medicine and demonization of Planned Parenthood, mandated by Christian religion in far too many churches.
You can boost your conspiracy fix with add-ons like miracles, visions, and secret truths that even the mainstream clergy don't want you to know about, like The Third Secret of Fatima or The Tribulation/The Rapture, or with accusations that not only are the evil (((doctors))) butchering babies for profit and to overthrow Western Civilization, but they're SELLING BABBY PARTS to cosmetics companies and even Coca-Cola.
Why? How would this make sense? Why would companies sneak illegal human tissue into your shampoo or your soda, ffs? Because they're EVIL, duh. Now YOU are part of the ritual cannibalistic cult, like it or not! There are BABBY PARTS in your vaccines, doncha know? You've ALREADY BEEN contaminated! And Procter & Gamble has a Satanic symbol for a logo, and you put their toothpaste IN YOUR MOUTH! How can you care about baby seals when they're murdering baby HUMANS? How can you care about adult workers suffering picking grapes toiling in the vineyards of California or the packing plants of Nebraska when they're killing BABIES? It's a (((Communist)))-Muslim-homo-fascist plot! WE know the TRUTH! The rest of you are either asleep, or supporting the Devil!
At the same time, it's obviously part of the same evil God-hating conspiracy that the media is publishing allegations of priestly pederasty. Disbelieve everyone except us, and hate them because they say WE are the baddies.
No, it's the whole godless nation of America that's evil, because the laws and culture tolerate abortion/gay people/women who take jobs away from men EVEN IN THE ARMY obviously to weaken us so the Commies can roll right over us Wolverines!/tree-huggers who want to replace humans with baby seals and spotted owls/Freemasons/the foreign family who moved in next doothe teens who play loud music and wear weird sexy clothes -- and someday soon, God will smite the land, and THEN you'll all be sorry!
UGH I CAN'T EVEN, I used to believe ALL of this crap and I didn't even get to Paul Weyrich and the Southern Strategy. That will have to be another post, but this is at least a peek through a private window into how "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" and we saw the same exact flailing of leaders between running away from the stochastic terror consequences of their words and plunging deeper in when some impressionable young Christians started shooting and blowing up health care providers after having been raised in "Stop the New Holocaust" rhetoric since birth. It was just supposed to motivate you to send us money, vote for the Corporation Party, and do absolutely nothing else except maybe yell at some miserable pregnant people trying to get medical help.
Past is predictive.
All of Q has its roots in the fertile soil of American conspiracism going back to the "Purity of Essence" antifluoride campaigns and the John Birch Society so often mocked but never extinguished, which in turn goes back over a thousand years and even more, because accusing the religious minority you want to scapegoat of being child-sacrificing cannibals worked for the Romans, too.
History is Irony.
Eye-Opening Links - the link between white supremacy and abortion opposition isn't even trying to hide these days, but a decade and more back, it was pretty much only Fred Clark writing as a liberal Christian trying to bring sanity to America by debunking the Rapture peddling reverends of the Right before TEOTWAWKI - "The Biblical View that's Younger than the Happy Meal" is very powerful:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/
Here's a Salon article which cites this post, and other authors, on the use of abortion as a way of memoryholing school segregation:
https://www.salon.com/2018/07/08/when-evangelicals-were-pro-choice-and-the-nra-was-pro-gun-control-a-history-of-hypocrisy/
His entire blog, Slacktivist, is worth checking out but it's a lot, so here's just the abortion tag:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/tag/abortion/
And here's the one that explains why Qult members WANT there to be a vile cult of (((Hollywood liberals))) raping and eating children that they can feel justified in murdering if only by proxy, the saga of Bad Jackie:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2010/09/19/jackie-at-the-crossroads/
Here's his post on the Blood Libel propaganda transformation of William of Norwich from tragic victim of an unknown killer into a "martyr" - EXACTLY like Trump using that poor woman shot by accident as a justification to persecute immigrants from the southern border:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2019/05/02/thomas-of-monmouth-the-hugely-influential-christian-writer-youve-never-heard-of/
Here's that earlier instance of the alternate reality creation, the Procter & Gamble Satanic fabrication:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/procter-gamble-satan-conspiracy-theory
I don't want to put up links to historic bigoted propaganda, you can find that easily if you really want to, but one thing that's really interesting about the Protocols is that large parts of it were plagiarized from novels and other sources which weren't even about Jews, translated into Russian, and changed to fit the rest of it. That was how the Times of London debunked it in 1921, a lot harder before Turnitin existed. Villainy, but also LAZY villainy, just like we saw the last four years. But it works because the people who ate it up didn't CARE that the fake justification for doing pogroms was a bad pastiche - and they STILL don't.
I'm sorry this is so rough and rambling, but it's like looking into the Mirrorverse and seeing who I could have been if I wasn't too gay, too nerdy and too overall fucked up, when I see those smiling preppy women beating down the Capital doors or posturing on the TV with their guns. The Abyss smirks back winking at me, unrepentant as Sarah Palin at the shooting of Gabby Giffords. I don't know how to get anyone else out of it -- I'm not even sure how I escaped, really!

Over the course of 34 days in the spring of 2018, three unsettling crimes played out in the city of Bakersfield, California. The families of the three victims realized their children all knew each other and ran in the same circles, and they began to suspect that all three crimes were connected. But what began as a crusade for justice among grieving parents took a shocking turn when investigators discovered that the so-called Bakersfield 3 were embroiled in a criminal underworld of black-market weapons smuggling, the Hells Angels, unspecified ties to drug cartels, torture and kidnapping, and a convicted felon nicknamed “The Boogeyman of Bakersfield.”
This is a genuinely bizarre case, and while I’ve never written up a case for this sub before, I’ve been following this story closely for the past couple years. The last time it was mentioned on here over a year ago, but there have been some huge recent developments in the last year that I thought deserved as comprehensive a telling as possible. And despite all that, it's nowhere near resolved. So without further ado...
Part 1: Missing
On March 23,2018, Micah Holsonbake, 34, went missing in East Bakersfield near the intersection of Flower Street and Mount Vernon Avenue. Micah was a clean-cut dad who worked in finance, a former high school debater who loved karaoke despite not being any good at it. He was presumed endangered missing until August 22, 2018, when teenagers swimming near a local park found an arm in the Kern River that was identified as his. The rest of his body has never been found.
On April 18, 2018, James Kulstad, 38, was murdered on a quiet block in Southwest Bakersfield. A father of two daughters, James was a serial entrepreneur described as the type of man who “could sell a dollar bill on the side of the road for a million dollars if he could just get 5 minutes with you.” His brother Ryan heard the gunshots from the next street over, but didn’t see the shooter, and he claims he held James as he died in his arms.
On April 25, 2018, Baylee Parrent-Despot, 20, disappeared from Rosedale, the upper-middle-class neighborhood in Northwest Bakersfield where she’d grown up. Baylee described herself as a “flower child” who had been born in the wrong generation. After facing a number of serious challenges, she was struggling to get her life back on track, and was said to be pregnant and trying to leave her boyfriend when she went missing. She has never been heard from again.
Local media christened Micah, James, and Baylee the “Bakersfield 3” after the victims’ families discovered that all three victims knew one another. In the wake of the links between all three disappearances coming to light, Micah’s father told a local news reporter, “Just to be blunt, something happened to Micah… and a month later something happened to Baylee, and I think it’s because she knew what happened to Micah.” And in between them, there was James Kulstad, who ran in the same drug-fueled circles as Baylee and had helped Micah move just weeks before they both were killed. Bakersfield is a city of half a million people, but on a social level, it can feel as insular as any small town — you’re rarely more than one or two degrees removed from anyone you meet — and even in a city where everyone seems to know everyone, it’s hard to buy three friends all going missing within the space of a month by sheer coincidence. But as time went on with few official developments in the investigation, it seemed like people largely lost interest in the case by late 2019.
Then, in 2020, the Kern County District Attorney’s office charged three people with a total of 34 different charges, ranging from first degree murder, torture, kidnapping, assault with a firearm, and illegal manufacturing of assault weapons. Two of the defendants were already in custody — and the third may not even be alive.
Part 2: Some Local Context
By every metric, Bakersfield is just a flat-out terrible place to live. It’s my hometown, I left for a reason, and the reason is that it sucks. Kern County suffers from a slew of serious socioeconomic and public health problems, the largest of which is probably related to economic and income inequality. A fifth of the population is under the poverty line, and crime rates are sky-high, especially drug-related ones. Opioid abuse is rampant, though it still falls second to methamphetamine, the most widespread drug in the area. There’s a significant issue with white supremacist gang violence. When I was 16, my 70-year-old next-door neighbor got stabbed in a biker gang fight at a tattoo parlor by a Hells Angel called “Delano Mike.” A high school chemistry teacher was literally arrested for trying to make meth in his classroom three months before Breaking Bad even premiered. This is a region with a lot of serious problems that go deeper than any one symptom, but suffice it to say, there’s a reason I moved away as soon as I tuned 18.
The other thing you need to know is that despite being one of the most conservative cities in California, there’s a widespread distrust of law enforcement outside of the police and courts themselves — and, frankly, for good reason. Corruption in the justice system is widespread, and basically a local tradition dating back to the tenure of longtime district attorney Ed Jagels, perhaps best known for ramming through 36 false convictions of ritual child abuse at the height of the satanic panic. (34 were eventually overtured, and the other two people convicted died in prison and never saw justice.) Jagels’ history of prosecutorial misconduct is also the subject of Mean Justice, a 600-page doorstopper by Pulitzer-winning author Edward Humes about the wrongful conviction of Pat Dunn, who is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife despite a wealth of evidence that would suggest his innocence. In 2002, Jagels’ protege, an assistant district attorney named Steve Tauzer, was murdered by a former Bakersfield police deputy, Chris Hillis, after Hillis allegedly learned that Tauzer had a sexual relationship with Hillis’ 22-year-old son, an addict in recovery; facing first-degree murder charges, he pled out to manslaughter and received a 12-year prison sentence.
In 2015, The Guardian published an in-depth exposé about how widespread corruption within the local law enforcement community led to Kern County having the highest rate of police killings in the country: the deadliest cops per capita. And over the past several years, the Kern County law enforcement community has been mired in a police corruption scandal in which members of the BPD abused asset forfeiture laws to illegally seize guns, drugs, and money from suspects, which they in turn trafficked for personal gain. All this is to say that Bakersfield cops and prosecutors have not engendered much public trust outside of their own communities. In a city with high rates of violent crime, law enforcement has consistently put its own interests above public safety, justice, or victims’ rights. That's just something to keep in mind while reading.
Part 3: Down the Rabbit Hole
Micah
In the weeks and months prior to Micah Holsonbake’s disappearance, his family could tell that something was troubling him. Lance and Cheryl Holsonbake both recalled their son behaving erratically in the days before he vanished. But none of it seemed to make any sense coming from someone like Micah, whose family described him as intelligent and hard-working. He had a comfortable upbringing in Rosedale and worked his way into a lucrative career as a financial advisor despite only one year of college. In the photo his family circulated following his disappearance, he wore the suit and tie and placid smile of someone posing for a corporate headshot. But Micah was going through a dark time following a rocky separation from his wife and family, and had been struggling with a painkiller addiction for the past two years. The year before, he’d been laid off from his job after going on disability leave due to depression.
According to court documents, Micah owed drug-related debts to members of the Hells Angels as well as “the cartel.” One friend of Micah’s told police his life seemed to be headed in a downward spiral after he lost the ability to see his son, and often got in fights with others at bars. In one witness statement, an unidentified woman told police of a prior incident when she and Holsonbake were kidnapped at gunpoint and driven to an orchard in west Bakersfield. Holsonbake bolted from the vehicle as it was moving, she told police. That account was corroborated by a friend of Holsonbake's who told police that he said he had been kidnapped at gunpoint. He told his parents that he feared for his life, frequently thought he was being followed in his car, and rambled about various people he believed were out to get him, but they mostly wrote it off.
James
Micah had been hanging around with James Kulstad for some time before he disappeared. It’s not clear when they first met, but it appears they become friendly through the drug scene. Like Micah, James first became addicted to prescription painkillers after being hit by a car, before progressing to fentanyl patches and eventually heroin. He’d been a single father to his daughters Camryn and August. His obituary characterized him as a free-wheeling surfer who held a patent for an action sports product and earned the nickname “Joe Vegas” for his love of gambling and table games. Camryn, now 19, says she and James had an especially close relationship after her mother died when Camryn was an infant, and James often warned her against getting involved with drugs and partying in a clear-headed way, which made it even harder to watch him spiral downward in the years before his death. “I felt like I lost him before I even lost him, but I worked so hard,” she told a reporter. “I was working so hard on everything I could do to make him get better… I was hanging onto hope and whoever killed him took that away from me. I don’t have that anymore, I don’t have hope.”
In the wake of her father’s death, Camryn says that a number of stories and rumors about his life surfaced, further complicating her grief. “Some of the stories I’ve heard is that he was a really bad person these last 3 years,” she said in 2019. On the night of his murder, James reportedly drove to an acquaintance’s home in Southwest Bakersfield where his brother Ryan Kulstad was hanging out. Ryan claims that the homeowner allegedly owed money to James and told Ryan that if James came over to his house, he’d “call his boys and they’d come over there strapped,” which Ryan says he didn’t interpret as a serious threat. Ryan and James reportedly argued about this on the phone, and James showed up at the house a couple hours later. Ryan says he had just returned from driving someone else home and noticed a driver in a silver sedan behaving suspiciously as he returned to the house. Moments later, Ryan and his unidentified male passenger heard gunshots on the next block: an unknown gunman opened fire on James from another car, causing him to crash into a parked trailer. The same silver sedan was seen speeding away from the scene.
The owner of the home where this all took place was Dr. Sukhjeet Bajwa, who at the time was a chiropractor with a local practice. Bajwa lived in a quiet subdivision in Southwest Bakersfield. It was an unlikely setting for a drive-by, and according to initial news reports, police were at a loss for the motive behind the killing, or what James was even doing in the neighborhood at all. Then things began to unravel: Bajwa, it turned out, had been arrested twice in 2016 and 2017 after driving while impaired, and in addition to liquid heroin, Xanax, and hydrocodone, police also found two unregistered, loaded guns in his car, an AR-15 and a .22LR semi-automatic rifle with a fake silencer attached. All of this was detailed in a disciplinary complaint filed by the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners, and after Bajwa’s name began repeatedly surfacing in connection with the shooting, a rumor began to circulate about a black-market gun and drug trafficking ring in which Bajwa was supposedly a central figure.
It was the type of conspiracy theory most people instinctively write off as too bizarre to be credible. But it must have rung a bell to Lance Holsonbake. Before Micah’s disappearance, he told his father that he was “putting together guns for people,” according to a 2019 interview. Lance said he reacted in disbelief to this confession, because the idea that Micah would risk his career by getting involved in illegal gun manufacturing just didn’t make sense. “If you’re this afraid, just stop,” Lance recalls telling him. “And he’d say, ‘I can’t do that I can’t do that.’ He was afraid he did that they would hurt his family.” He wrote it off as paranoia exaggerated by his son’s drug use, and didn’t know how much of it was real and how much was in Micah’s mind. According to Lance, Bakersfield police initially suggested that Micah had left town of his own volition after getting mixed up in criminal activity and, from what I can tell, didn’t make much of an effort to investigate. Though the family says he was last seen on March 23, 2018, Bakersfield police claimed he wasn’t reported missing until April 4, and it appears they waited until April 13, when he’d been missing for almost a month, before BPD made its first public statement regarding his disappearance. After James was murdered a few days later, the Holsonbake and Kulstad families grew increasingly frustrated with the apparent lack of interest in investigating either case, and told the media later that as they began digging into the circumstances surrounding both cases, one name kept coming up with everyone they talked to: Baylee Despot. And within a week, Baylee Despot had also gone missing in Bakersfield.
Baylee
Baylee Parrent-Despot was 20 years old when she was reported missing in April 2018, and the families say that it was her disappearance that finally motivated the police and local news to start investigating the links between all three cases, for reasons that seem obvious to anyone who has ever seen the media react to a pretty white 20-year-old going missing. Her sister, Katelyn Parrent, describes her as “a girl that’s grown up in a good neighborhood, raised by good parents, had a good childhood, could’ve had everything she ever wanted,” much like James and Micah. And beneath the surface, she was as troubled as either of the men: after graduating high school, she’d run off to Vegas to marry her boyfriend, but their rocky relationship turned into an abusive marriage that ended just a year later in 2017. In the aftermath, she wrecked her car, lost her job, and in her mother’s words, “Her life just spiraled out of control.”
In July 2017, Baylee was arrested for disorderly conduct in front of her friend Micah Holsonbake’s house. This came as a surprise to her sister, who had at one point been friendly with Micah herself — she didn’t realize he and Baylee even knew each other. But even though he was 14 years Baylee’s senior, Katelyn remembered him as a clean-cut guy who worked at a bank, and their mother, Jane Parrent, says Micah helped her get a restraining order against an abusive ex-boyfriend. They didn’t see any cause for concern. Still, Baylee’s life continued to spiral out of control. The following month, she was drugged and gang-raped at an acquaintance’s apartment complex. She disappeared for days at a time and resurfaced with “horrible stories” or pleading phone calls begging to be picked up. On one occasion, Katelyn remembers, “She had none of her belongings, no shoes… A couple nights after that there were two vehicles that came to pick her up and we could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t want to go, but if she didn’t go, we didn’t know what would happen.”
Matthew
Not long after that incident, Baylee had a new boyfriend. Matthew Queen was 43 years old, a convicted felon, and an all-around bad dude. Not much is known about his background, with one major exception: in the early 2000s, he plead guilty to one count of making a false statement to a federal firearms dealer after he used a false address, but his real name, to purchase $11,000 in guns from dealers in Indiana. Many of those guns were later recovered at crime scenes in Detroit and Chicago. If you want an idea of what type of criminal mastermind we’re dealing with here, I recommend reading just the final ruling on that case from the 7th Circuit court of appeals:

“We reject Queen's argument that gun buyers may lie about a street address so long as they live within the state where the gun is sold . . . Queen in fact had once lived in an apartment at 2072 Egret Court, but he did not live at this address when he completed the forms and bought the guns because he was evicted on December 18, 2000, for nonpayment of rent."

Great. Sounds like a great guy.
Lest you assume Matthew Queen might have hypothetically seen the error of his ways and cleaned up his act after this early foray into gunrunning, he absolutely did not. In December 2017, just a couple weeks into Matthew and Baylee’s relationship, they were arrested after police found four unmarked, unregistered, loaded assault rifles in Matthew’s car during a traffic stop. Neither he or Baylee said a word to the police, but while Matthew (who, as a convicted felon, was prohibited from carrying any guns or ammunition at all) was charged with several felonies, while Baylee pled no contest to a lesser misdemeanor and received three years probation. Later that month, she moved in with Matthew, his mother, and his estranged wife. Baylee’s family saw and heard even less from her. And in April, a month after Micah’s disappearance and just one day after she and Matthew attended a court date for the weapons charges, Baylee went missing. Her mother believed she was pregnant with Matthew’s child and was trying to leave him at the time. Matthew told police that she had connections through her father's side of the family with a Mexican drug cartel and believed they had something to do with her disappearance.
Local interest in the case reached an even greater frenzy after Micah’s severed arm was found in the Kern River in Hart Park on the east side of town, not far from from where he was last seen. It was positively identified in late December 2018. By this point, the family of the Bakersfield 3's investigation had amassed around 10,000 followers on Facebook and another 5,000 in a private group, and the story was a fixture on local news. Another curveball came around this time too, when a former friend of Baylee’s named Sara Wedemeyer, 21, filed a restraining order against Baylee’s mother, Jane Parrent. As it was reported, Sara had moved in with Matthew mere weeks after Baylee disappeared, and she was four months pregnant with his child when she attempted to take out legal action against Mrs. Parrent, whom she claimed was harassing her and her “fiancé” by hanging up missing person fliers in their neighborhood. The restraining order wasn't granted, but Queen allegedly began making disturbing social media posts about Baylee, Micah, and the Parrent family, with Mrs. Parrent as the primary target. And in mid-2019, the investigation seemed to grind to a halt.
Part 4: New Developments
On May 27, 2020, roughly two years after the first developments in the Bakersfield 3 case, the Kern County District Attorney held at a press conference to announce they believe Baylee Despot and Matthew Queen “deliberately and with premeditation" murdered Micah Holsonbake. Despot and Queen, along with a third man, Matthew Vandecasteele, were charged with the alleged kidnapping, torture, and first degree murder, as well as unlawful manufacturing of assault weapons, conspiracy relating to the murder and torture plot, and a slew of other assault and gun charges (34 in total). Queen and Vandacasteele were both in custody at the time the charges against them were filed, but even though Baylee still has not been seen or heard from since 2018, the DA’s office issued a warrant for her arrest, leading some to speculate she may still be alive.
According to court records, Matthew Queen allegedly believed that Micah Holsonbake had stolen a .44-caliber revolver from him. He and Baylee Despot kidnapped Micah, zip-tied him to a chair in Matthew Vandecasteele’s garage, and attempted to torture him in order to extract information from him. A blood stain in the garage matched Holsonbake’s DNA. Vandecasteele told police that he didn’t see or hear Micah on the night he was killed, but knew that the other two had brought him there to question him. After several hours, Baylee allegedly returned to the apartment seeming “flustered” and changed her clothes in a back bedroom. Before they left, “Queen told Vandecasteele that he had cleaned everything up and it was OK to go inside the garage.” The next day, Queen returned to Vandecasteele’s apartment and said he “needed help disposing of something” in a large black storage container in the trunk of his car. Vandecasteele claims he refused to help with disposing of the body, but according police reports, his Google history during that period of time included searches for “lye chemical formula,” “lye for sale” and “how long does it take to dissolve a human body,” as well as browsing for lye on the Home Depot and Lowe’s websites.
Queen, Despot, and Vandacasteele allegedly manufactured and sold AR-15s from gun build kits. Other witness testimony released by the courts described various kidnappings that witnesses allege Queen, known as “the boogeyman of Bakersfield,” committed. In one incident, Queen allegedly handcuffed one victim to a chair and put an electric dog collar around his neck because he believed the man had stolen a gun part from him. Another witness said that Queen and Vandacasteele showed up armed at his hotel room after the witness told Baylee where he was staying, and that he believed they intended to kill him because he’d been arrested “with a large quantity of narcotics that he was fronted or given without paying for them and the people who had gave him the narcotics could have been upset.” (According to the police report, surveillance footage from the hotel corroborates this account.)
It’s also believed that he made anonymous calls to the police tip line to misdirect the investigation away from himself: one such caller referred to Baylee as a “sugar momma,” a phrase which Queen reportedly used to describe her when he spoke to investigators in August 2019, and he also used the same pseudonym on the tip line that he did on social media. When police questioned him around this time, he denied being part of a criminal enterprise and claimed he could barely pay his bills. Then, while out on bail for unrelated gun charges in January 2019, Queen allegedly kidnapped another man at gunpoint and forced him to walk into the Kern River while Queen accused him of snitching to the cops. He’s been in custody since July of 2019 due to this kidnapping.
Part 5: No Body, No Crime
So where is Baylee Despot?
According to official statements from law enforcement, no one knows. After the warrant was issued for her arrest, a wave of speculation followed that she had faked her own death or fled to Mexico with the help of unspecified “cartel connections.” That story seems less and less likely as more details have emerged from court documents. Vandecasteele told the police that Despot was “falling apart mentally” after murdering Micah. He and Queen both suspected that she was cooperating with police on an investigation relating to the illegal weapons charges, called her a “snitch” in one interview, and told investigators he believed Queen “made her disappear.” In one interview, a female witness said Queen kidnapped her at gunpoint, took her to an orchard, and held an AR-15 to her head while he questioned her about whether Baylee was faithful to him.
When police questioned him about Baylee’s disappearance in July 2019, he said was depressed and off her medications, and she had said she wanted to die. When the investigator told Queen there had been allegations of domestic violence involving him and Baylee, some of which resulted in bruises, Queen said he never laid a hand on anyone. He told the detective she was clumsy. Despite all of this, Jane Parrent says that police have told her that they don’t consider Matthew Queen a person of interest in Baylee’s disappearance, and that there is "no known physical evidence that definitively confirms her possible death." She is now offering her own personally-funded $1000 reward for information about her daughter’s location.
The rest of Micah Holsonbake’s body has not been recovered, though according to court documents, investigators believe Queen may have buried him in the hills near Taft, a rural area about 45 minutes west of Bakersfield.
There have been no developments in the investigation of James Kulstad’s murder since 2018. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Bakersfield Police Department at (661) 327-7111, or the Kern Secret Witness program at (661) 322-4040. A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest in this case.
Ultimately, what really frustrates me about this case is that even after this avalanche of charges, so many questions remain unresolved, and not just what happened and who did it, but why. If the investigation concluded that James Kulstad’s death was unrelated to the disappearances of Baylee and Micah, who ordered his murder, and what was the reason? To what extent was the chiropractor involved with Queen and Vandecasteele’s trafficking racket? Was Sara Wedemeyer involved with Baylee’s disappearance, and if not, how’d she end up living with Matthew and expecting his child just two months after her “friend” went missing? Why did Sara and Matthew harass Baylee’s mother for months after the disappearance?
More than anything, I’m still lost as to Baylee Despot’s motivation for any of this. Did she just find herself in too deep with no way out? Did she actively make the choice to become a gunrunner? Did Matthew, looking to settle a grudge against Micah, seek out a relationship with Baylee with the intention of using her to get to him? Did he kill her because she was cooperating with the cops, because she attempted to leave him, or because he was just a sociopath who felt she was no longer useful?
Or is there a chance that law enforcement knows more than they’ve let on? When investigators told Mrs. Parrent that Matthew isn’t a suspect in her disappearance, was that an indication that she may, in fact, be alive?
Probably not. But at this point, anything is possible.
Sources:

1. Baylee’s page on The Charley Project: https://charleyproject.org/case/baylee-cheyanne-despot
2. First news story about Micah Holsonbake’s disappearance, 4/13/20: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/breaking/man-reported-missing-april-has-medical-condition-family-says/article_8af62936-3f73-11e8-a82e-4b2ef30f031f.html
3. “Baylee Parrent-Despot reported missing for more than a month,” 6/8/18: https://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/baylee-parrent-despot-reported-missing-for-more-than-a-month
4. “The Bakersfield 3: Reward offered in Baylee Despot case,” 9/18/18: https://www.kget.com/news/the-bakersfield-3-reward-offered-in-baylee-despot-case/
5. “Bakersfield 3 mothers recall their last contact with children,” news article dated 10/24/18 https://www.bakersfield.com/news/momma-loves-you-bakersfield-mothers-recall-their-last-contact-with/article_418f70a8-d7e0-11e8-ac3c-67a7fc8df3d1.html
6. “BPD: Missing man in Bakersfield 3 believed to have been killed, and his death shares similarities with disappearance of missing woman,” 10/20/18: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/breaking/bpd-missing-man-in-bakersfield-believed-to-have-been-killed/article_fbeb8eb4-04b8-11e9-bb07-17e07813288b.html
7. “Mother of missing woman fights harassment claims stemming from her daughter’s disappearance,” 12/18/18: https://www.kget.com/news/mother-of-missing-woman-fights-harassment-claims-stemming-from-her-daughters-disappearance/
8. “Micah Holsonbake dead; DNA test confirms arm found in river his,” 12/20/18: https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/bpd-believes-a-man-missing-since-march-was-murdered
9. “Stories behind the Bakersfield 3,” 12/20/18: https://www.kget.com/news/homicide-news/stories-behind-the-bakersfield-3/1669785945/
10. Ryan Kulstad appearance on Dr. Phil, 1/14/19: https://www.drphil.com/videos/a-young-man-describes-what-led-up-to-him-holding-his-older-brother-in-his-arms-as-he-died/
11. “A closer look at the Bakersfield 3: Where is Baylee Despot?,” 3/5/19: https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/domestic-violence/a-closer-look-at-the-bakersfield-3-where-is-baylee-despot/
12. “A closer look at the Bakersfield 3: Who killed James Kulstad?” 3/6/19: https://www.kget.com/news/a-closer-look-at-the-bakersfield-3-who-killed-james-kulstad/
13. “A closer look at the Bakersfield 3: What happened to Micah Holsonbake?” 3/7/19: https://www.kget.com/news/a-closer-look-at-the-bakersfield-3-what-happened-to-micah-holsonbake/
14. “One year later, mothers of Bakersfield 3 continue their search for answers,” 3/23/19: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/one-year-later-mothers-of-bakersfield-3-continue-their-search-for-answers/article_528a7650-4cfc-11e9-886c-23d55ec3c32d.html
15. “One year since death of James Kulstad, one of the 'Bakersfield 3’,” 4/8/19: https://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/one-year-since-death-of-james-kulstad-one-of-the-bakersfield-3
16. “Mother of missing Baylee Despot speaks out on arrest of kidnapping suspect Matthew Queen,” 7/15/19: https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/mother-of-missing-baylee-despot-speaks-out-on-arrest-of-kidnapping-suspect-matthew-queen/
17. “Investigating the mysteries of what happened to the Bakersfield 3,” 11/3/19: https://www.turnto23.com/news/crime/investigating-the-mysteries-of-what-happened-to-the-bakersfield-3
18. “Defendant in alleged kidnapping waives right to preliminary hearing,” 11/9/19: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/defendant-in-alleged-kidnapping-waives-right-to-preliminary-hearing/article_b5a3274c-00c4-11ea-a1e9-635cd4a35c9e.html
19. “More charges filed against accused kidnapper Matthew Queen,” 1/1/20: https://www.kget.com/news/crime-watch/more-charges-filed-against-kidnapping-suspect-matthew-queen/
20. Press release announcing charges filed against Queen, Despot, and Vandacasteele: https://www.kerncounty.com/home/showpublisheddocument?id=4595
21. “Matthew Queen makes a court appearance in connection to 'Bakersfield 3' case,” 6/12/20: https://www.turnto23.com/news/crime/matthew-queen-make-a-court-appearance-in-connection-to-bakersfield-3-case
22. “‘Bakersfield 3’ member Micah Holsonbake believed killed by Matthew Queen over alleged stolen gun, defendant says in court documents,” 6/18/20: https://www.kget.com/news/crime-watch/bakersfield-3-member-micah-holsonbake-was-killed-by-matthew-queen-over-alleged-stolen-gun-defendant-says-in-court-documents/
23. “Documents suggest Micah Holsonbake was afraid of suspect Matthew Queen; suggest Queen attempted to mislead investigation,” 6/17/20: https://www.turnto23.com/news/crime/documents-suggest-micah-holsonbake-was-afraid-of-suspect-matthew-queen-suggest-queen-attempted-to-mislead-investigation
24. “Documents detail depth of investigation into suspected murder of Bakersfield 3 member,” 6/19/20: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/documents-detail-depth-of-investigation-into-suspected-murder-of-bakersfield-3-membearticle_ac1fb9a4-b278-11ea-962b-6b8ee0b03647.html
25. “Bakersfield 3 update: Matthew Queen appears in court, pleas not guilty to all charges,” 6/11/20: https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/bakersfield-3-update-matthew-queen-appears-in-court-pleas-not-guilty-to-all-charges
26. “‘Bakersfield 3’ member Micah Holsonbake was afraid of murder suspect Matthew Queen, became increasingly paranoid before he disappeared, documents say,” 6/17/20
27. Appellate court decision against Matthew Queen: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/408/337/509670/
28. Obituary of James Kulstad: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bakersfield/obituary.aspx?n=james-john-kulstad&pid=188771330&fhid=6140

ANIMAL WATCH-A rescuer trying to "save" a dog named Maximus, whose behavior was so vicious he was described by Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette as a "danger to staff," suffered a savage bite while attempting to give him a pill to calm him down -- in other words, "drug him."

The incident occurred when a fourteen-month-old mixed-breed dog lunged violently and bit the woman immediately after being brought to her transport vehicle.
Yet, this dog was released to an unknown group with undetermined qualifications, which would purportedly make him an adoptable pet as a "second chance, misunderstood" dog and find his furrever home. Does drugging qualify as behavior modification? Or is it a mask to deceive a potential adopter?
MAXIMUS HAD ATTACKED BEFORE
Maximus had a reported history of unpredictable aggression and was surrendered by his owner after a severe, unprovoked attack on a child. Yet -- knowing this -- Barnette (who is a former AKC dog breeder and thoroughly familiar with unacceptable dog behavior) still offered him on the LA Animal Services "Adoptable Pet" list, to any "50l(c)(3) rescue groups." He was not available to the public as he requires further behavior modification," his kennel impound card stated.
Does this imply that the "rescue" has some magic method of removing "unprovoked aggression" from the dog's nature so that it will make a "safe" family pet? Or is it merely a way to unload another dangerous dog from the shelter without responsibly euthanizing it, so that the Best Friends national "No Kill" standards will appear to be met and Mayor Eric Garcetti can boast about the City of Angels?
How much longer will shelter managers all over California, and beyond, be allowed to knowingly and deliberately release a dog like Maximus and not have personal liability? Is the purpose of having the dog go to a "'rescue" more about having a non-profit organization take liability than protecting the public?
DogsBite.org provides an important list of county and civil grand jury audits and reports of animal service departments, as well as news investigations exposing taxpayer-funded shelters that hide the bite history of dogs up for adoption. (See: Animal Shelter Investigations)
WHAT THE "EXPERTS" SAY
The following is a warning to anyone purchasing a dog from a shelter or a "rescue." There is no magic in a "rescuer" -- or a "No Kill" organization that gambles on your safety. No amount of modification can assure you and your family are safe with a dog that has demonstrated prior aggressive or behaviorally unpredictable temperament. (See: Best Friends Animal Socety in Dog Fight over Shock Collars.)
Even the ASPCA, one of the nation's largest humane organizations, states, on its website ". . .there's no guarantee that an aggressive dog can be completely cured. . . .There's always risk when dealing with an aggressive dog."
MAXIMUS' HISTORY -- ATTACKED A CHILD
Maximus, described at impound by LAAS as a 1 year, 2-month-old tan mixed-breed, was first surrendered to the East Valley shelter on August 11, 2020, after he had attacked and seriously bitten the owner's 15-year-old daughter on her left foot. According to the shelter records the bite was "severe" and "unprovoked." It had occurred while the victim was "sitting on the couch and moved their feet near the dogs face. The dog lunged and bit the child's foot and held on."
Maximus was placed under quarantine and isolated at the shelter for ten days, as required by CA rabes law. He was made available for adoption/release to "Rescue Only" -- not available to the public -- on September 3, with the explanation, "because he needs further behavior modification."
In this case, the initial "behavior modification" attempted by the allegedly experienced rescue organization was to "drug" him, according to shelter records.
ARE DRUGS "BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION" OR DECEIT?
Whether the transporter used an over-the-counter product or a prescription tranquilizer, this was a dog that the "rescuer," herself, determined could not be safely handled by normal methods, such as, carrying it or placing it on a leash.
Does this sound like an animal that is going to be a safe pet for adopters? What qualifications is a "rescue" required to have by law to prepare such an animal for adoption and make assurances to new owners? The short answer and the long answer is: "none."
MAXIMUS ATTACKS AGAIN
Here's the written report of what happened when an experienced Animal Control Technician (ACT) attempted to safely transfer possession of the dog to the "transporter" (called a trainer by the representative of the rescue.)
"On Wednesday at approximately 1130 hours, Receiving asked me to help get Maximus to a New Hope [rescuers]. I knew this dog was unpredictable and had to use the pole (animal-control device) to take him out of the kennel. I was able to get him out with no problem and walked him to the front where the transporter was waiting. He told me multiple times that he wanted to get the dog on a leash and walk him before putting him in the vehicle. I asked Receiving to bring a leash since he was so eager to walk the dog. I put the leash on the dog while holding him on the pole and he was showing signs that he was ready to bite and grabbed onto the leash.
I asked the man again to let me put him in the vehicle because I don't want anyone to get bit. He said maybe if I clipped the leash on Maximus' collar, he wouldn't bite it.
As I approached Max, his body language changed, he crouched, his ears were back, showing "whale eyes" and growled. I asked again to be allowed to just put him in the kennel, but the woman [transporter] said "let me give him a soft treat with a pill inside so he could eat it and calm down."
I said it's not a good idea but she went ahead and put her hand with the treat straight toward the dog's face instead of placing it on the floor from a safe distance for the dog to eat it.
Within a second Maximum bit her right wrist. I tried to get him off of her but couldn't and had to pin him to the floor. As I did, the woman also came down with the dog and he let go. I called receiving for help since I was still pinning the dog down. ACT A. came to help and called 911 since the woman needed medical attention. (The foregoing was edited for conciseness. Content unchanged.)
ANOTHER ANIMAL CARE TECHNICIAN (ACT) DESCRIBES THE INCIDENT
"ACT J. explained to the man that it would be best to just get the dog in the crate. I left and went inside. Within 1 minute ACT A. came in screaming that we need to call 911, that a lady just got bit. Clerical Staff called 911 immediately. I ran out here and saw the lady holding her right arm with blood dripping and she kept asking us to wrap her arm.
I asked Volunteer what the lady's name was and how she was affiliated. He gave me her phone number and stated she was a Transporter. The lady had an underage source with her [indicated later to be her child]. She helped me answer the bite report questions." (This is an excerpt from a longer report by this employee.)
MAXIMUS HAD A GREATER BITE HISTORY AT SHELTER
Later that same date, then-Commander Karen Cox-Knipscheer wrote to Chief Veterinarian Jeremy Prupas, "Per our conversation, I am requesting the following dog for euthanasia rather than waiting on another County Health [rabies] hold period.
"The above dog was relinquished by the owner due to a bite and being "aggressive towards people tendencies." While under quarantine, the dog escaped his kennel and bit an employee while on leash by another ACT and was quarantined a second time."
"Request for euthanasia [Maximus was placed on "red list," on Sept. 10, and "networked" to try to find any rescuer who will take him before he is euthanized for safety] and a rescue pulled the dog.
"Today was the transport pick up. This dog was on an ACD (animal control device) while the transporter came too close to give the dog a sedative treat. The transporter was bitten several times and staff did advise me about the severity of the bites. I spoke with the rescue. They do not want the dog back."
Dr. Prupas responded, "Yes." But in an e-mail later that day, the Commander informed the Chief Vet and GM Brenda Barnette, "Now the rescue is saying they want the dog still, after the quarantine. Supervisor explained the liability to them and they are OK with it."
On September 24, GM Brenda Barnette wrote back, "Why would they be allowed to take the dog? Did they own him before he ended up in the shelter? Can we let them quarantine him? He is a danger to staff."
‘RESCUER’ KNEW DOG WAS DANGEROUS
A Sept. 24 shelter note states, "Per my original statement, I want to make this the utmost critical information for everyone to be aware—that the transporter knew and saw how the dog's behavior was. She stated that she was going to give the dog some type of "DRUG" in a form of a pill that she placed inside a soft treat so the dog can eat it and will cause him to calm down. I do not now or recall what type of drug it was but she was clearly aware that the dog was dangerous due to the fact that she wanted to give the drug."
On October 5, 2020, the East Valley shelter memo record reads, "[Rescuer] is having her trainer pick up. Will be transporting the dog in a large crate. Is aware of all the bite history/behavior."
DAVID GOLDSTEIN REPORT ON ‘DRUGGED AND DANGEROUS DOGS’
In November 2019 Los Angeles CBS News investigative reporter David Goldstein found "Orange County Animal Care withheld dogs’ bite histories from people looking to adopt them, leading to cases of pets attacking their new owners.”
“CBS2 obtained internal records [from Orange County Animal Care] which showed 32 dogs with bite histories at the shelter. Twenty-three had no warnings or any information about biting previous owners on their kennel cards," he reported.
He interviewed long-time SPCA Los Angeles president Madeline Bernstein, who stated, “Whether you bite a shelter personnel member or you bite a volunteer, or the dog has been returned for a bite, that information must be told to potential adopters.”
See: Goldstein Investigation: Local Animal Shelter Isn't Telling All About Some Dangerous Dogs Up For Adoption
BUT IF THE AGENCY IS A "RESCUE". . .
Once the adopte"rescuer" signs a liability waiver, the shelter can claim immunity from liability. And most people do not want to sue a "rescuer" who may show few assets on paper -- or may be in a rented location and/or not be insured. By filtering aggressive dogs through "rescuers" increasingly public animal shelters are seeking to avoid liability for future attacks by dogs with repeated bite histories and still maintain their "No Kill" facade.
The public, politicians and the governing agencies don't really care what happens to the animal nor its past or future victims, as long as it is emotionally or politically beneficial to look the other way.
Once the rescuer has taken legal ownership of the animal (usually free of cost if the dog has been "red listed" -- meaning it is scheduled for euthanasia because it is a danger to the public) and signed a waiver of liability for the shelter, it is a "buyer beware" situation.
Shelters and "rescuers" may include a disclaimer in their contracts, which states an adopter has been advised of the past behavior of the animal and cannot hold the adoption agency/group responsible for future damages.
There is no limit on the amount of untaxed dollars may be taken in by a non-profit animal rescues and its success or failure is not monitored or evaluated, unless the conditions become so deplorable that public reports force the local shelter or humane agencies to act -- which usually results with a claim they are "working with" the rescuer to assure they can stay in business.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT "RESCUE"
There are many wonderful "rescuers" who spend countless hours and far more than they can afford to help animals. If you decide to adopt, be sure to check the background of the organization and avoid "second chance" animals.
Unless you plan to spend the rest of your life protecting your friends, family, and even yourself, from a dog that may suddenly turn on you or someone you love, or on a stranger or another animal, don't let your heart rule your good decision-making. Get a loving dog, who needs a loving home and who has demonstrated that in his/her past.
Do not consider any dog with warnings about keeping it away from other animals or people or that "needs time to feel comfortable" with you or anyone else. Those are warning signals that you may be getting a dog that General Manager Brenda Barnette might admit, " is a danger. . ."

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Housekeeping:

• HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
  
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Trump’s Russian laundromat

The Trump administration has been using conservative outlets like Fox News to launder unverified Russian intelligence intended to denigrate Democratic officials and candidates. In the latest instance last week, DNI John Ratcliffe declassified handwritten notes from 2016 by then-CIA Director John Brennan stating that he had briefed President Obama on Russian activities, including a reference to Hillary Clinton’s campaign attempting to “vilify Donald Trump.” Fox News was the first to publish the notes.
Brennan accused Ratcliffe of selectively declassifying documents in order to "advance the political interests" of Trump ahead of the election:

"These were my notes from the 2016 period when I briefed President Obama and the rest of the national security council team about what the Russians were up to and I was giving examples of the type of access that the US intelligence community had to Russian information and what the Russians were talking about and alleging," he added.

Ratcliffe has approved the release of even more information meant to assist Trump, including “a large binder full of documents” he gave to the Justice Department. "At my direction, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has provided almost 1,000 pages of materials to the Department of Justice in response to Mr. Durham's document request,” Ratcliffe confirmed.
There is nothing illegal about the actions allegedly taken by the Clinton campaign, as detailed in the released documents. As Lawfare explains, the declassified memo originated from the CIA’s Counterintelligence Mission Center:

Importantly, it is not a crimes report. Rather, as the name suggests, the purpose of a CIOL is to pass operational leads to the FBI for counterintelligence purposes. In this case, the CIA had information indicating that a hostile foreign intelligence service may have spied on a U.S. presidential campaign. Even if the intelligence was questionable, it still presented a significant counterintelligence risk—which is why, as Ratcliffe’s letter says, it was reported to the FBI...

Meanwhile, Trump tweeted that he has authorized the release of every document related to the “Russian Hoax” and the “Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. Tweet. He then added:

All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!

• In an interview on Fox News a couple of days later, Trump expressed displeasure that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had not yet released the emails deleted from Clinton's private server: "She said she had 33,000 e-mails...They're in the State Department, but Mike Pompeo has been unable to get them out, which is very sad actually. I'm -- I'm not happy about him for that, that reason. He was unable to get -- I don't know why. You're running the State Department and you get them out.” (clip)
  
• The very next day, Pompeo appeared on Fox News to assert: "We've got the emails, we're getting them out." Asked if they would be released before the election, he said, "I certainly think there'll be more to see before the election." (clip)
  

Buzzfeed News took Trump’s tweets to a judge to gain the release of the entire unredacted Mueller report before Election Day. US District Judge Reggie Walton directed the Justice Department to “confer with the White House” and report back to the court the “official position regarding the declassification and release to the public of information related to the Russia investigation.”

Durham probe

For the second straight week, the media is reporting the Durham investigation will not produce a report prior to the election. Last week, AG Bill Barr reportedly told top Republicans that they should not expect any further indictments or a comprehensive report before Nov. 3.
Trump publicly attacked Barr for what he sees as the slow progress of the Durham probe. “I think it’s a terrible thing. And I’ll say it to [Barr’s] face...See, this is what I mean with the Republicans. They don’t play the tough game,” Trump told Rush Limbaugh on Friday.

• Earlier in the week, Trump sent an all-caps tweet calling for the arrests of his political rivals: “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN - GOT CAUGHT!!!” Trump tweeted.

Court cases

A three-judge Appellate Court panel ruled that Manhattan D.A. Vance can enforce a subpoena seeking President Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns. The panel was made up of two Clinton-appointees and an Obama-appointee. Trump’s attorneys are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.

They concluded that the president did not show that Mr. Vance had been driven by politics. “None of the president’s allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass,” they wrote.

Prominent Trump and GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy was charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Prosecutors say Broidy accepted $6 million from a foreign client to lobby administration officials to end a federal investigation related to the looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund, known as 1MDB. The court filing also accuses Mr. Broidy of seeking the extradition of a Chinese citizen from the United States.

• Note that Barr received a waiver to participate in the investigation of 1MDB despite his former law firm’s involvement in the case. Steve Bannon was arrested earlier this year on a yacht belonging to one of the individuals tied up in the case, as well.

Trump appeals order to continue Census count to the Supreme Court. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld a lower court order allowing the 2020 count to continue through October. The administration has asked SCOTUS to put an immediate hold on the injunction while it appeals.
The Supreme Court punted a decision on access to abortion, keeping open the option of revisiting the case at a later date. The Trump administration asked the high court to require women seeking the drugs for medication abortions to visit a doctor’s office or clinic. The order was unsigned but Justices Alito and Thomas declared their approval of the administration’s request in a separate filing.

“While COVID-19 has provided the ground for restrictions on First Amendment rights, the District Court saw the pandemic as a ground for expanding the abortion right recognized in Roe v. Wade,” wrote Alito and Thomas.

Other court cases to note:

• Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll asked a judge to block the DOJ from intervening to represent Trump in her defamation lawsuit against the president. Her lawyers say the law in question, the Federal Tort Claims Act, does not apply to Trump — or to any other president. They also said that Trump, in any case, was not acting in his official role when he denied Carroll’s claims. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for Oct. 21.
  
• The DOJ admitted to “inadvertently” producing altered versions of notes from former FBI officials McCabe and Strzok that were turned over to Michael Flynn’s defense team and filed to the court as potentially exculpatory evidence. As Marcy Wheeler explains, this explanation doesn’t match all the evidence.
  
• Court-appointed adviser John Gleeson, a retired judge, urged District Judge Emmet Sullivan to take the president’s comments about the case into account when making a decision about whether or not to grant the Flynn-DOJ joint effort to permanently end the prosecution. Gleeson notes that Trump’s tweets provide evidence of political pressure to drop the case against Flynn: Trump successfully pressured the DOJ to “create a new set of rules that only apply to Michael Flynn and will never apply to anyone else.”
  
• A federal judge in California has ordered that Twitter reveal the identity of an anonymous user who allegedly fabricated an FBI document to spread a conspiracy theory about the killing of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer who died in 2016.
  

Administration

Voice of America: Five suspended officials at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) are suing the agency, its new CEO and several of his most senior aides, alleging they are breaking the law — routinely — in pursuing a pro-Trump agenda for the Voice of America news service.

David Kligerman, who has been suspended from his position as general counsel of the agency by Pack, told NPR that the case was necessary to get the courts to enforce the firewall. (He is not a party to the case, though he is cited in it as a whistleblower harmed by Pack's actions.) Kligerman and the five plaintiffs jointly filed a whistleblower complaint late last month, alleging Pack sought to oust them under a pretext of "security concerns" because they challenged his intrusion into journalistic decision-making.

• Reminder: CEO Michael Pack, an ally of Steve Bannon, started his tenure by firing the heads of four organizations under USAGM. He then refused to renew the U.S. visas of more than 70 foreign journalists who work for VOA, vaguely accusing some of them of being spies. Pack tried to fire the board of the Open Technology Fund, an organization that supports Internet freedom initiatives, but a court blocked the terminations. Nevertheless, Pack succeeded in cutting off a large portion of its funding, forcing the non-profit to suspend over 80% of its projects. Finally, Pack ordered two political operatives he installed as his aides to investigate Steve Herman, the VOA White House bureau chief who reported on Pence’s disregard for masks, for anti-Trump bias.

Bureau of Land Management: William Perry Pendley, head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is refusing to leave his position after a judge ruled he is illegally serving as chief. “I have the support of the president,” he told the Wyoming Powell Tribune. “I have the support of the secretary of the interior and my job is to get out and get things done to accomplish what the president wants to do.”
CIA appointment: Bert Mizusawa, a retired major general who served as an advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign, was quietly installed in a senior advisory role at the CIA earlier this year. The move is spurring discussion among some former agency officials, who say the arrangement is highly unusual.

“An outsider with no internal sponsorship?” said one of the former officials. “That never happens.”
...Trump allies outside the administration have signaled frustration with Haspel in recent weeks, accusing the CIA chief of blocking the declassification of documents relevant to the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia that they view as exculpatory.

Trump has appointed Justin Peterson to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, sparking conflict of interest allegations. Peterson previously represented hedge fund bondholders pushing the board to pay them billions of dollars. Rep. Nydia Valazquez (D-NY): “As a member of the Board, Peterson would have a critical say in how to restructure the Island’s debt, but his coziness with bondholders is a serious red flag and a clear conflict of interest.”
A hate group employee is now leading diversity & inclusion efforts in the Department of Education. Weeks ago, Sarah Parshall Perry was defending J.K. Rowling on the Family Research Council podcasts. Now, Betsy Devos has bought Perry aboard to oversee inclusivity within the DOE.

Trump money

NYT revealed that Trump “engineered a sudden windfall” in 2016, moving over $21 million from a Vegas hotel Trump owns with billionaire Phil Ruffin, through other Trump companies, to his campaign.

“If Trump took out a bank loan in the LLC’s name for the purpose of financing his election, then the Trump campaign violated its legal reporting requirements by failing to disclose the loan, and failing to disclose that Trump’s Vegas property was used as collateral.”
The Times also reported that the LLC in question–Trump Las Vegas Sales and Marketing–claimed a deduction on the payment made to Trump in 2016. If the $30 million loan was, in fact, used to finance the president’s then-money-starved campaign, the potential criminality would be amplified.

In an apparent quid pro quo, Ruffin asked Trump for a favor after his inauguration: revive the high speed train project to bring gamblers from California to the Vegas strip. The Obama administration considered but turned down a $5.5 billion loan for the train. This past March, the Trump administration approved the project.

Among the train’s chief beneficiaries will be Mr. Ruffin and the other grandees of gambling who became a vital font of political money for Mr. Trump when he needed it most. And, of course, Donald Trump himself.

Another NYT report showed that Trump “reinvented” the swamp after he took office, setting up an extensive quid pro quo network with private businesses and special interests. Over 200 companies, special-interest groups, and foreign governments patronized Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.

Just 60 customers with interests at stake before the administration brought the Trump Organization nearly $12 million during the first two years of Mr. Trump’s presidency, The Times found. Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by the president or his government.
...During Mr. Trump’s campaign and the months leading up to his inauguration, the in-house magazine at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida announced nearly 100 new members, a number of whom had significant business interests in Washington. The tax records show that in 2016 alone, the club’s initiation fees delivered close to $6 million in revenue.
...More than 70 advocacy groups, businesses and foreign governments threw events at the properties that had previously been held elsewhere, or created new events that drove dollars into Mr. Trump’s business.
Donors also paid for the privilege of giving money to his campaign and super PAC. Mr. Trump attended 34 fund-raisers held at his hotels and resorts, events that brought them another $3 million in revenue. Sometimes, he lined up his donors to ask what they needed from the government.

Trump claimed a $21 million tax break for leaving the woodland surrounding his New York mansion undeveloped, a figure inflated by what appears to be a fraudulent appraisal. The value of the 212-acre estate was based on the premise that Trump could build and sell 24 manions on the land. However, building anything on that property was impossible, due largely to objections by neighbors. Trump was paid by the government not to build mansions that he never could have built, in other words.

In addition to the conservation easement tax break, Trump in 2014 also classified Seven Springs as an investment property, rather than a personal residence, and wrote off $2.2 million in property taxes as a business expense, the New York Times recently reported.
Trump’s family members have described the home as a family retreat in the past, and the Trump Organization’s website still characterizes Seven Springs that way. “Today, Seven Springs is used as a retreat for the Trump family,” the website says.

Trump’s adult children have brough at least $238,000 of taxpayer money into the Trump Organization by traveling to their family properties with Secret Service. “The president’s company billed the U.S. government hundreds, or thousands, of dollars for rooms agents used on each trip, as the agency sometimes booked multiple rooms or a multiroom rental cottage on the property,” WaPo reports.

The records also show about $29,000 in federal payments to Trump properties that related to travel by Donald Trump Jr. Trump Jr. stayed repeatedly at the Trump hotel in Washington — just blocks from his father’s residence at the White House...
In the records obtained by The Post, travel by Ivanka Trump and her family accounted for more than $42,000 in federal payments to Trump properties. Much of that total came this spring, after Ivanka Trump had urged other Americans not to travel.

US taxpayers picked up the tab for billionaire US ambassador's stay at Donald Trump’s Scottish resort. The billionaire US ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, ran up a bill to US taxpayers totalling more than £1,000 in a single day while staying at Donald Trump’s flagship Scottish hotel and golf resort.

American Oversight, a non-partisan, non-profit ethics watchdog: “That Donald Trump uses his office and American tax dollars to prop up his failing businesses is widely known and shameful. That the US ambassador to the UK would use taxpayer money to play golf is simply embarrassing.”

Immigration

Border wall: The Ninth Circuit on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump’s allocation of military funds for construction of his border wall was illegal. In a 2-1 ruling, the three-judge panel lifted a stay on a lower court order, thus putting an immediate stop to all border wall construction. The one dissenting judge was Daniel Collins, a Trump appointee.
Family separation 1.0: Former AG Jeff Sessions and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein led the push to prosecute all undocumented immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents.

[Rosenstein told] the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.

Family separation 2.0: Customs and Border Protection touted agents’ “rescue” of a Honduran woman who just gave birth. What border officials didn’t mention was that, hours after their purported rescue, they separated the Honduran immigrant from her newborn and detained her pending possible removal.

• “They told her she was going to be sent back to Mexico without her baby,” said Amy Maldonado, who is legally representing the mother.

Detention: Inside the US Marshals’ Secretive, Deadly Detention Empire: Due in large part to Trump’s aggressive immigration policies, the Marshals population is approaching historic highs. About two-thirds of all prosecutions between October 2018 and April 2019 were related to immigration crimes.
Deportation: ICE officials have started to implement a policy that allows officers to arrest and rapidly deport undocumented immigrants who have been in the US for less than two years - all without a hearing in front of a judge.

Further reading

Eric Trump has canceled a Michigan based campaign event scheduled to take place Tuesday at Huron Valley Guns in New Hudson after one of its former employees was linked to the domestic terror plot against the state's governor.
The Justice Department has suspended all diversity and inclusion training in every division, including for immigration judges that regularly hear cases of persecution based on religion, LGBT status, and gender.
Wisconsin Judge Upholds Statewide Mask Mandate
Michigan High Court Strikes Down Governor’s Covid Emergency Orders
A U.S. government watchdog agency is faulting the Trump administration’s handling of a COVID-19 relief effort that awarded energy companies breaks on payments for oil and gas extracted from public lands in Western states in more than 500 cases2
The California Secretary of State and Department of Justice have sent a cease and desist order to the California Republican Party to remove unofficial ballot drop boxes placed in at least three counties.
In a ruling issued late Monday night, a federal appeals court upheld Gov. Greg Abbott’s order that limited counties to one mail-in ballot drop-off location. All three judges on the 5th Circuit panel were appointed by Trump.

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Housekeeping:

• HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
  
• NOTIFICATIONS: You can signup to receive notifications when these posts are done.
  

Trump’s playbook is Russia’s playbook

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in July withheld an intelligence bulletin warning of a Russian plot to spread misinformation regarding Joe Biden's mental health. The bulletin, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of U.S. Candidates to Influence 2020 Election,” was blocked by the office of acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf on July 9.

• The bulletin states that analysts had “high confidence” in their conclusion. However, a DHS spokesperson tried to defend the “delay” in issuing the document by saying it did not meet the agency’s standards. This is curious because just a week later, on July 16, DHS circulated a bulletin on anarchists in Portland that officers admitted they had “low confidence” in. Why was the Russia memo held back but the Portland one released?
  
• Trump has been pushing the same line of attack against Biden for months - yet another instance of Russia and Trump operating from the same playbook. For instance, in March Trump said there was “something going on” with Biden; in June Trump ran selectively edited ads asserting that Biden is “unfit to serve as Commander in Chief”; last month Trump ran a digital ad portraying Biden as perpetually confused and mentally unstable. Most recently, Trump said questions about his own health are only in the news because “they want to try and get me to be on Biden's physical level."
  

DHS is just the latest agency in the Trump administration to erode election security, following actions by the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) last month. DNI John Ratcliffe announced he was ending in-person congressional briefings on election security ahead of November and AG Bill Barr removed a leading career official at the Justice Department’s national security division, replacing him with an inexperienced political appointee.
The ODNI’s decision to halt congressional election briefs may have been influenced by top White House officials. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, among others, have repeatedly discussed in meetings with staff and with Trump “how to restrict and control the flow of information on such sensitive topics to Capitol Hill.”

One White House official told The Daily Beast that Meadows has for months been wary of the type of briefings on Capitol Hill that Democratic sources can potentially use to try to make Trump look bad through surreptitious leaks to media outlets.

Meanwhile, interim Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Marco Rubio (R-FL) said last week that his committee will be granted an exception to the ODNI’s new policy and continue to receive in-person briefings from top U.S. intelligence officials about election-security issues. This essentially means that only Democrat-led committees have been cut out of the process ensuring election security.
House Democrats wrote to Ratcliffe insinuating if his office does not provide the previously scheduled briefings this month they will issue subpoenas and/or defund the ODNI in the appropriations bill due by the end of the month. Read the letter here.
In addition to attacks on Biden’s health, DHS has determined that Russia is seeking to “amplify” concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections by promoting allegations that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud. Intelligence analysts say this strategy has been underway since at least March, coinciding with Trump’s own assaults on mail-in voting.

• For instance, in March Trump said if he agreed to funding vote-by-mail expansions in the first coronavirus stimulus bill, the U.S. would see “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” (clip). Fact check: Neither party has historically benefited. On April 7, at the White House press briefing, Trump claimed: "Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters… They're fraudulent in many cases" (clip). Fact check: There is no evidence that mail ballots are dangerous or fraudulent.

At a White House press briefing on Friday, Trump denied there is any proof that Russia poisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Instead of backing the German government's analysis of Nalvany's illness, Trump then redirected the criticism from Russia to China (clip).

"I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's tragic. It's terrible; it shouldn't happen. We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look. It is interesting that everybody is always mentioning Russia - and I don't mind you mentioning Russia - but I think probably China, at this point, is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than Russia. Because the things that China's doing are far worse.”

Trump then went on to say he’s “taken stronger action against Russia than any other country in the world,” but added “I do get along with President Putin” (clip).

• RELATED: Leaked notes obtained by the Telegraph say that when Theresa May asked for Trump to take a strong stand after Russia poisoned Sergei Skripal, Trump replied “I’d rather follow than lead.” He pushed May to “put together a coalition” first.

The Trump administration plans to deport a Russian national living in America, a move experts say is in response to a politically motivated request by Russia. Gregory Duralev was persecuted by the Russian state for exposing corruption. He fled to America and applied for asylum in 2015. While waiting for a decision on his application, he was arrested by ICE and jailed for nearly 18 months. His case is now in court.

“DHS has acted no better than the Russian authorities,” Duralev said. “They simply fabricated charges against me for violations I never committed — and if DHS can trump up charges against immigrants with impunity, nobody can guarantee they won’t start doing it” to regular Americans. “So that’s the main message I now hope to send.”

Michael Cohen & Peter Strzok

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok has a book coming out called “Compromised.” In it, he alleges that FBI investigators came to believe it was “conceivable, if unlikely” that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office:

“We certainly had evidence that this was the case: that Trump, while gleefully wreaking havoc on America’s political institutions and norms, was pulling his punches when it came to our historic adversary, Russia,” Strzok writes. “Given what we knew or had cause to suspect about Trump’s compromising behavior in the weeks, months, and years leading up to the election, moreover, it also seemed conceivable, if unlikely, that Moscow had indeed pulled off the most stunning intelligence achievement in human history: secretly controlling the president of the United States — a Manchurian candidate elected.”

He now says he doesn’t believe that Trump is literally a Russian spy: “I don’t think that Trump, when he meets with Putin, receives a task list for the next quarter,” Strzok said, referencing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. “But I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.”
In an interview with Politico, Strzok confirms that he and then-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, opened a counterintelligence case on the president, but that it likely was never pursued. Two weeks ago, NYT reported that Rosenstein secretly closed it.
As if there weren’t enough political books coming out this summefall, Michael Cohen is releasing his, called “Disloyal: A Memoir.” The following a couple of quick takeaways:
Cohen says that he, Trump, Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov, and others, watched a strip show in Las Vegas where one performer simulated peeing on another performer, who pretended to drink it. Trump reportedly reacted with “delight.” Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate mogul, is a trusted associate of Putin and reportedly served as a liaison between Trump and the Russian president during Trump’s trip to Moscow.
WaPo:

On Russia, Cohen writes that the cause behind Trump’s admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is simpler than many of his critics assume. Above all, he writes, Trump loves money — and he wrongly identified Putin as “the richest man in the world by a multiple.” Trump loved Putin, Cohen wrote, because the Russian leader had the ability “to take over an entire nation and run it like it was his personal company — like the Trump Organization, in fact.”
...According to Cohen, Trump’s sycophantic praise of the Russian leader during the 2016 campaign began as a way to suck up and ensure access to the oligarch’s money after he lost the election. But he claims Trump came to understand that Putin’s hatred of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, dating to her support for the 2011 protest movement in Russia, could also help Trump amass more power in the United States.

USPS & mail voting

According to a Washington Post report yesterday, Postmaster Louis DeJoy engaged in campaign money laundering, also called a straw-donor scheme, at his former logistics business. Five of his former employees told WaPo that they were “urged” to donate to politicians in North Carolina and would be paid back through bonuses from DeJoy. Such a plan would allow DeJoy to illegally circumvent campaign donation limits.

“Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party. He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses,” said David Young, DeJoy’s longtime director of human resources, who had access to payroll records at New Breed from the late 1990s to 2013 and is now retired.
“He would ask employees to make contributions at the same time that he would say, ‘I’ll get it back to you down the road,’ ” said [another] former employee.
...A Washington Post analysis of federal and state campaign finance records found a pattern of extensive donations by New Breed employees to Republican candidates, with the same amount often given by multiple people on the same day. Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates. Many had not previously made political donations, and have not made any since leaving the company, public records show.

More than one million mail-in ballots were sent late to voters during the 2020 primary elections, an audit by the USPS IG’s office determined. Most of the ballots were late, the USPS says, because local election boards sent the ballots to voters at the last minute. Official press release.

[The audit] found the problems during primaries had been most pronounced in Kentucky and New York, where a combined 628,000 ballots were sent out late. In 17 states, the audit found, more than 589,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters after the state’s ballot mailing deadline. In 11 states, more than 44,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters the day of or the day before the state’s primary election.
One particularly troubling situation, auditors found, unfolded in Pennsylvania, where 500 ballots were sent to voters the day after the election.

Furthermore, only 13% of the ballots were mailed with the recommended bar code tracking technology.
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) was blocked from attending two scheduled tours of USPS facilities last week. Local Postal Service officials informed her and union leaders waiting to accompany her into the building that national USPS leadership had directed them to bar the group from the building. A Postal Service spokeswoman said they simply needed more notice for a tour.
Many states, including important battleground states, are not legally permitted to process mail-in/absentee ballots until Election Day, leading to concern that results will be delayed by days or weeks. For instance, in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan election officials cannot even begin processing ballots until Election Day. Processing involves opening envelopes, flattening ballots to run through the scanning machine, and prepping for the scanning.

"When voters have to wait so long for results, it erodes trust in the process and leaves room for partisan bad actors to dispute the will of the people," said Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, a nonprofit organization.

AG Bill Barr made three stunning false claims about mail voting during an interview with Wolf Blitzer last week. First, Barr wouldn’t even acknowledge that voting twice is a crime - because just hours earlier, Trump encouraged his North Carolina supporters to vote twice to “test” the state’s mail-in voting system (clip).

BLITZER: It sounds like he’s encouraging people to break the law and try to vote twice.
BARR: It seems to me what he’s saying is, he’s trying to make the point that the ability to monitor this system is not good. And it was so good, if you tried to vote a second time you would be caught if you voted in person.
BLITZER: That would be illegal if they did that. If somebody mailed in a ballot and then actually showed up to vote in person, that would be illegal.
BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.”
BLITZER: You can’t vote twice.
BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.”

Then, Barr tried to assert that foreign countries could fake ballots, but when challenged he admitted he had no evidence (clip).

BLITZER: You’ve said you were worried that a foreign country could send thousands of fake ballots, thousands of fake ballots to people that it might be impossible to detect. What are you basing that on?
BARR: I’m basing — as I’ve said repeatedly, I’m basing that on logic.
BLITZER: Pardon?
BARR: Logic.

Finally, Barr cited a supposed incident of mail-in voting fraud in Texas. Too bad it doesn’t exist.

The payroll

Charles Rettig, the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner who has refused to release President Trump’s tax returns, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars renting out Trump properties while in office. Rettig makes $100,000 - $200,000 a year from two units at Trump International Waikiki. When first nominated, Rettig failed to disclose his financial ties to Trump Waikiki. When questioned by Congress, he did not directly answer concerns about the properties.

CREW: With Trump’s name removed from some buildings as it began to hurt property values, we can only imagine how toxic it would become if a bombshell in his tax returns were released. Which means the IRS Commissioner has a vested interest in the success of the Trump brand—and of preventing anything that could damage it.

Voice of America staffers say Trump appointee Michael Pack is threatening to wash away legal protections intended to insulate their news reports from political meddling. Since arriving, Pack has fired the network's leaders, pushed out agency executives, refused to approve allotted budgets, and refused to renew visas for foreign employees.

• Further reading: “Deleted Biden video sets off a crisis at Voice of America,” Politico.

Pack suggested the staff he fired and foreign journalists he essentially kicked out may have been foreign spies, without offering any evidence to support his claim. A group of 14 senior VOA journalists are openly disputing his explanation:

“Mr. Pack has made a thin excuse that his actions are meant to protect national security, but just as was the case with the McCarthy ‘Red Scare,’ which targeted VOA and other government organizations in the mid-1950s, there has not been a single demonstrable case of any individual working for VOA — as the USAGM CEO puts it — ‘posing as a spy,’ ” they wrote.

The White House is searching for a replacement for Federal Trade Commission Chair Joe Simons, a Republican who has publicly resisted President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on social media companies. Simons, a veteran antitrust lawyer, cannot legally be removed by the president except in cases of gross negligence. But the White House has already interviewed at least one candidate for the post.

• RELATED: The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William P. Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case.

Richard Grenell, formerly the highest-ranking out gay official in the Trump administration, has joined a law firm founded by Pat Robertson that has a history of opposing LGBTQ+ rights. Grenell also recently joined the Republican National Committee to do outreach to LGBTQ+ voters.
The Trump administration has quietly named a new acting State Department inspector general. Matthew Klimow, the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan since mid-2019, is the third acting IG since Trump and Pompeo ousted Senate-confirmed IG Steve Linick in May.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s current special envoy to Northern Ireland, former Chief of Staff, and former acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is starting a hedge fund focused on financial services regulation. Ethics experts say Mulvaney explicitly using his knowledge of CFPB to place bets for and against companies gives him an unfair and perhaps illegal advantage.

Court and DOJ matters

Court cases
The Trump administration must, for now, stop winding down in-person counting efforts for the 2020 census, a federal judge in California ordered.
The three-judge panel hearing a challenge to Trump’s new anti-immigrant census policy seemed hostile to the government’s arguments in a hearing last week.
A federal judge has stopped the Trump administration from enforcing a rule change that would let health care providers deny medical services to LGBTQ patients on the grounds of religion.
Justice Department
Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests. Broidy helped raise millions for Donald Trump’s election and the Republican Party.
Barr ordered another round of changes to FISA rules, tightening the use of government surveillance on political candidates or their staffers — a move conservatives will likely cheer, as they have long criticized how the FBI investigated the Trump campaign in 2016.

Before conducting physical searches or wiretaps of a federal election official, members of the official's staff, candidates for federal office, or their staff or advisers, the FBI must now consider giving them a "defensive briefing," to tell them that they could be the target of foreign influence.

Soka University in Aliso Viejo, So. CA, is the Ikeda cult SGI's flagship money laundering/trust-washing property. With over a BILLION dollar endowment (from where? Nobody asks...), it has a spared-no-expense campus that is largely empty. Originally intended to have a student body of 1,200 when it opened in 2002, Soka U has since limped along with only around 400 students total. This makes Soka University smaller than most high schools.
Academically, Soka U is a vanity university that only offers a single oddball degree: A Bachelor of Arts in the Liberal Arts, with one of five areas of focus: Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Life Sciences, International Studies, Humanities. Because no other known university offers this kind of degree, it is likely that the Soka University credential will prove worthless, as in "Leave it off your résumé"-worthless - and Soka U's stats suggest this is indeed the case (see below).
It's generally held that a generic "Liberal Arts" degree is the bottom of the barrel, academically speaking. That's never #GOALS.
When university students graduate with a valuable degree, they are able to go right into a skilled position that pays well. When university students graduate with a worthless degree, they enroll in master's degree programs somewhere else to make it into something that will enable them to go into skilled positions. There tends to be a strong negative correlation between the usefulness of the degree earned and the rates at which graduates pursue advanced degree programs - graduates with valuable credentials get right to work; graduates with worthless credentials sign on for another academic program. Take a look at the ratios (from a couple years ago):
Stanford University:

• Graduates offered full-time employment within 6 months: 50.0%
• Graduates pursuing advanced degrees directly: 30.0%

Princeton University:

• Graduates offered full-time employment within 6 months: 72%
• Graduates pursuing advanced degrees directly: 18.5%

Soka University:

• Graduates offered full-time employment within 6 months: NOT REPORTED
• Graduates pursuing advanced degrees directly: 62.0%

As you can see, when most students have decent job offers within 6 months of graduating, they don't pursue additional (often expensive) educational credentials - they get on with their lives. Soka University's stats on what its graduates choose to do are upside down from what they should be if their graduates were leaving with a valuable credential, as Stanford's and Princeton's graduates do. The fact that Soka U won't even REPORT what proportion of its graduates have full-time job offers within 6 months is an enormous red flag.
So if you go to Soka University, COUNT ON having to pay for an additional degree on top of the useless one you get from Soka U after already having paid top dollar. Sound good?
In terms of financial aid, despite its massive endowment (that would enable Soka U to accept every student for no cost whatsoever and still make money off the investments in the endowment), Soka U is rather stingy with its financial aid for the most deserving of students (those from poorer families):

Soka U is one of the more expensive private universities in California (and more expensive than the public universities), and while Soka U does offer scholarships, it only amounts to an average of 73% of the cost, compared to Stanford, which foots the bill for 100% of the cost for qualifying students. Poor students' families still must PAY for their children to attend Soka University. More generous financial aid is widely available; rich-rich-rich Soka U is just stingy and cheap.

I looked up tuition costs a couple of years ago; here's what I found:

Tuition for Soka University of America is $29,372 for the 2015/2016 academic year. This is 9% more expensive than the national average private non-profit four year college tuition of $26,851. The cost is 35% more expensive than the average California tuition of $21,759 for 4 year colleges. Source

So Soka University students are expected to pay a PREMIUM - for what? Considering that some Soka University students are reporting receiving a paltry $3,000 in financial aid (no idea whether this is loans that will need to be paid back or grants which are free money), that amount of financial award simply brings Soka University's exorbitant tuition cost down to just below the average for private universities in California, a mere $500 difference. Perhaps enough incentive for SGI families to decide to send their children there, since they have a non-academic incentive to want their children to go there anyway.
But the university experience is so much more than just academics and finances! What about the social opportunities high school graduates have the right to expect from the university they choose? Here, Soka U has several strong strikes against it.
Because Soka University is so small (smaller than most high schools), that's a much smaller pool of people to get to know, learn from, socialize with outside of one's family's influence, network with, and form friendships with. Add onto that the fact that Soka U has a very high proportion of Japanese students who prefer to speak Japanese when they are not in class:

Diversity: Too Many Asians – At Soka, there are many Asians from all around Asia or have family from Asia, but we mostly have Japanese students or from Japanese descent. I don't think Soka should be considered diverse if we have so many of one race. ... But I am getting tired of sitting at the lunch table and everyone around me is speaking Japanese. There is a division in the student body between domestic students and the Asian International students. ... Also, since many of the students are from Japan, there is a language barrier that is bothersome too.
Non-Asian Students Are Isolated. Nearly everyone here is Asian or Asian-American, and nearly all of them are of Japanese descent. You'll fit in great if you speak Japanese, but if not then you will frequently feel isolated.
Diversity: About 60% of the school is from Japan, the other 40% is riddled with people of Japanese descent or members of SGI. While there are a lot of different people, many want everyone to act the same: be quiet during day, go to parties, study a lot. You feel a little judged if you don't follow these things. It's kinda awkward sometimes. Source

Also, a larger university will be able to offer far more in terms of clubs, interest groups, intramural sports, and Greek life (sororities and fraternities) than Soka University does. Choosing Soka University over a larger, less expensive university means choosing an impoverished university experience on every level.
So why, with all these limitations, is Soka U ranked so highly by organizations such as US News and World Report? One factor is selectivity; if a university turns down a high proportion of applicants, that detail feeds into an equation that weighs several factors, including desirability as expressed by how many students who apply DON'T get in. Soka U is choosing to reject MOST applicants - why? When its student body of around 400 isn't even close to its stated objective of a student body of 1,200 by 2013? Is it because Soka U is gaming the statistics here in order to raise its ranking?

"...Soka University hopes to boost its enrollment to 1,200 students within the next decade. As it grows, one thing this campus doesn't have to worry about is money. Just over a year old, the University already boasts a $300 million-dollar endowment -- funding that's been contributed to the school by Soka Gakkai and its members...Meanwhile, several teachers at the College have announced they are leaving because they don't feel free to criticize the Soka Gakkai sect." Religion & Ethics Newsweekly on PBS, May 2, 2003 Source

"Within the next decade" expired 7 years ago O_O
STILL nowhere close to that goal of "1,200 students".
WHERE is Soka University's planned 1,200-student enrollment? WHY are they falling so short? 400-ish vs. 1,200? That's a HUGE discrepancy!
Looking at the Common Data Set for Soka University for the 2019-2020 school year, we see several items that stand out:
For the freshman class, there are 70 women and 38 men. For that entire class. For the total student body, there are 264 women and 142 men, for a total of 406 undergraduate students. There are an additional 13 graduate students, making Soka University's entire student body for this year 419.
Is it normal to expect the student body to have almost twice as many women as men?
Now let's look at the makeup of that student body.
48 out of that freshman class (of 108 total) are nonresident aliens - typically from Japan. That's 44.4%, nearly half foreign nationals.
As for the rest:

• 13 are Hispanic/Latino (12%)
• 2 are Black/African American (1.9%)
• 16 White NonHispanic (14.8%)
• 18 Asian NonHispanic (16.7%)
• 1 Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, NonHispanic (0.9%)
• 6 Two or more races, NonHispanic (5.6%)
• 4 Race or Ethnicity unknown (3.7%)

The US population breakdown [July 2019] for those same categories is as follows:

• Female: 50.8%
  
• Foreign-born persons: 13.5%
  
• Hispanic/Latino: 18.5%
  
• Black/African American: 13.4%
  
• White NonHispanic: 60.1%
  
• Asian: 5.9%
  
• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, NonHispanic: 0.2%
  
• Two or more races: 2.8% Source
  

Once again, Soka U is upside down on its statistics. Does diversity matter to you as a prospective student? Do you want a student body in which your identity is robustly represented, or in which you are an endangered species?
Another important factor is the fact that Soka University was founded and is administered by a Japanese cult (Soka Gakkai; SGI is its international colonies). It is important to find out what effect that backdrop has on the student experience:
Student reviews have noted a very high proportion of SGI member students there, and students are required to live on campus, meaning that, if they're not already SGI members, they'll be surrounded by SGI members. Total immersion.

Is Soka U just another attempt at creating a structure that will streamline young people into either new faith or firmer faith? The Soka Gakkai hires directly from Soka University graduates in Japan, creating even more incentive to be a Soka Gakkai member. Given all the companies the Soka Gakkai controls in Japan, they could probably hire ALL the Soka U Japan graduates into some position somewhere. But that isn't the case here in the US, and given the SGI-USA's abysmal membership numbers, I don't see it happening. Not soon, not ever.
So, hypothetically speaking, Soka University in the USA accepts ALL the SGI-member applicants and the poor from the other applicants. Does that sound about right? Maximizing the cult's recruiting chances through careful acceptance policies?

Report from a recent Soka U USA graduate
Note, also, that Soka University faculty have taken pains to conceal their SGI affiliation:
Soka University faculty - SGI members or not?

"In this organization, lying is permitted, even encouraged . . . when you do it to promote the religion," said Joseph Shea, a Hollywood community activist who left NSA (former name of SGI-USA) in 1986. "You can continue to tell your followers: 'We're not connected to this organization that has been involved in the scandals.'"
Soka University of America spokesman Jeff Ourvan has said he would not lie to protect the organization.
But Ourvan last spring implied that he had little insight into Soka Gakkai, even though he had risen through Soka Gakkai ranks. Soka's newspaper, World Tribune, shows that Ourvan rose to a position of authority with the Soka Gakkai through the Young Men's Division, the training ground for many of the organization's leaders.
In April, 1988, in a first-person essay published in the paper, Ourvan wrote of his excitement at attending a dinner with Ikeda during a pilgrimage to Japan. "His concern for all the members amazed me," Ourvan wrote. "He performed a 45-minute magic show for us so he could make us feel comfortable, happy and welcome--like family."
However, during a public meeting on the Soka University campus in the Santa Monica Mountains last spring, Ourvan answered questions as if he had scant knowledge of Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai: "As I understand it, he's the president of the Soka Gakkai International. . . . From what I understand, it's one of the largest religious organizations in Japan." Source

Is that how honest people behave? Or is it more consistent with how you would expect cult members to behave in protecting their precious cult?
So given that such a high proportion of the student body (44.4%) consists of foreign nationals, for whom English is a second language, and the fact that Soka U courses are all taught in English, those classes will not be as academically rigorous as classes taught in English to native English speakers. They simply can't be, considering the language barrier. Here is a review that mentions this detail:

Everyone who gives 5 star reviews is blatantly exaggerating about the merits of this school. Just like all the Sgi buddhists who are devoted to their leader Ikeda, they have blind devotion to a really underwhelming curriculum that wastes our money on "CORE" classes which won't do us any good in the real world. It's embarassing to think I've wasted my money on this. No one wants to admit it, but it's a costly mistake you should avoid if you can. Go to a school with a reputation that has actual majors. Don't go to a school a school based on the positive vibes you get from it, because that's probably the only thing drawing you here, and after 4 years you will realize it's all fake anyway. You think you want to be with "global-minded" students? Go to a good school where you can get a job doing global-minded things whatever that may be. Don't go to soka just because the people there claim to care about the world. That's not worth 30k a year! Source

Here is another review that describes the atmosphere at Soka U:

I tried to comment directly on the pages but couldnt..so I will post here. About the endowment- Maybe some of it goes to teachers. I've always wondered why anyone would want to teach at an unknown school. I get why a bad teacher would, and there are many of those. But there are also some who came from Ivy League schools. They're the ones who have always been suspicious to me. They seem to be ego tripping on the students' abnormally reverent behavior. (Anyone teaching at soka must be a saint) I've always been deeply disturbed by the lack of substance of "core" classes which were filler for the lack of material for actual majors. We would be required to have class discussions and it was clear that they dumbed it down for the Japanese students and American students who clearly didn't do well in high school. I realized most of the smart students did poorly in high school due to personal problems like drug addictions and I can guarantee they would have gone to a better school otherwise.
It was uncanny how many students talked about their past drug abuse issues, and they were usually very intellectual people who were the best students. So it's not like they told me they applied to better schools, but I am sure they would have.
I regret going to Soka more than any decision in my life. I had the option of going to schools with real reputations and I chose soka based on the influence of a summer sgi youth event held at the school. It feeds on the image of happiness which I thought I needed. When I started class I realized I couldn't fake that joy that everyone else was addicted to. I felt like people were bullying me for being a normal version of myself. For example at orientation we were supposed to say 3 interesting things about ourselves. Everyone talked about extraordinary things like wanting to change the world or climbing mount Everest- literally. Nothing wrong with that, but if seemed that if you didn't want to do something huge, you were a loser. I did absolutely nothing to turn people against me and yet people were nasty to me, Ironically speaking against the sgi values they claim to support. Apparently you should only care about the value of others if they have ridiculous goals to be the next president ikeda or are just as addicted to happiness as you are. These weaklings cant seem to make friends with anyone outside of their school years after graduation (perhaps because the rest of the world isnt hyped up on the drug of extreme happiness arising from "unity". )Their facebook pages are the same as they were years ago, same exact friends from soka. It baffles me. Source
Our school feels like a little bubble on top of the hill. A lot of different types of Asian influence inside the school; however, rich American culture right outside the walls of Soka. Source

SGI is accused of being "a Japanese religion for Japanese people". Looks like they've made Soka U in their own image.
There have been protests on campus by students of color over Soka U's racism and unwillingness to consider the position of the minority students.
We're not even getting into the problem of sexual assaults and how they're handled on Soka U campus. Your safety is important.
These are serious charges that any responsible applicant should take into consideration when deciding whether Soka U is worth taking the gamble on. The university years after high school will never come again; it is truly a tragedy to see a promising young person squander their potential on a waste of time out of ignorance of the important considerations or a misplaced loyalty to a religious cult that will never reciprocate.
Do your homework.