Watching Bankman-Fried and FTX’s third act

The recent California shootings, any mass shooting, always opens the door for Gov. Gavin Newsom to pontificate yet again how he won’t stand for it anymore. How come he doesn’t express his concerns for the murdered police officers or the thousands of gang murders that take place every single day in “his” city and state?

Like all other liberal politicians across the country, Gov. Newsom and others like him become blind when it doesn’t suit them.

The death of George Floyd launched a movement of hate. But on that very day, hundreds of other unnamed blacks were murdered across the country and thousands more since then, by other blacks. Mr. Floyd’s death was sadistically exploited, but the other deaths served no political purpose, and their memories merely faded from the streets.

In the state of doom and gloom, after the recent California shootings, Gov. Newsom made sure the light shined upon him as he displayed his fabricated anger over how much he cares. To the point he’s going to restrict the use of perfectly legal CCWs (carrying concealed weapons) — of which, by the way, there was zero connection with what a couple of murderous mental patients did who were responsible for the shootings.

As far as I could discover there’s only been one recorded criminal act by someone with a CCW. We all know crazy people and bad guys couldn’t care less how many laws and restrictions there are.

Brent E. Zepke

The author lives in Santa Barbara.

The legal issues surrounding the bankruptcy of FTX became instantly newsworthy because of the apparent Department of Justice involvement in the criminal aspects of the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars, the substantial “donations” — the term used by the founder Sam BankmanFried and his compatriots — to President Biden and other members of his political party, and the political connections of Mr. BankmanFried’s family to that same party. That virtually guaranteed that Mr. Bankman-Fried’s group would receive special treatment from our government and mainstream media.

The special treatment began immediately when the New York Times paraphrased the labeling of Mr. Bankman-Fried by proclaiming “mismanagement of a charitable entrepreneur,” to describe the activities of SBF and his potential co-conspirators.

This author labeled this “FTX’s Second Act” (in the Dec. 16 News-Press). “FTX’s First Act,” discussed in “Post-Election Questions” (Dec. 3 News-Press), was the creation and operation of the cryptocurrency firm FTX, and related companies, first in Hong Kong and then in the Bahamas.

The Third Act began when the press, after Mr. BankmanFried was in jail in the Bahamas, dutifully followed his publicity campaign by reporting the “harsh” conditions in the unairconditioned jail where Mr. Bankman-Fried only ate toast for breakfast after they “harshly” rejected his request for a special diet. The only other prisoner that had such a publicity campaign was the basketball player Brittany Griner where the Russians even permitted photos from their gulag. Were the Bahamas hoping for favorable trade for Mr. Bankman-Fried?

The next fable was the DOJ claiming it was being tough by demanding a $250 million bail for Mr. Bankman-Fried.The truth is they accepted as security “the largest asset of his parents,” their house in Palo Alto, which they said was valued at $3.5 million. The truth is this house, being on land owned by his parents’ employer Stanford University, meant the market value estimate is less than a million. Silence was the rule. His parents’ actual “largest asset” is a $16 million condo in the Bahamas, paid for by FTX.

Another abnormality is that the names of the two others who allegedly guaranteed his bail remain under seal although the rumors are that they are a couple related to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s mother.

Under this “flexible” bail, Mr. Bankman-Fried is permitted to spend his pre-trial days at his parents’ house and, according to reports, with access to the internet.

On Feb. 1, it was disclosed that Mr. Bankman-Fried had sent a text to the former general counsel of FTX, who has been identified as “Witness-1” in the criminal case against SBF, of “I know it’s been a while since we talked … I would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible or at least vet things with each other.”

Judge Lewis Kaplan, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton and now as a senior judge chooses his cases, held that it appeared to be a “material threat of inappropriate contact with prospective witnesses.”

Unlike Mr. Bankman-Fried, whose alleged crimes are far greater than those alleged for Paul Manafort, Mr. Manafort was sentenced by Obama-appointed Judge Amy Berman Jackson to spend his pre-trial time, while he

The real fact is those who have had the legal right to carry have SAVED countless lives.

In 2019, a gunman jumped out of his pew in a Texas church and opened fire on the 240 parishioners in attendance. Within seconds, Jack Wilson, a firearms trainer with a CCW permit, took out the killer in one shot. The worshipers were literally sitting ducks, and it could have been a blood bath. Despite all the lives he saved, there were still people who tried to make the hero the criminal. I wonder how they would have reacted had their heads been sitting right in front of the nut case with the gun.

Last year in an Indiana shopping mall food court, a young man, 22, with a CCW, shot and killed a man who had already murdered three people and wounded two others. One of the wounded was a 12-yearold girl. Again, putting his own life at risk and willing to take action, there’s no way to calculate how many lives that young man saved. If you’re antigun but it was your 12-year-old who got wounded, I should think you may reconsider the right to carry.

Here’s one more story, although there are hundreds, thousands of stories. In December of last year, a masked man entered a Wings restaurant in Warner Robins, Ga. He jumped over the counter and struck the employee with his gun. The store owner pulled out his legally owned pistol and shot the attacker twice.