Sweeney Goes PEU for NOVIG

Sydney Sweeney joined the private equity underwriter (PEU) family by becoming a strategic advisor and equity holder in NOVIG, a 21-plus sports prediction market.  The ad has her saying "Just sports."  

The greed and leverage boys have been all over pro and college sports for the last few years.  They brought their ethical lapses with them in the case of LA Lakers owner Mark Walther.

Sweeney's boyfriend partnered with The Carlyle Group on Taylor Swift's music rights and that saga went on for quite some time.  An obsession for money can make people very ugly.

Just SPEURTS!  Beware the dividend....  It's coming, baby.  For you, they might make a special distribution.

Update:  This non-gambling site happens to have a gambling term in its name, vig.

Clarity into Those Pushing Clarity Act

Trump II is pushing hard for Congress to pass the Clarity Act.  His crypto conflicts of interest are legion, $TRUMP, USD1, WLFI token, Truth Social ETF funds, Truth.FI fund offerings and the game that seemingly never arrives, Trump Billionaires Club Game, which exclusively uses $TRUMP.

How many elected officials know Trump's top crypto advisor Patrick Witt worked for a Ponzi scheme (First Liberty Building & Loan)?  Witt served as Director of New Ventures and Strategic Growth, starting in 2023.

The SEC found the scheme in July 2025.  Trump II's "Just Us" department filed charges in April.  Edwin Frost IV pled guilty to one charge of wire fraud in May.

...starting around 2021, First Liberty stopped generating enough revenue to pay its investors, so it began using new investor funds to cover the shortfall and maintain the illusion of profit.

This story line fits amazingly well with crypto overall, the currency of nothing, pushed by people with conflicts.

Update 9-16-26:  The Senate failed to move the Clarity Act forward as the motion got 49 votes when it needed 60.  It could be considered after the election.

U-KKR-aine & Bia Advisory in Putin's Sights?

The layers of PEUs around Ukraine include Trump II's special envoy Jared Kushner of Affinity Partners as well as KKR and Apollo, the two firms Kushner is recruiting to rebuild the country. 

Affinity, Apollo & KKR, oh my....

Trump innovated the bold assassination of whoever he targets as part of war or his lesser military skirmishes.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin may be doing likewise.  Ukrainian officials speculate a Russian attack on a train targeted KKR Partner, Chairman of KKR's Global Institute and Chairman of KKR Middle East David Petraeus and former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Principal Advisor for Bia Advisory.

A recent paper explored "The Sponsor Premium."  It:

"examined whether a private equity sponsor's reputation for fair dealing with lenders impacts the yields its portfolio companies must pay for loan capital. Using comprehensive leveraged loan data from 2016-2025, we find that sponsor fixed effects explain approximately twenty percent of the variation in loan yields that other observables cannot. Moreover, we find that, under three measures of reputation, portfolio companies owned by the most aggressive sponsors pay considerably higher yields than those owned by more genial sponsors."

The difficult to deal with list includes Apollo, Platinum Equity, ClearLake, KKR and TPG Capital.  Carlyle was smack in the middle of the distribution.  

If you are a difficult to deal with financier/sponsor and your affiliates make war products, are you now a war target?  

Leaders killing leaders would be quite the war innovation as it would not require legions of fresh citizen meat.

As of now politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  Might this change as the rules of war are disrupted?  Time will tell.

J.R. Trump Returns to Dallas

The J.R. Ewing side of Trump II revealed itself, this time in Dallas.  J.R. is a fictional character from the television show Dallas.  He was an unprincipled businessman, like Donald J. Trump. Dallas.fandom describes J.R. as "covetous, egocentric, manipulative and amoral oil baron with psychopathic tendencies."  

Had the show occurred in the last fifteen years J.R. would be a private equity underwriter (PEU).  Writers could use Apollo co-founder and Epstein sponsor Leon Black as inspiration for a PEU J.R.  Bloomberg noted Black to be the "most feared man" in private equity in 2020.

How did J.R. Trump do in Dallas?  On night one the Great Usurper offered $5,000 dividends for adult voters if his team (Red) wins enough races to keep control of both houses of Congress.  

On night two Trump asked his audience to pledge to vote (even if they aren't registered) and for elected officials to cheat like hell. 

J.R. Trump uses mail-in ballots to vote but does not believe others deserve access to what he has found convenient.  

Trump accuses the Blue Team of cheating, while the Red Team plans to taint the midterm elections.  It matters not the color of the stain, Red or Blue.  

It just needs to be jacked up so Trump II can try to steer the outcome via a Congress he controls and a mostly subservient Supreme Court.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  J.R.Trump does not share.  He buys control, manipulates like hell to maintain it and if he thinks he'll lose that control, the man blows the whole thing up.  

An intervention will be required to stem Trump II's worst instincts (which result in savage whims).  Congress?  The Supremes?  The Divine?

Flags of All Colors Fly for Patrick Witt

Semafor sat down with Trump II's top crypto advisor Patrick Witt to discuss dwindling opportunities to pass the Clarity Act.  Witt warned that time is running out.  I wondered who is this Patrick Witt, other than a former McKinsey staffer and almost NFL quarterback.

Digital assets, emerging financial technologies, strategic capital for the country's defense...for one to be an expert in all these would be rather amazing.  Not for Patrick Witt, Trump II's Executive Director of the White House Council of Advisors for Digital Assets and Acting Director of the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Capital.  Witt was appointed in August 2025 to these positions.

Witt's background raised interest with "served as managing director for a lower-middle market private equity firm."  None of his bio's stated which private equity underwriter (PEU).

From January to May 2025 Witt was interim Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and Deputy Chief Technology Officer.  Was he able to steer any military contracts to firms associated with Eric and Don Jr.?

Internet sources show Witt founded Turnkey Contractor Solutions LLC, served as Managing Director for EcoFusion Solutions and worked in a director role for First Liberty Building and Loan.

Turnkey dissolved as a Georgia corporation in September 2024.  EcoFusion's website is no longer findable (per Witt's LinkedIn page link) and First Liberty Building and Loan failed and later turned out to be a Ponzi scheme.

There is no evidence that Witt knew his employer ran a Ponzi scheme, yet he was charged with growing that financial institution through new ventures and strategic expansion.

Working for two failures and a shady operation does not seem a strong hand to renew the Defense Department or pioneer Digital Assets (which has legions of shady operators).

Patrick Witt appears to be a person who can fill many roles, like James Fishback.  They seem to be able to get past the orientation but appear not to be long term players in specific fields of expertise.

It's good to be a PEU generalist nowadays.  To many that's a plus.  For me, it's a Red Flag.

Update 9-14-26:  Trump is pushing hard for Congress to pass the Clarity Act.  How many elected officials know Patrick Witt worked for a Ponzi scheme?  This story line fits amazingly well with crypto overall, the currency of nothing.

Trump II Tries to "Liquidity Recap" Voters to Pick Red in November

Trump II dressed down Senate candidate Ken Paxton at his midterm convention.  Even in "favored" Trump world there are punching bags.  The President dinged Paxton in his home state and the crowd laughed mightily.

Trump II could add, "he may not be ethical" or "he may be a criminal, like me."  Paxton was charged with securities fraud in 2015 but reached a settlement in 2024 where he performed community service and paid restitution to his victims.

That was not Ken's only brush with financial crime.  Texas Attorney General Paxton was turned in by his staff for accepting money and home renovation services from Nate Paul, an Austin private equity underwriter (PEU).  

Last night Trump offered a bounty of $5,000 per adult for electing Ken and other Red Team Congressional candidates such that they retain their majorities in each chamber.  That alone sounds unethical and possibly worthy of criminal charges.

His performance based "dividend" would need to be financed and add over $1 trillion to the national debt.  That echoes private equity's "liquidity recaps," where an affiliate takes out even more debt in order to pay a huge chunk of it to the sponsor as a special dividend/distribution.

Trump II and Ken Paxton are the Joe McCarthy (crazed politician) and Roy Cohn (dirty lawyer) of our time.  However, the White House is full of similar, unsavory characters.

Corey Lewandowski allegedly approached officials from two Middle Eastern countries seeking work “on the side” while serving as a special government employee — and effective “shadow secretary” of the Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem, with massive influence over contracts worth billions, according to a bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal.

 Red Team, Red Ink, Red Line, Red Notice....

Sorry PEU boys and your sponsored politicians, my vote is not for sale.

(This was cross posted on Ari'sFreedomSwitch for its freedom/voting/unethical politician content)

LIV Golf Imploding

LIV Golf declared bankruptcy and golfers are the largest unsecured creditors listed in the filing.

Jon Rahm is owed nearly $7.5 million, and Bryson DeChambeau is owed more than $5.7 million.

Phil Mickelson predicted he'd be on the winning side with his LIV Golf choice.  It's nearly four years after Mickelson said golfers needed to pick a side.  How many will stay with the bankrupt entity and how many will return to the PGA?  

As for its business structure USA Today reported:

LIV Golf New Jersey LLC and roughly 50 affiliated entities filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Creditors may soon be owners under the new LIV operating model:

LIV said Tuesday in a statement it wants to turn player debt into player equity. The tour signed a restructuring support agreements with BC Partners Credit built around what it calls a player-first ownership model, under which the reorganized company would be majority owned by the players themselves.

Who knew "pick a side" would refer to holding debt or equity in your own tour?   Jon Rahm appears to want neither in the case of LIV.

Multiple existing players have told me they are finished with the league.

Pro golfers picked "scary mother fu_kers" in 2022.  Will they pick BC Partners in 2026?   I'm not sure going from sovereign wealth fund to private equity underwriter (PEU) will leave a better taste in their mouth.  

It's a buyout gone bad.  Many U.S. workers know it well.