Monday, September 28, 2020

I’m Confused

Forbes says Trump is a billionaire:
But that’s not what the NYT report says at all:
And while Forbes notes the Net Operating Income (NOI) is where the NYT analysis goes wrong (so far? NYT reporting has just begun), @Diogenes” argues RE valuation is NOI/value (so, another wrinkle):
And now the next (not other; there are more to come) revelation (or just evidence of what was largely known) is the fact Trump got $400 million from Daddy, but was nearly broke when TV 📺 came calling.
According to this article, Trump earned $230 million marketing his name after “Tge Apprentice,” and this was a major source of income for several years. What kind of billionaire real estate mogul has to do that?  This is a guy who needed a TV show to pay his bills and who ran a casino into the ground and who set up a charity just so he could steal from it. How was he ever a billionaire?

(And yes, feel free to read all the Twitter threads 🧵 for the full analyses of each author. I feel like I’m listening to blind men describe an elephant. And then NPR today reported on it as if Trump had merely used the tax laws cleverly. You know, when only 1 “rich guy” does it, and other rich guys don’t, it ain’t because Trump has clever lawyers. By now we know he doesn’t. Maybe the stories of Trump’s wealth ain’t just so, NPR? Maybe?)
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Because The Sun Rises In The East

And Donald Trump is a tax cheat.

All three things are true, IOW. And in the case of the ACA, the truth is scary.

(Cornyn is scared. Dems in Texas are running on health care. Cornyn is running on things he did 10 years ago. He won’t even mention healthcare. And he’s not mentioning Trump. No Republican (in Houston, anyway) is.)
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Barns

I have one in my backyard. Well, it’s a small shed, actually, built to look like a mansard roofed barn. Must be what she means, because when I go out to mine at night I hear Chinese voices chattering that get quiet as I get near.

Well, that’s probably what would happen if I went out there at night.

Funny thing is, we don’t have barns like that down here. They aren’t red (my shed is) but usually made of corrugated metal. Built more to store hay than animals; some of them don’t even have sides. They certainly don’t house animals in winter; it never gets that cold.

So I guess all the Chinese are in the Midwest. In the barns. Or maybe the sheds that look like barns. (This woman was once elected to Federal office. Repeatedly. And you tell me Trump started it.)

Trump needs to take this case to the Supremes as soon as there are 9 of them again. They’ll be anxious to get to the bottom of this.
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Another Way of Looking At It

I still insist Trump's claims he won't go gently into that good night is simply full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The Daily Beast had a story that Trump was laughing at the consternation he was able to stir up. I don't doubt that. But I don't think his motivations are unitary and simple.  He's not a villain in a bad TV series.  So this explanation makes sense, too.

He stumbled into the Presidency and found himself invisible and bulletproof.  Someone got that into his thick skull over four years, and he liked it.  Or it got through to him when New York started investigating his "charity" (which was only a fund to funnel money to him, nothing more) and then came back around sniffing into his taxes.  Now he's squirting squid ink in all directions, but the net is already in the water, and there's no place for him to go.

And yes, he knows he's losing:

In November, the net gets hauled up, and he lands on the boat deck, squirming and out of his element and out of places to run to.  I don't look forward to his anguish and anxiety; I just want to see a little justice done.
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Taxes, Then Parscale

Anybody remember someone? Amy Coney something? Drug tests for Joe Biden? Fake news?

Something tells me this Parscale thing is just getting started.
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Two Things Here...

a) this is just a psychic scream. Trump is losing and he can't accept it. Literally; his psyche/mind/what have you, won't accept such monumental and public failure. So he discredits it like a child on the playground who is losing the game and callinge everyone else "cheaters!"

b) This is NOT evidence of electoral fraud that will get him into any court in the land, much less the Supremes. This isn't even a fact. It's a scream of pure anguish, as valid as a unicorn.

c) (alright, three things.  No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!)  No one is counting ballots yet.  Trump is conflating poll results with vote tallies (it's okay, the AP does it once every four years).  Again, back to a):  Trump isn't "undermining the electoral process," except by being a toddler with a shotgun.  What he says is of no force or effect, except as it mind drive down his own voter turnout.  Then again, his challenges to ballots will affect the GOP, too (and quite blindly), so maybe he should be encouraged in his ignorance.
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This Won’t Soon Get Old



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Sunday, September 27, 2020

To Shovel or To Be Human


Yes, yes it is.
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To God's Ear

Narrator: the debates aren't gonna do jack sh*t. Debates never do. Why, there could be over 400 million reasons.....
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That Didn’t Take Long

Even more impressive than the fundraising email I got 1 hour after I learned the news.

I think I need one of those buttons.
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Editor’s Note

This suggestion was offered before the NYT tax return story. Shortly before. How long did it take for that joke to be both old and devour itself at the same time?

“Wipe your hand across your mouth and laugh.
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.”  —T.S. Eliot
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“...in the coming weeks.”

Amy Coney who?

Oh, this isn’t the best of it.

To be King of Debt is to rule over a shitpile.
He literally ran for President because he needed the money.

Amy Coney who?
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No, No Freak Shows At All

Certainly not from the top down:
If there’s a drug that improves your mental acuity and public performance and makes you more eloquent on demand...where do I get some?
No hypocrisy here! Or in the Senate! It’s the drugs that make you feel that way! The drugs in the water! FLUORIDE!!!!!
Yeah, no freak show here at all!!
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Which Is Less A Problem...

...of ideology than it is a problem of “lifetime” appointments.

How much of the politics and policy of the country is going to change in 39 years? And how much will Barrett’s thinking change? Why are we giving anyone that much power and authority? The original answer wasn’t to benefit from their wisdom; it was to protect them from ideology. Now who protects us from their ideology?
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Saturday, September 26, 2020

Who Would Have Guessed They Were This Tone-Deaf?

They don’t even get the reference right. They’ve managed to insult both RBG’s fans and rap music aficionados. And all in time for the election.

Wasn’t their biggest problem supposed to be Trump? They make this almost superfluous:
Almost.
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Scalia Had A Judicial Philosophy?

I know Scalia was supposed to be the “smart one”. Mostly because everyone kept saying so ( and he said so first, last and always). But I always thought RBG had Scalia by the intellectual (and legal) short and curlies.

It was hard to argue with her reasoning, even when I disagreed. It wasn’t that hard to find the flaws in Scalia’s arguments. They were usually hiding behind his posturing. We need another Scalia on the high court like we need another Thomas. Then again the legal landscape is littered with Judges who deserved a place on that bench and never got it. And with judges on the bench who had no place there.

My judicial philosophy aligns with Learned Hand’s judicial realism, if only because he tried to make the law, not ideology, the center of a judge’s task. Scalia brayed  about a silly idea of “original intent “ which somehow always lined up with his ideology.

The curious thing is, that quote at the top of my blog says the opposite of poverty is justice. That’s an idea rooted in the prophets, and the law of Moses and the teachings of Jesus. Ginsburg (the Jew) seemed to understand that concept far better than Scalia (the Christian). I make no judgement based on that, just an observation: as you are rooted, so will you grow.
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2020 In One Story

My sympathies to the family. But this is 2020 in one awful metaphor. A story on all points with what We the People did to ourselves four years ago. Even the name of the acid involved sounds like something out of a bad horror movie.

Then again, doesn’t the whole year seem that way? And haven’t we learned that, at some point, fiction can’t keep up with reality?
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Friday, September 25, 2020

The Horse’s Mouth

First, that’s a pretty much from the horse’s mouth tale of the “fraud” in Pennsylvania. I mention that because there are so many reports on this situation slightly older ones are not as accurate as newer ones. And that plays a small role in the analysis that follows:
That op-ed raises a good point. There is a distinction between fraud and error, and that’s a point to keep in mind. Fraud can draw the interest of the court, but is very hard to prove. Error is less important. It can change a vote count; that’s why 9 ballots wound up in the trash. The PA Supreme Court agreed “naked” ballots had to be discarded. Speaking of error, this one is probably going to cost Trump a few more votes.
I suppose he means “cheating “ like the ballots in PA that we’re tossed because of the legal theory he got the courts to accept. (That’s never gonna get old.)

Error is also agreeing to an interview with a non-American journalist.
I still don’t understand why our journalists can’t do this.
Ending on a high note.
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Our President Is A Toddler On The Playground

QED. As I was saying...
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Because, You Know...

...let’s insult their intelligence further. Always a winning strategy!
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