…de ends is de means [DOT 2/4/24]

the means to the ends of the man of...what means, exactly?...

…ok…so…knight specialty insurance…not exactly your shining armor kinda knight…but they ponied up so the marmalade melanoma can joust with the appeals court on that half-a-billion business

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/01/trump-bond-civil-fraud-case-averts-asset-seizures

…&…yeah…gets to fight another day…sounds a lot like “there he goes getting away with shit, again”…but…what it sounds like & what it looks like look like different things to me, even if that probably doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot…still & all…would be kinda intrigued to know what the collateral was listed as…& how that valuation was reached…because as far as I can make out knight insurance group aren’t some bunch of hapless newbs…so presumably they think they can extract their pound of flesh if it comes to it…&…well…maybe I’m just falling for confirmation bias & actually he can crime his way out of the mire…but the possibility it might come to that…seems more real to me than damn near anything he says?

The value of Donald Trump’s stake in Truth Social fell by more than $1bn on Monday after the social media company revealed it lost $58.2m last year and an auditor disclosed “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating.

…might dip in & out of this one

…I mean…it’s all about who got to wring a profit out of the thing once it felt the torque of market forces, I suppose…& if a few of those entities are functional proxies for the ones whose profits are contractually obliged to remain on paper for the time being…which is most of the ones this thing from the other day talked about

Shares of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company continued to surge on Wednesday, extending the gains on its first official trading session on the Nasdaq the day before.

After another double-digit percentage gain, the parent of Truth Social approached $9 billion in market value, a windfall for insiders awarded shares in the company.

The biggest beneficiary is Mr. Trump, the company’s largest shareholder, whose stake is worth more than $5 billion, on paper. No other shareholder comes close, according to regulatory filings, but many of Trump Media’s executives have seen their net worth swell this week, in some cases by many millions of dollars.

Many People and Companies Have Made Millions on Trump Media’s Stock [NYT]

…because those folks are experiencing a trajectory that ought to feel familiar to anyone who’s done business with the man who stands to gain the most

Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, dropped 21.5% as investors scrutinized the fundamentals of its business.

The former president’s vast stake in the firm was worth about $4.88bn on paper after its extraordinary stock market debut last week . After Monday’s sell-off, it was valued at about $3.83bn.

…will eventually make it back to this effort

…&…the numbers have yo-yo’d about since the guardian attempted to explain how the valuation thing works

How does Trump stand to make $3bn from Truth Social being listed on the market? [Guardian]

…but…short version…broadly speaking

Digital World is a meme stock, the term for an equity that is boosted by amateur investors on online forums via internet memes (an image, video or piece of text that is copied and passed around, often re-emerging with slight alterations).
[…]
In one meme example on the Digital World page on Reddit, a photograph of Trump pointing is emblazoned with the slogan “He’s Right! Get More DWAC [Digital World Acquisition Corp]!” Another shows a bald eagle carrying the US flag in its talons with the letters DWAC above it.

Julian Klymochko, the chief executive of Accelerate Financial Technologies, which has a Spac-focused fund, says Digital World’s soaring valuation has become detached from the fundamental value of Trump Media and its sales of less than $5m.

“The stock’s market capitalisation is completely unhinged from its underlying fundamental business value. The stock price is solely based on being a meme stock,” he says.

…from the how? thing

…&…well…funny they should mention reddit

[…]Reddit in the past two years, compared with Facebook when it was roughly the same size in revenue terms. One might notice a lot of interesting differences. Facebook was already generating cash profits in 2009, and its growth rate was much higher, but Reddit is generating many more dollars per user than Meta was back then. Adding more details to the comparison would uncover other suggestive points of difference. You might also bring in valuation, noting that Reddit is trading at 13 times trailing revenue, right where Meta was after its 2012 IPO, and so on.

…that bit’s from an FT column…under the heading “valuing reddit is hard”…although it also showed up for me at one point under a title of “the limits of equity valuation”…either way…the sub-title points out “and so is justifying the trump SPAC at $60 a share”…&…the FT generally doesn’t blow smoke about that sort of thing

It is possible to build a model that estimates what Reddit’s number of active users, revenue per user and cost base will be in five or 10 years. Lots of people are doing this now. Somebody’s model may turn out to be almost right. But in an important sense there is only one question that matters, and it’s not about numbers: can Reddit become a global phenomenon on the model of Meta, or even close? If so, its current $10bn valuation is a bargain.

Or will Reddit end up like Twitter/X and Snap, which are big but not as big as Meta, and have struggled to turn users into money as efficiently as Meta has? What, broadly, has made the difference? I confess that I do not know how to answer those questions — which are not financial questions in any meaningful sense — in a disciplined way. And I’m slightly sceptical that anyone else knows how to do it, either. But I’m open to suggestions.


A price of $60 implies equity value of $12bn, for a company with current revenues of just a few million. Over at Lex, our colleague Sujeet Indapnotes the contrast with Reddit, with a $10bn market cap against $1bn of revenue. He writes: “TMTG looks like a rightwing meme stock combined with the classic pathologies of the Spac bubble”

Sounds about right. But it got us wondering: what hypothetical financials would justify a $60 stock price? As a starting point, we had a look at a December 2023 investor presentation prepared for the Trump Spac, which includes this helpful valuation exercise for Truth Social, the social media network owned by TMTG:

[…there’s an image here of the figures they juggle that the next bit refers to]

Even this $1bn equity value figure — a 12th of the current market value — requires strong assumptions. The company doesn’t release user numbers (“adhering to traditional key performance indicators . . . could potentially divert [our] focus”, it says). Similarweb puts Truth Social’s monthly active user count at less than 1mn; the table above assumes average daily active users top 1mn this year, and nearly triple that in 2025. CPM, how much an advertiser pays per thousand ad impressions, is projected to hit $10 in 2025. According to Gupta Media, an ad agency, a $10 CPM is higher than TikTok or YouTube has received in the past three years, and in line with the highest CPMs Meta has recently earned.

But still, the above valuation is nowhere close to a $60 share price. We’ve reproduced TMTG’s valuation exercise — adding its separate $319mn equity value projection for Truth+, a not-yet-launched conservative streaming service that the company expects will reach $312mn in revenue by 2026. Adding $1bn for Truth Social to $319mn for Truth+ and dividing by the fully diluted share count of 205mn gets you to $6.44 per share.

To get to $60, we must be bolder:

  • Similarweb reports that Truth Social’s total website visits hit 5mn last month. Let’s assume every single monthly site visitor became a daily active user, and then the DAU count more than doubles the following year. That pushes 2024 revenue to $73mn and 2025 revenue to $639mn. But the implied share price remains at just less than $20.
  • Next, suppose that by 2025 Truth Social manages to charge advertisers 50 per cent higher CPMs than Meta did at its recent peak. Assuming a $10 CPM in 2024 and $15 CPM in 2025 gets you to a $30 share price.
  • Getting rid of the company’s 25/75 weighting of 2024 and 2025 results, and shifting all weight to 2025, boosts the share price a bit, to $36.
  • Donald Trump, famously, hires only “the best and most serious people.” So perhaps his TMTG management team is chock full of world-class fundraisers. Assume, then, that TMTG’s weighted average cost of capital falls from more than 20 per cent to 5-6 per cent, the S&P 500’s average WACC. Even then, we’re only at $51.

At this point in the exercise, Unhedged was struggling to come up with further tweaks (which is why we’re in financial journalism, not the sell side). So we just let user growth rip. Assuming that average daily active users reaches 7.5mn by the end of the year and doubles again in 2025, CPMs are higher than Meta’s and capital is dirt cheap, we finally arrive at today’s $60 share price. The table below shows deviations from the company’s initial projections in red:

…for “weighting” read “thumb on the scales”…in reality it’s considerably more complicated than that but the point in broad terms is that the weight needs to provide more inertia than that torque I mentioned can overcome…or it will “correct” like an unforgiving flywheel geared like one of those wheels on the dumptrucks the size of a house

FT Alphaville put it well in a recent note to clients on TMTG stock: “To some commentators, a valuation of 1,000 times trailing revenue looks optically challenging. We consider it a reflection of the quality within the shareholder base.” (Ethan Wu)

Valuing Reddit is hard [FT via archive.ph]

…now…whether that’s a problem…& if it is who it’s what sort of a problem for…is at the very least debatable…so…to get back to that thing I started out with

While over $4m in sales marks significant growth from $1.47m in 2022, the previous year, it underlines the small scale of Trump Media’s operation – and the depth of its losses.

BF Borgers of Colorado, an auditor for the company, said the losses “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern”, according to Monday’s filings.

Trump Media separately acknowledged that it could be “subject to greater risks” than other social media platforms “because of the focus of our offerings and the involvement of President Trump”.

…uh-huh…do tell…I’m not saying the people in nominal charge of the thing’s primary qualifications are principally based on them being dumber than an ox…but one of them notably lost a court case against a virtual cow…& he’s excited about how things are looking…or at least is prepared to say so in public

Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media, said it was “excited” to be operating as a public company. “Closing out the 2023 financials related to the merger, Truth Social today has no debt and over $200m in the bank, opening numerous possibilities for expanding and enhancing our platform,” he said.

Eric Swider, former CEO of Digital World and now a director at Trump Media, described it in a statement as a “united, debt-free, publicly traded company”.

…if I said that, as a group of people, we happy (or grumpier-than-fuck, as the case may be) few here at our august little backwater in the shifting online currents were debt-free & of one mind…do you suppose anyone would value us at…say…a few hundred million bucks? …we could go lair-shopping for real if we could get our lady of perpetual prosecutions to cover the operating costs…I’m telling you…that shit is arguably more plausible than the valuation of this garbage…or elon’s holdings, frankly…but I guess it’s like what happens when you let the kind of russian oligarch with an actual bond-villian-monster-boat with a point-defense system & a submersible you can escape in…buy an internationally recognized soccer club…once you take some money from someone who theoretically has a shit ton of the stuff…the rest of it gets real

A volatile market surge over recent months has nevertheless transformed Trump Media into a so-called meme stock, boosted by internet memes – posted, in its case, on platforms including Truth Social – urging retail investors to buy into it.

It has joined a small bevy of stocks, most famously the video games retailer GameStop, which rattled Wall Street by staging unexpected, turbulent rallies in recent years. Maintaining momentum after the initial surge has often proved challenging.

Trump has a vast stake in Trump Media, and its arrival on the market has netted him a multibillion-dollar paper fortune. When it finally combined with Digital World last Monday, Bloomberg said the former president had joined the ranks of the world’s 500 wealthiest people for the first time.

He is currently unable to offload his stake, however, and will need the stock to continue to trade at the levels to which it has surged in recent months if he is to raise billions of dollars from a sale.

Trump, who is vying to regain the presidency from Joe Biden in November’s election, is grappling with hefty legal costs. He is on the hook for $454m after a civil fraud case, although the former president was recently thrown a lifeline when a panel of appellate court judges provided him with 10 days to secure a far smaller $175m bond.

John Rekenthaler, vice-president for research at Morningstar, recently argued Trump Media was akin to a cryptocurrency. “As with bitcoin, people buy Trump Media not for future cash flows but because: 1) they expect its price to rise, and 2) they feel an affiliation for the asset,” he wrote. For Trump Media investors, “DJT shares represent a currency by which they can express their beliefs and commitment.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/01/trump-truth-social-stocks

…&…honestly…there’s no end of fascinating rabbit holes & tangents I’d as soon dive down from there

Many companies try to convince you to support their business, social or political agendas. But starting in the 2010s with Uber and Airbnb, technology companies hit on a potent form of political persuasion.

With your attention through the apps in your pocket, companies enlist your support by stressing the potential – and perhaps overstated – risks to the apps’ conveniences or people’s livelihoods.
[…]
Sometimes rallying users has helped stop regulation. Sometimes it hasn’t.
[…]
Fight for the Future, a digital rights group, said at the time that 3 million people emailed Congress to oppose the proposed laws known as SOPA and PIPA. The bills died.

Udbhav Tiwari, director of global product policy for the web browser company Mozilla, said the decade-old campaign had two ingredients needed to effectively mobilize people over regulations. TikTok has one of those two ingredients. (TikTok didn’t respond to my questions.)

First, you have to feel like the outcome of the policy matters to your interests, not just those of a company.

TikTok’s messages urging you to oppose congressional legislation warn that you might lose access to an app you love. TikTok has also stressed that if the app is banned, some people might lose income they earn from TikTok videos.

Second, Tiwari said turning users into lobbyists is more effective if it involves multiple organizations. But the proposed TikTok legislation is focused on one app and TikTok is mostly alone in mobilizing users against it.

Tiwari said TikTok should be sparing in rallying app users to its policy campaigns. You might call Congress the first time a company asks, but it might feel unfair if you’re asked again.

“You can only play it once,” he said.

Technology companies enlist you as unpaid lobbyists. Is that fair? [WaPo]

…seriously…no end of the buggers

Because it’s America — or, rather, a moment in America marked by outrage politics and deep distrust of the government — no further context was required for the nearly four-minute video from March 19 to go viral. Reposts of the clip have garnered millions of views across social media platforms, in large part because of right-wing pundits and conspiracy theorists.

Devoid of information about Abdeljawad or her beliefs, the video was uncomplicated by racial, religious or ideological baggage. It was a made-for-sharing scene of a woman in Oklahoma standing up for her rights. The fuzziness of the details allowed the episode to travel across cultural and political lines, turning one Egyptian American Muslim’s experience into a symbol for anyone with a grievance against the federal government. The video worked like a kaleidoscope of the fraught political climate, the image shifting depending on who was looking.

Muslim civil rights groups saw it and worried about a resurgence of surveillance tactics that vilified communities in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Among Donald Trump’s Republican base, the visit was evidence of “Joe Biden’s Justice Department” harassing ordinary citizens. Left-wing activists saw the long arm of the state. Far-right militia groups saw proof of the “tyranny” they profess to fight.

The FBI’s Oklahoma City office declined to address the video, responding to questions with a general statement saying that the bureau routinely “engages with members of the public in furtherance of our mission.”

“We can never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity,” the statement said. “The FBI is committed to ensuring our activities are conducted with a valid law enforcement or national security purpose, while upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans.”

A representative for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, declined to comment.

Although the clip has spread among a wide cross-section of the online public, an uptick since late last week can be traced to promotion by the hard right’s social media stars.

A viral video of FBI agents looking into pro-Palestinian Facebook posts reflects the muddled politics and social media swirl of 2024 [WaPo]

…like surfing the doom spiral or something…if this is draining the swamp you start to wonder who exactly is circling what drain…or I do, anyroad

Two Israeli journalists traveled to Palm Beach, Fla., a little over a week ago, hoping to elicit from Donald J. Trump a powerful expression of support for their country’s war in Gaza.

Instead, one of them wrote that what they heard from Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago “shocked us to the core.”

“Both U.S. presidential candidates, Biden and Trump, are turning their rhetorical backs on Israel,” concluded Ariel Kahana, a right-wing settler who is the senior diplomatic correspondent for Israel Hayom. The newspaper is owned by the billionaire Republican donor Miriam Adelson; Ms. Adelson herself arranged the interview with Mr. Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the planning.

What had Mr. Trump said that so alarmed Mr. Kahana?

He told the interviewers that Israel was losing public support for its Gaza assault, that the images of devastation were bad for Israel’s global image and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should end his war soon — statements that sounded far more like something President Biden might say than the kind of cheerleading Mr. Netanyahu has come to expect from Washington Republicans.

Trump’s Call for Israel to ‘Finish Up’ War Alarms Some on the Right

…&…well…that’s not really all that surprising when you think about the part where his fucking antics impinge on shit that affects so many people

Trump rebuked for sharing video showing Biden hog-tied on pickup truck [Guardian]

…from the surviving hostages seized on a fateful october morning…to…well

Conspiracy, monetisation and weirdness: social media has become ungovernable [Guardian]

…kind of everyone everywhere for as long as we’ve got?

Election of Donald Trump ‘could put world’s climate goals at risk’ [Guardian]

[…speaking of which…that’s as long as I’d got in the allotted time…but I’m…well, I’m as yet inadequately caffeinated for the prospect of the day ahead…& as it turns out…a long way from feeling like I’m going to get to putting the musical handbrake on this morning’s runaway train of thought…so I’m liable to balloon this post for a while yet…apologies & all…but from where I’m sitting it’s a bit like an exorcism…& I could do without my head spinning round or projectile vomiting pea soup…so…it is what it is…or will be, I guess?]

…so…I’m not done worrying at what looks like exposed bone on the skeletal entity that is his high-chief-schmuckedy-shmuck-ness’ fortunes…on account of…well…fuck the emperor’s new clothes…this shit resembles the zombie version of the fatted calf to me…what meat there is on the bones of the thing is rotten to the core & in danger of falling off in clumps until it’s not clear what kind of malignant sorcery is keeping it propped on its feet…& that’s arguably an exercise in wasted time & acute frustration…so…it nags at me that I could have spent this on something with a potentially more rewarding return

Salt, air and bricks: could this be the future of energy storage? [Guardian]

BUYING TIME: Can We Engineer Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis? [NYT]

…or I could have spun my wheels & ground my gears in a bunch of familiar ruts

Video shows California police fatally shooting teenager who was reported kidnapped [Guardian]

…I’d say you couldn’t make it up…but…miserably enough…you don’t fucking have to, do you?

Extremist ex-adviser drives ‘anti-white racism’ plan for Trump win – report [Guardian]
[…no-prizes for guessing that’s stephen “actually looks like the evil serial killer in the movie” miller]

Al Jazeera faces ‘security threat’ ban as Israel passes new law [Guardian]

…& yes, a lot of israelis did once again take to the streets to demand we move to a stage bibi doesn’t occupy as a first order of business…but

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/01/opinion/jewish-liberalism.html

Biden’s plan for Gaza pier endangers U.S. troops, experts warn [WaPo]

U.S. signs off on more bombs, warplanes for Israel [WaPo]

…in the meantime

IRGC commander among dead after Israeli strike on Iran consulate in Syria [Guyardian]

…whatever folks are feeling in their waters ain’t getting noticeably calmer

Inside Ukraine’s quest to keep its European dream alive [WaPo]

…assuming you get past the indifference

The most exciting idea in politics is indifference [WaPo]

…or what it takes to move your needle

The Taliban’s oppression of women is apartheid. Let’s call it that. [WaPo]

…or how western your western extremities might stretch to

What’s behind Europe’s surly mood? ‘Whaddya got?’ [WaPo]

…still & all…like the song says…some things make us all the same

Crucial European Green Deal package staggers to legislative conclusion [Guardian]

Copernicus online portal offers terrifying view of climate emergency [Guardian]

…you…me…us…them

Israel lodges plan with UN for dismantling of Palestinian relief agency [Guardian]

…guess some folks just ain’t hearin’ it, tho

Congressman rebuked for call to bomb Gaza ‘like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’ [Guardian]

…too busy talking shop about their pet talking shop, I guess

What the TikTok Bill Is Really About, According to a Leading Republican [NYT]

…AKA…the busted flush…the clog in the political u-bend…mitch’s bum-knee-jerk-reaction-mass…hardly matters

How Mitch McConnell broke Congress [Vox]

…stacked deck or no…when you can buy the pot & retire…that’s a dealer’s choice he was happy enough to make

McConnell Stole a Supreme Court Seat. Is That the Norm Now? [NY Magazine]

…speaking of lessons learned the hard way…medhi ain’t happy about the medicine…but they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

For the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court [Guardian]

…so…the fuck am I doing still thinking about how the man who needs as much money as he says he has might have not enough of his or anybody else’s money for what’s rolling up on him?

Flow of arms from US to Israel continues despite ceasefire abstention [Guardian]

…don’t we all have more important shit to contend with?

We Still Haven’t Figured Out How to Beat ISIS [NYT]

…some of it fairly fundamental

Unproductive Agriculture Is Holding Africa Back [NYT]

…while here I am getting steamed up over hot air being blown about to play tricks with smoke & mirrors…well…it’s not because I love me a courtroom drama

For Trump opponents who want to see him behind bars, even a half-billion-dollar hit to his wallet might not carry the same satisfaction. But if, as Jonathan Mahler suggested in 2020, “visions of Donald Trump in an orange jumpsuit” turn out to be “more fantasy than reality,” civil justice has already shown itself to be a valuable tool for keeping him in check — and it may ultimately prove more successful in the long run at reining him in.

The legal system is not a monolith but a collection of different, interrelated systems. Although not as heralded as the criminal cases against Mr. Trump, civil suits have proved effective in imposing some measure of accountability on him, in situations where criminal prosecution might be too delayed, divisive or damaging to the law.

To understand why the civil system has been so successful against Mr. Trump, it’s important to understand some differences between civil and criminal justice. Civil actions have a lower standard of proof than criminal ones. In the civil fraud case, Justice Arthur Engoron applied a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, which required the attorney general to prove that it was more likely than not that Mr. Trump committed fraud. (Criminal cases require a jury to decide beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed a crime, a far higher standard.) As a result, it is much easier for those suing Mr. Trump in civil court to obtain favorable judgments.

These judgments can help — and already are helping — curb Mr. Trump’s behavior. Since Justice Engoron’s judgment in the civil fraud case, the monitor assigned to watch over the Trump Organization, the former federal judge Barbara Jones, has already identified deficiencies in the company’s financial reporting. After the second jury verdict in Ms. Carroll’s favor, Mr. Trump did not immediately return to attacking her, as he did in the past. (He remained relatively silent about her for several weeks before lashing out again in March.)

Returning to the White House will not insulate Mr. Trump from the consequences of civil litigation. As president, he could direct his attorney general to dismiss federal criminal charges against him or even attempt to pardon himself if convicted. He cannot do either with civil cases, which can proceed even against presidents. (In Clinton v. Jones, the Supreme Court held that a sitting president has no immunity from civil litigation for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office. And as recently as December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit made clear that even if the challenged acts took place during his presidency, when the president “acts in an unofficial, private capacity, he is subject to civil suits like any private citizen.”)

…&…I might personally see some appeal in doing the math & checking the actuarial tables to see how many times you could fit the “several weeks” of not-serially-defaming-the-victim-of-his-assault the nigh-$100million bought…& totaling up the figure for the fine that would keep him quiet on that until he took it to his grave…while we’re plucking numbers from the air & all

Furthermore, through civil litigation, we could one day learn more about the inner workings of the Trump empire. Civil cases allow for broader discovery than criminal cases do. Ms. James, for instance, was able to investigate Mr. Trump’s businesses for almost three years before filing suit. And in the Carroll cases, Mr. Trump had to sit for depositions — an experience he seemed not to enjoy, according to Ms. Carroll’s attorney. There is no equivalent pretrial process in the criminal context, where defendants enjoy greater protections — most notably, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Don’t Overlook the Power of the Civil Cases Against Donald Trump [NYT]

…&…while I doubt it’s exactly what the lady had in mind when she wrote this…what with it hardly seeming like something with an age-limit that cuts out at 40

Here’s why Americans under 40 are so disillusioned with capitalism [WaPo]

…who can seriously claim to not be at least a little jaded about who winds up lapping up all that C.R.E.A.M. the wu tang went on about…particularly when it allows for these sorts of fun & games

…&…well…that’s not even the half of it

In the years after Donald Trump lost the presidency to Joe Biden, Trump sent so many emails and text messages asking for money that Republican consultants warned his mailing lists could become useless. The former president’s friends told him that they were being asked for too much, too often, and Trump himself ordered aides at one point to slow the solicitations. Some of his fans, pockets emptied, mailed handwritten letters apologizing for not being able to give more.

Now, as Trump and Biden prepare for a rematch, Trump’s vaunted small-dollar fundraising operation is not bringing in as much money as it once did.

In 2020, Trump and his fundraising committees raised a record $626.6 million from small-dollar donors, 35 percent more than Biden took in from that group.

But last year, Trump raised just $51 million from small donors, way down from the $119 million he registered in 2019 and only 18 percent more than Biden’s total. His small-dollar haul — which includes donations of $200 or less — was not nearly enough to offset Biden’s lead among major donors.

The Republican National Committee also raised much less money from small-dollar donors in 2023 than it had in 2019, contributing to budget problems for the party. Officials at the National Republican Senatorial Committee were shocked by the low returns on their investment in the strategy ahead of the last midterm elections.
[…]
More than two dozen people across the Trump campaign, Republican fundraising committees and private firms spoke to The Washington Post to discuss the decline in the Republican Party’s small-dollar fundraising. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.

“The biggest problem in GOP fundraising is that we don’t treat donors well,” said John Hall, a Republican small-dollar fundraiser who runs the digital firm Apex Strategies. “Sending eight emails and texts a day that promise an artificial match, threaten to take away your GOP membership, or call you a traitor if you don’t donate doesn’t build a long-term relationship with donors.”

Small-dollar fundraising firms have warned some GOP clients to lower their expectations. When former vice president Mike Pence launched his presidential campaign, officials at Targeted Victory, a small-dollar digital firm, warned him that “returns were way down because of oversaturation,” according to Marc Short, his former chief of staff. Pence’s campaign struggled to raise small-dollar donations, and he dropped out long before voting began.

Short said other vendors offered similar warnings, and Pence continues to work with Targeted Victory.

“You had a new vehicle to raise money, but everyone kind of abused it,” Short said. “Its effectiveness wore out.”

…kind of?

Partially fueled by Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen, the campaign raised more than $100 million from small donors in the final weeks of 2020, much of which was spent on legal bills after the election. Few pitches did better than ones that purported to fight the results of the 2020 election.

After the riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump’s team stopped its small-dollar fundraising program for a short period. Federal prosecutors investigated the campaign’s fundraising methods, and sent subpoenas to some vendors. Trump advisers said the main vendor that sent out the pitches, Salesforce, dropped them as a client. Salesforce did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Trump’s team resumed sending emails after a few weeks, but donors weren’t giving like they once did. Trump was not in the news as much. Many were exhausted. Trump tried to keep the money train going by bombarding people with emails, and advisers rented his list to some other political candidates.

Trump’s success in 2020 led more candidates to want in. Nearly every Republican elected official signed on with one of the handful of firms, mostly based in Northern Virginia, that specialize in helping politicians persuade ordinary Americans to hand over their credit card details. One of the biggest such firms is Targeted Victory, which counts dozens of senators and members of Congress among its clients.
[…]
“The fact is that President Trump is the best digital fundraiser in the history of the party,” CEO Zac Moffatt said in an interview.
[…]
In 2021, top advisers to Republican politicians across Washington held conference calls to discuss the precipitous decline in small-dollar fundraising. On at least one of the calls, Josh Holmes, an adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), raised concerns that Republican donors were being asked for money too often, according to people who remembered the calls and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump’s fundraisers did not agree and said they wanted to continue pelting donors with texts and emails, one of the people said.

Top officials at the NRSC, which invested extensively in small-dollar fundraising during 2021, were disappointed by the results, former employees said. The committee suspended some of its small-dollar fundraising efforts months before the 2022 midterm election and ended the cycle about $20 million in debt — largely because the small-dollar fundraising numbers did not meet projections.
[…]
The Republican National Committee also struggled. Its small-dollar fundraising campaigns for candidates other than Trump often flopped. One such message, a sweepstakes to meet Pence, raised less than $500, according to people familiar with the 2022 sweepstakes.

Trump’s name still helped bring in money from small-dollar donors. But his team was angry that so many candidates were using his picture and his words to raise money that did not go to him. At one point in 2022, Targeted Victory executives instructed their copywriting team to slow the Trump-focused pitches because the Trump team was litigious and was raising concerns about candidates using his name without permission, according to the former employees.

…it’s possible that the business model is…flawed

Too many people were trying to get money from the same donors, Moffatt said. These days, every candidate expects to be able to raise small-dollar donations.

“It’s easy to blame texts and emails, but people don’t want to state the obvious: There’s far more competition in the space,” Moffatt said. “As more races come on board, more people are competing. It used to be 50 people trying to talk to them; now it’s 150, even if the donors have grown 25 percent.”

Too many political consultants “are very comfortable going to the same donors over and over, then complain when it doesn’t work as well as it once did,” Moffatt added. “The idea that someone — no matter who they are — can hit a button, spin something up, and expect money to gush in overnight isn’t the current reality. The best candidates are the ones who invest in it and have their own unique group of donors.”

Changing how small-dollar firms make money would be “the best way to correct the oversending and overspending on campaigns,” Hall argued. Sometimes, small-dollar fundraising consultants get paid based on how many emails or texts they send out, creating an incentive for them to send as many as possible. Fundraising firms can also make big money renting out their lists. Other contracts allow consultants to keep a small percentage of every dollar they raise for a candidate.

“If to make a profit folks had to net money, far more campaigns would net money,” Hall said.
[…]
Some small-dollar donors stopped giving to the RNC as much. It brought in $35 million in small-dollar donations last year, down from $94 million in 2019 and only barely ahead of the Democratic National Committee.

In the first month of 2024, the DNC outraised the RNC among small-dollar donors, $4.1 million to $3.6 million, and the RNC outraised the DNC narrowly in February. The committee is poised to boost its small-dollar fundraising, co-chair Lara Trump said recently.
[…]
Trump and his team still send multiple pitches a day with headlines like “I want you to own this flag!” or “I signed this NEVER SURRENDER poster!” which offers donors a signed poster of Trump’s Georgia mug shot. On days when Trump is under attack or has said something particularly controversial, he usually raises more money, his people said. He is sometimes briefed on the fundraising numbers, advisers said.

How Republicans texted and emailed their way into a money problem [WaPo]

…see…what with all the frothing nonsense that’s so desperate to distract from this part…it can be hard to see…but…the outline of the silhouette in the mouth of the tunnel being back-lit by the oncoming freight train…well…it resembles something to me

Donald Trump is someone you should think carefully about hitching your financial fortunes to. The guy is a gifted carnival barker, no doubt. But when it comes to serious business, he is a bad bet. Many of his ventures, from vodka and steaks to casinos and “university” degrees, have flopped like dying fish. Declaring corporate bankruptcy seems to be one of his favorite hobbies. And even when he wriggles away from failure largely unscathed, the other parties involved aren’t always so fortunate. Where money is involved, anyone still foolish enough to crawl into bed with him should be prepared for the experience to end in tears.

Which leads me to gently note: Hey, Republican Party, pay attention! You are being herded toward potential financial ruin. The red flags are smacking you in the face. Wake up and smell the grift!

…hard to see how they missed it stinking up the joint the way it has been

One might assume that a presidential nominee who generates as much devotion as Mr. Trump would be a financial boon to his party. One would be wrong. With Mr. Trump, everything is about Mr. Trump. Other candidates and committees are an afterthought, left to squabble over his scraps. Which might not be problematic if the party’s money machine were whirring along smoothly. But it is not. Whether we’re talking about the battle for Congress or the basic health of the state parties, the G.O.P. is going through a rough financial patch, fueled in no small part by the MAGA king and his minions.
[…]
Now with Mr. Trump the de facto nominee, some top donors will hold their noses and start paying their tributes. But how do you build a strong party when at least part of your money is going to the nominee’s eye-popping legal bills? Being multiply indicted costs big bucks (more than $100 million and counting in his case). The former president has avoided paying those expenses with his own money so far — court costs are for suckers! — instead relying on his fans’ donations to accounts related to his 2020 election-fraud lies. But those accounts are drying up. Fresh income streams must be found. Anyone need a $59.99 Bible?

…sounds a lot like praying to the god of winging it…but what do I know?

Asked last month if she thought Republican voters would support the Republican National Committee footing Mr. Trump’s legal costs, Lara Trump, soon to be the committee’s co-chair, declared, “Absolutely.” I mean, what else is a good daughter-in-law supposed to say? Still, this possibility has raised enough eyebrows among donors that another Trump lackey, Chris LaCivita, who now oversees the R.N.C.’s operations, has vowed that committee funds will not be used for such.

Except! That doesn’t rule out slippery arrangements like the one in the invitation to an April 6 fund-raiser being hosted in Palm Beach, Fla., by the Trump 47 Committee, the fund-raising effort by the Trump campaign and the R.N.C. Individual attendees may contribute up to $814,600, with donations distributed accordingly: The first $6,600, the maximum allowed by federal law, will go into Mr. Trump’s campaign coffers. The next $5,000 (again, the legal limit) will flow to the Save America PAC, which is the primary vehicle used to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills. The next tranche, up to $413,000, will go to the R.N.C., which, as noted, has effectively been turned into a Trump family joint. Anything remaining will trickle down to the party committees in various states.

So to review: Under the new fund-raising agreement, the entity handling Mr. Trump’s legal bills takes its bite before the party committees receive a penny. That smells about right.

As you might imagine, there are better places those dollars could go to help Republicans this election cycle. Multiple state parties have been plagued by financial troubles, including in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia — battleground states that could easily decide not only the presidential race but also control of the Senate and House. But time and money are being wasted on Trumpian drama, with factional infighting, poor leadership and, of course, legal troubles.
[…]
Rarely has a political party been more desperately in need of a leader who can calm the waters, unify the feuding factions and charm the money men and women. Instead, Republicans have fallen in line behind a guy who has zero loyalty to the party, who cares only how it can serve him and who would rather strip it for parts than invest a nickel in its general well-being.

This deep into the Trump era, people can’t say they weren’t warned.

Trump Is Financially Ruining the Republican Party [NYT]

…couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of scammers & crooks & fly-by-night shit-stirrers…still…when you think of the sheer number of bodies buried behind that shit the scale is a little mind-boggling…but then…holy shit is the truth ever stranger than even some pretty fucking strange fiction?

The Bizarre Chinese Murder Plot Behind Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’
Lin Qi, a billionaire who helped produce the science-fiction hit, was poisoned to death by a disgruntled executive. His attacker now faces the death penalty.

…you…uhhhh…couldn’t make it up?

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26 Comments

  1. Exorcisms… lancing a boil, so one doesn’t die of nastiness…

     

    Just another regular ‘ol Tuesday!😉💖

     

    What I wanna know about the new Trumpco stocks,  are basically two questions–

    When will we “discover” (aka when will folks finally realize) that the “shell company” is most likely just a ruse to be able to funnel cash directly from “foreign investors”?

    And honestly, too, when will we learn that it’s also probably there for him to liquidate more than a few of the LLC’s Trumpty-Dumpty has set up over the years, before *those* get forensically accounted for, and their funds are frozen to pay his legal claimants?

    Just like the Trumpco takeover of the RNC, so that they can just scam/skim the money *directly* off the rubes willing to shell it over, and probably also allowing them to take “donations” from non-Americans… I can’t *help* but imagine–*especially* knowing the Meme-stock status, that TrumpCoMedia is merely another grift and attempt at raiding the cookie jar…

    I also wonder *which* is going to happen first–the lawsuit for insider trading, “defrauding investors” (quotes on this, because it’s *already* a scam from the et-go!), or the one for funneling Foreign Money into election coffers?

    • This is correct. Truth Social is a money-laundering operation. It allows Saudis, Chinese, Israelis, and anyone else who wants to bribe Trump to provide him money directly by buying the worthless stock. Putin can play too — it’s publicly traded!

      The question now is who will line up to buy? Is Vlad done with the orange imbecile? Can Jared persuade the Saudis to pump money into a losing cause? It’s pay to play — anyone can join in!

      The best coverage, though, has been the non-MAGAs who jumped in early, knowing that cultists would drive the price up, and then sold at the peak. Some of their quotes are priceless.

    • …in terms of your questions…I think this part is a bit similar to the criminal/civil burden of proof

      When will we “discover” (aka when will folks finally realize) that the “shell company” is most likely just a ruse to be able to funnel cash directly from “foreign investors”?

      …in that we kinda know that…to the extent that it’s been mired in more than its share of legal morass

      https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/trumps-4-billion-spac-deal-hit-by-wave-of-lawsuits-over-shares

      …& that means there’s been some of that discovery going on…plus the angle where the first time he got a sniff of that back end they walked the money back away from him to the investors…or at least their vehicles…so the part where those are the sort of instruments that play the familiar tune of “beneficiaries? what beneficiaries? I don’t see any names…” in a way that is essentially optional & not exactly indicative of the fiduciary free speech that’s protected in the political arena no matter how united the citizens might be if they aren’t all the right sort of citizens

      “It’ll make quite a few people pretty wealthy on paper, but can they crystallize that wealth? That’ll be TBD,” said Julian Klymochko, chief executive officer of Accelerate Financial Technologies, which has a SPAC-focused fund.

      Shares of DWAC, as the special purpose acquisition company or SPAC is known, have held onto a 130% gain this year, meaning stakeholders in the firm are in for a windfall. While the stock has peeled back from a January high, its strong rally in 2024 leaves plenty of room for performance targets to be met that would provide further equity-based rewards.
      […]
      DWAC moved on Tuesday to ensure that the deal goes through by suing to force its sponsor ARC Global Investments II to vote in favor of the deal. Industry watchers had mixed views on how the lawsuit could impact an approval. However, a terminated pact will cost all parties dearly, including ARC Global — which currently stands to make more than $400 million on the deal.

      In its own lawsuit, ARC Global managing partner and former DWAC CEO Patrick Orlando’s firm has been trying to delay the deal arguing it should have an increased position in the new company — potentially bolstering its holding by 26%.

      Representatives for DWAC, Trump Media and ARC Global didn’t respond to requests for comment.

      Meanwhile, Trump Media co-founders Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, both former contestants on Trump’s reality show The Apprentice, who have separately sued the SPAC are set to take home about $320 million, with potential for almost $150 million more in earnout shares.

      There are a number of caveats to the windfalls. Trump and other stakeholders will have to wait months to cash out because members of Trump Media’s management team are subject to a lock-up period of roughly six months during which they cannot sell or transfer shares, unless the company files to expedite that timing.

      …which it might…needs must when the devil drives & such…but even if you account for what looks suspiciously like a circuit or two of cut-outs & useful idiots providing cover like a low-rent version of the way vlad runs his numbers racket…most of where the inward investment springs from are sources as vested in their anonymity as they can make their obfuscated interests…which for the time being is at least more opaque than all those emoluments that allegedly didn’t qualify for the title…& presumably they could care less about the haircut when it comes to the return they want from their investment

      The earnouts are also dependent on shares avoiding the fallout that’s typically hit SPAC deals. Trump Media’s goal of rivaling “the liberal media consortium” has proven difficult to achieve. The company is struggling to generate a profit, losing $49 million in the nine months through September while delivering just $3.4 million in revenue.
      [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/trump-media-s-blockbuster-spac-deal-set-to-enrich-allies-and-foes]

      …still…from the parts of the iceberg that are visible

      Patrick Orlando, the Miami-based businessman who set up the special purpose acquisition company that merged with TMTG, has a stake worth about half a billion dollars. Not bad for a guy who worked out of a WeWork office, was unceremoniously ousted as chief executive of the Spac he set up, and recently sued the company.
      It might seem like a kick in the teeth for Eric Swider, the new CEO of the Spac, who got the deal over the line. His $30mn stake is a fraction of what Orlando stands to receive, but on the bright side his payout would be in line with CEOs of big banks such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
      Two former contestants on Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice, who claim they came up with the idea of setting up TMTG together, have stakes worth about $436mn. Their partnership, United Atlantic Ventures, has also sued, alleging that Trump and his associates had orchestrated a “last-minute stock grab” before TMTG listed.
      One group that may be able to exit faster than anyone else is the three hedge funds that helped finance the final push for the listing. Mangrove Partners, Anson Funds and All Blue Capital are sitting on nine-figure windfalls and will be able to sell as soon as a registration statement is filed by the Spac. That typically happens within 90 days but they can push for it to happen sooner, if necessary.
      Some of the funds have put on “dirty hedges” to protect windfalls as big as $200mn. Hedging, however, is expensive. One fund lost $10mn on its hedges on Tuesday, sources told DD.
      “We are losing real money and making fake money,” said the person, though they nonetheless saw the gains on Tuesday as a “great outcome” as millions of shares traded.
      For the rest of the current and former executives involved in the Trump Spac, as well as the man himself, it will be six long months of sitting and praying that the share price holds up.
      Ultimately, they are all sitting on “a game of musical chairs”, said the person involved. “At some point the game will end.”
      [The SPAC that made Donald Trump rich again – the FT again]
      …I’d say it’s fair to draw a conclusion or two without falling foul if we’re keeping it civil?

  2. Huge news out of Florida. The Florida Supreme Court is allowing the abortion amendment and the recreational marijuana amendment to go forward. I did NOT see that coming. Plus a six-week ban pushed by DeSantis goes in effect at the end of the month. Expect a LOT of women and younger folks to flock to the polls in November.

    ‘Incredible opportunity’: Florida Senate hopeful cheers abortion ballot measure

    This has galvanized the normally moribund Florida Democratic Party to do some actual work and push candidates. The article notes that Senator Rick Scott, who has never won an election by more that a little over a percentage point and has screeched incessantly about outlawing abortion, is very vulnerable.

    • I do not understand this. They get Roe. v. Wade overturned, and suddenly the GOP is in a panic and watching the polls nosedive and trying to figure out a way to spin this—why didn’t they just leave things alone if this was so unpopular from sea to shining sea? What next? A return to the divorce laws of the 1950s?

      • …it’s overly glib & morbidly flippant…but…when it comes to the dog that caught the car it’s sort of a schrodinger’s breed…so…in terms of “if the dunce’s MAGA cap fits” the short-hand that talks about y’all-qaeda is painfully on the money…there’s an interfaith fraternity of men who can’t rest easy in a world where women aren’t subjugated the way…oh…I dunno…jk rowling would like trans folks to be or whatever her little “I didn’t say it where it was illegal that’s just where I live now whatcha gonna do about it (p.s. aren’t I brave)” stunt is supposed to be stating in all its stunting stunted statement-ing…since apparently that’s where some folks have designated the main character coverage of the day should direct its attentions…& strange as the mixture of bedfellows at the sausage-fest might at first glance appear…that incel-inside that everyone from a one-eyed claw-handed bomb-making mullah to andrew (professional-douche-canoe™) tate to some exploitative bottom-feeding scum-sucker coercing minors into what the UK rather quaintly euphemizes down to “county lines” all pay homage to have plenty of apron strings in common when it comes to their schizophrenic concept of women

        …if I think about it too much I worry I might end up like odin or wotan or however we’re spelling it today…he wanted to understand the fairer sex…turns out even if you’re a norse god & you get the big piece of chicken at dinner knowing the knowings of the women comes at the going rate of a half-oedipus…or if you prefer…just the stomping gloucester gets from cornwall in lear without the gouging out to complete the pair…that’s why he wears a patch…at least according to some stories…hopefully it’s like letting sleeping dogs lie…if a girl’s gotta have a little mystery…color me mystified, I guess…can’t think of many women of my acquaintance who seem to have difficulty giving me a piece of their mind when the fancy takes them…but they do strike me as being harder to do without than any of the people advocating for how important to the very fabric of society it is that they shut up & look pretty & “smile, love – it may never happen” their way through a world that frequently seems to think violence done them doesn’t count…at least in my experience

        …so…if I had to hazard a guess at why they didn’t avoid hazarding their chances on a known hazard in the political third-rail category?

        …they weren’t thinking with their heads…certainly not the ones that are so all-fired big they need a ten-gallon hat, anyway?

        • …at the risk that I really am just talking to myself…not even, now I think about it…this is a reply, technically…& that’s an answer by another name…so that’s the first & second signs of madness accounted for & I should probably stop typing to check the palm of my hand for any wild hairs

          …but…per a lady by the name of rebecca solnit…who’s drawn her share of checks on the guardian’s payroll…I undersold that

          The US supreme court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas cited the Comstock Act, named after the 19th-century anti-vice campaigner Anthony Comstock, in last week’s case about access to the abortion pill mifepristone. If you don’t know who Anthony Comstock was or what his law did, that might not have alarmed you. But it should have.

          The Comstock Law has come up a lot lately, and it’s part of the Republican war on sex, and to put it that way might sound overly dramatic. But there is such a war, and parts of it – against sex education, against access to birth control, against the healthcare provider Planned Parenthood and of course against abortion – have long been out in the open along with a war against the rights of women and on the rights and very existence of queer and trans people.

          Comstock was reputed to be driven by religious shame over masturbation to become his era’s most extreme anti-sex crusader. He rose to prominence in the early 1870s, when he convinced Congress to make it a crime to advertise, sell or mail contraceptives or give out contraceptive information, even orally, or to mail anything “immoral” – a term whose vagueness allowed widespread prosecution, including of a feminist newspaper reporting on sexual abuse whose prominent publishers, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, he got sent to prison. Like modern-day rightwingers he was a book-burner, and he boasted that he had driven 15 people to suicide.

          “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” is a handy quote and it does seem to describe well Donald Trump, who has hugged a lot of US flags onstage and last week was hawking Christian nationalist Bibles. But if fascism really comes to America, it won’t come just as a single figure. It will come sneaking in, as local, state and federal laws and the gradual erosion of rights pushed by many players at many levels. In fact it has been coming at us all along. It is right now, among other things, a full-fledged anti-sex movement.

          Too many people thought that Roe v Wade wouldn’t really be overturned just like they thought Trump wouldn’t really be elected. The assumption that norms will persist is these days a dangerous obtuseness, whether it’s about climate, domestic policy, society or the international order. While the backlash to Roe’s June 2022 overturning has been spectacular, with Democratic election victories and blue-state legislation strengthening reproductive rights, that doesn’t spare women in red states from the horrific consequences of the decision.

          At this point we all know they include prosecution for miscarriages suspected of being abortions, let alone for actual abortions, and lack of timely care from medical providers, who, fearful of prosecution themselves, sometimes wait for miscarrying patients to go critical from infection or loss of blood before offering care. As the law journalist Mark Joseph Stern tweeted on 27 March, “The anti-abortion movement’s end goal is to let doctors refuse treatment – including life-saving emergency care – for patients whom they deem to be sinful and morally impure.” The patients, largely women, are supposed to die for their sins.

          As if that weren’t enough, in May 2023, the Heritage Foundation declared on social media, “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.” It’s a fanatical statement: the vast majority of sex had by the vast majority of human beings does not have reproduction as its goal, though the term recreational disparages what can be a joy, a profound connection, or a transcendence of self, among other things.

          The Project 2025 agenda for a rightwing coup, should Trump win this November, declares that the USAid office of gender equality and women’s empowerment “should remove all … language on USAid websites, in agency publications and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include” terms including “gender and gender equality” and should also remove references to “abortion”, “reproductive health” and “sexual and reproductive rights”. The threats are in plain sight; I hope people notice them.

          It’s not a coincidence that the authoritarian right is obsessed with both the border and women’s bodies; they’d like to increase the patrolling of both, and essentially shut them both down. It’s an obsession with purity and control to be achieved by punitive and sometimes homicidally violent means. And it’s a roadmap straight back to the terrible inequality women were already campaigning against in Anthony Comstock’s time.
          [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/02/the-republican-party-has-become-a-full-fledged-anti-sex-movement]

          …I generally try to resist the temptation to block quote a thing from beginning to end but I rather think maybe I just did…either way…the lady don’t seem to me to protest too much?

      • It’s … well, not simple but uniquely GOP. There are two types of Republicans: rubes and grifters. Politicians typically fall into the grifter category, though any random Republican can be both. Rubes, by definition, are stupid.

        The problem with stupid is that stupid is hard to control. So the grifters have exploited the stupid via evangelical religion, screaming nonsense about fetuses that’s not in the Bible or reflected by science. That’s great, up until the rubes start running with the program they’ve been indoctrinated into for decades. Then you get evangelical judges overturning Roe and most reproductive rights.

        The grifters are horrified — some have even resorted to begging the evangelicals to stop passing abortion laws. But remember that part about stupid? The rubes literally can’t see that they are screwing over the Republican politicians.

        If you’d like me to wax metaphorical, the GOP has created Frankenstein’s Monster, which is in the process of destroying them all.

        • And adding on to the “Rubes & Grifters” part–

          Just like the “Establishment Republicans” like ‘ol Linz, Jebby “Please Clap?” Bush, and the *rest* of the spineless suck-ups in that party were *shocked Pikachu-face* when Trumpty-Dumpty *won* in 2016–

          The Dog of a party never PLANNED for what to do, if they ever CAUGHT the car.

          With Dobbs, ther dog of a party managed to absolutely LOCK their jaws onto the car-bumper which is outlawing Abortion and contraceptives–and I have to *presume* eventually pointing out that We Women, and the rest of y’all who aren’t *White Landowning Men over a particular age* (as is STATED in the Text of the US Constitution!), actually *HAVE* no established rights, other than the one of Voting…

          ~Meanwhile~

          The Religious Zealots/Christian Fundies, the White Supremacists/NeoNazis, and the MGTOW/Maniverse/Misogynists, etc (who believe that women *shouldn’t HAVE any rights) basically banded together in a “The Enemy of My Enemies is my Ally!” way, to get alllllll those Heritage judges on the bench, use Heritage Lawyers (and others) to bring lawsuits challenging Abortion Rights *everywhere*, annnnnd they also banded together to elect politicians at *all* levels–from School Boards to the Presidency, to push Bans on *everything* between sex-Ed and Abortion.

          The Rubes are RUNNING the whole frickin’ show, now–but the R’s who *haven’t* left the party think *THEY* can still assert *some* level of control, “If they just get the Votes!”

          🙄😒🤡

      • You don’t have to really dig too hard: Banning abortion was never popular. It was a fig leaf to get the religious types to vote for the GOP originally and then those voters became too large a bloc for the party to ignore.

        And look at how it was done: Not a national referendum (which they would have lost, quite badly) or even a state-by-state thing, but by backdooring it through a court system that has no legislative oversight whatsoever.

        You may joke about ’50s divorce laws but the same voters who think abortion bans are a good idea are 100% committed to ending contraception and no-fault divorce, so you’re on the money — and they’ll do it the same way they did this, because even they know none of it is remotely popular enough to stand up to voter scrutiny.

        • The manosphere podcasts that are converting Gen Z and young Millennial males to frothing hate-crimers are all about banning no fault divorce (and anything else that resembles a human right for gays or women).

        • The same ones have an even broader agenda too. Legalizing segregation, ending gay rights, the list goes on an on.

          And of course it includes religious discrimination under the guise of establishing the US as a “Christian” nation, meaning the ability to exercise basic citizenship would depend on being a Christian. Neutral government programs would be completely handed over to Christian organizations, and if someone wants to go to a health clinic, that clinic would be allowed to serve only its own members.

          For that matter, there is a strong current within the Christian nationalist movement to go after “non-trinitarian” Christians like Mormons, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other smaller Christian groups.

          People are kidding themselves about how extreme the Christian right is. They really do want dominion over all.

  3. If I were confident in shorting stock, had some actual skill and had the cash then this would look like a great money making opportunity but from what I understand though to make bank betting against Trump means that you have to have a lot of people betting the other way.

    Unfortunately MAGAts don’t have that kind of cash.

    It would be a shitshow. Better to save my few pennies and buy other stock.

  4. One such message, a sweepstakes to meet Pence, raised less than $500, according to people familiar with the 2022 sweepstakes 🙁

    And here Mother had gone out and bought a nice frock and was going to be glued to his side in case some Whore of Babylon won the sweepstakes. They’re always throwing themselves at Mike.

  5. Out of the blue: As he does every workday Better Half is on the (speaker)phone or Zoom calls for hours on end. He has to deal with a blowhardy guy, tangential to him, who will unleash time-wasting bromides like “I think what we on the team need to remember—”

    His familiar voice has tormented me for weeks, months, but I just achieved clarity. I finally realized that he has the voice of Cliff Clavin, from “Cheers.”

    • Every company has some sort of weirdo with a talking compulsion. There was one at my last job who would latch on to every single buzzword and use it as often as humanly possible. We used to drop buzzwords just to get him to “adopt” them and then snicker about it. Another (also at my last job) was called “The Retweeter” because she would listen to what other (smarter) people would say and then repeat it. Seriously. I think she just wanted people to remember she existed. But she never contributed an original thought.

      We had a lot of meetings at my last job. So there was both ample opportunity for idiocy and for us to play games to mock the idiots.

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