Life can be a bumpy road, but it’s leading somewhere. [DOT 7/9/22]

Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch. - Walt Whitman

7/9/22 bryanlsplinter 40

If you know me, and most of you do by this point, you’ll know that optimism doesn’t come naturally to me. The wife of a friend of mine calls me “Sunshine” because of my … uniquely pessimistic outlook. (I should introduce her to Butcher.) However, for today’s DOT, I’m going against type and I’m going to feature hope. Well, mostly.

Voter registration is up massively heading into the 2022 midterms, and most of it favors Democrats. It’s mostly younger women. Younger men aren’t keeping up. Except in Texas, oddly enough, where the registration rates are about equal. But while under-25 Republicans registrations are increasing, they are dwarfed by the number of Democratic registrations since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs “decision.”

Is post-Roe voter registration benefiting Democrats?

Boom. Justice, bitches.

This Jan. 6 Rioter Was Just Removed From Office Using the 14th Amendment

Florida man and Cryptkeeper body double Rick Scott has blown about $173 million of the Republican’s money. Skeletor spent $23.3 million spent on new donor development but those new donors only contributed $6.1 million. In business, this would be called a “massive fuckup.” If you’re not Republican, it makes you snicker. Well, me, anyway.

Report: Rick Scott blew it

Trump’s chief toady and bootlicker thinks that Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling in favor of a special master for Trump is “deeply flawed in a number of ways.” You can guess what others who aren’t Trump co-conspirators say. Actually, you don’t have to guess:

Ruling from Judge Cannon isn’t just a gift to Trump, it’s a threat to both law and intelligence

It always makes me happy when somebody jiu-jitsus a Republican attack.

Country singer uses insult flung from Tucker Carlson to fundraise $100K in one day for trans folks

Looks like the Russians ain’t doing so well these days. Ukraine is reporting that 200 Russian military facilities are destroyed, including supply depots, repair centers, and command posts.

Ukraine update: Russian ‘hard points’ are falling in Kherson, Kharkiv, and near Izyum

Everything Trump touches dies. Truth Social doesn’t generate any revenue, has failed to pay vendor bills and hasn’t been able to get its Android app approved by Google. Plus, there are ongoing questions about who even sits on Truth Social’s board of directors. It’s just so … Trumpy.

Trump’s Truth Social faces new challenge

Truth Social’s ugly truth

Of course he did.

Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.

Sprots. It’s high time this stuff got rooted out. Maybe stop with the sexual harassment?

Bruce Allen testifies in House committee’s Washington NFL probe

Stonks? Well, it affects stonks.

Labor market added 315,000 jobs in August, a bright spot in the economy

Turtle content. “Bizarre” about covers it.

Toad in Cowboy Hat Rides Turtle Around House in Bizarre Video

Over to you, Deadsplinters. Share some sunshine.

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40 Comments

  1. Good morning, Sunshine!

    I had a friend who called his boyfriend that. My friend was sunnily disposed and his boyfriend was anything but, always grumping and grumbling. But still one of the funniest and smartest people I’ve ever met. My friend used to torment him. He’d return to the apartment in an absolutely foul mood and my friend would say, “Look, Sunshine! I picked up some flowers. Aren’t they beautiful? They’re gladiolas. I think beautiful flowers bring such joy to life, don’t you?” I witnessed this more than once.

    They broke up but oddly not because of a personality clash. My friend got headhunted out of the blue and accepted this really good and even more-good lucrative job in another city, and Sunshine refused to leave New York. I don’t blame him, not where my friend went. They tried long-distance but that ultimately withered and failed. Sunshine’s pessimism, in this case, was not misplaced.

    • I typically prefer the term “realism” to pessimism. I’ve found that a lot of people who are extraordinarily positive don’t always examine a situation from a variety of angles. I, on the other hand, normally try to look at things from all perspectives, including negative ones. Then I’m generally compelled to articulate all the scenarios, which gets me branded a pessimist. However, it’s very rare that I’m surprised by an outcome unless I’ve foolishly let my guard down.

  2. Oh, but I did have something substantive. Down in Mar-a-Lago, Trump apparently was holding on to documents regarding some other country’s defense position and nuclear capabilities. What one earth was he going to do with them? Blackmail the other country for their return? Sell them to that country’s most bitter enemy? This story just gets stranger and stranger. I hope we find out which country this is and they’re the kind of country like Russia that likes to take care of problems in their own quick and efficient way.

    I hope that link worked. It’s a WaPo story that came to me by an e-newsletter and they embed links that get you around paywalls.

    • …it’s rank speculation on my part…but whatever cash might have oozed its way from russia into his accounts/PACs/SPACs/& such…the big ticket number that springs to mind is the $2billion from the saudis

      …&…curiously enough I think there’s a certain mystique to quite what israel has/hasn’t got

      …so if I had to guess based on the scraps available I think that might be my first stop?

    • One bit of speculation I’ve seen is it’s info related to Iran that he may have kept to defend his decision to torpedo the Obama nuclear feeeze deal or undercut Biden’s efforts to restart it.

      I suspect one of the motivations behind his theft was collecting info for a 2024 run, and some of these docs may have been seen as useful to leak at some point. He may have even commissioned memos for this purpose.

      Other possibilities might be things like memos detailing possible successes during his time blocking ISIS from getting weapons, failures of Obama to stop North Korea, etc. He wouldn’t care that they gave away top secret intelligence gathering information, he would just want the headlines.

      • …I would absolutely buy that the idiot would see holding onto any & all bits of paper he got his grubby little hands on which he saw as conferring bragging rights as “his” because they had value to him personally so any & all of that would be at least (if not more) solid as my bid for a potential explanation

        …for whatever reason the israel nuke info being something the saudis would be willing to spring for to the tune of billions of dollars struck me as the ockham’s razor pick…though I’d expect that probably oversimplifies any underlying reality in practice?

        • I’m guessing there’s a mess of different stuff going on, and almost everyone is going to be partially right and partially wrong, except for those who insist there is only one thing.

  5. Your country singer link lead me to this story about author Nora Roberts (JD Robb) donating $50Kto fund a library defunded because LBGTQ+ books; she also asked to be contacted off-line to provide more, as $50K was the GoFundMe donation limit.

    From the article: “back in early August, residents of Jamestown voted to defund the library because of a handful of LGBTQ+ books available on the shelves.”

    • If I recall correctly, Nora Roberts also basically told the Romance Writers of America (now defunct over being bigoted racist douchebags) to fuck off and left when they tried to say that a “romance novel” had to be a love story with 1 man and 1 woman. So this 100% tracks.

  6. Speaking of roads leading somewhere, I’m taking a 10 day solo road trip starting Friday.  Going to see some people, some things.  Maybe take in a show.  I’ll try to file a dispatch or two.  Try to keep the place clean, and NO PARTIES.

  7. Rick Scott’s epic “mismanagement” of funds made the front page of the Orlando paper today. Obviously the quotes are because I’m quite certain that a huge chunk of the funds “spent” on digital advertising went right into Rick’s pocket, where they’re keeping his stolen Medicare funds company. The lesson here is that you don’t put an embezzler in charge of millions of dollars. I doubt Republicans have learned that though.

    One comment in the Mother Jones article (linked in DOT) made me laugh. The contention is that this will scuttle Rick’s presidential aspirations. Please. Republicans worship thieves. Especially if they’re orange.

    How Rick Scott-led group burned through millions in Senate campaign funds

  9. The Truth lie is funny — I saw one piece where someone went to the HQ offices and they looked deserted.

    Rip had a link yesterday to Facebook getting fined 400 million euros in Ireland for privacy violations for their now shuttered teen Instagram project. They easily have the cash, but I think for them the worse sign is that they seem unable to build off their core product. There’s a Henry Ford problem looming over Zuckerberg, where Ford failed to come up with a followup to the Model T and got left in the dust by GM.

    In a way I think he might have been better off if Truth had taken off, because it would have been a sign of untapped markets for 2008-style social media. But it may be oversaturated now, and if growth has stalled, a lot of the speculative bidding up for Facebook stock may continue to wither away.

    • Theoretically, PBM brokers should help patients save money, since they negotiate discounts with pharmaceutical companies to get better deals for insurers and their patients. In reality, that’s not quite how they operate. Instead of passing rebates onto patients, PBMs pocket most of the savings, while making medicines costlier for patients.

      …there are arguably a lot of things wrong with the way health care intersects with business in the states…but “these businesses exist specifically to lower the cost burden of pharmaceuticals and make considerable profits from their efforts in a fashion which results in patients paying more in direct contravention of the alleged service under which auspices said profits are derived” seems like one of the clearer ones I’ve come across?

    • Don’t get me started on the insurance racket (head explodes).

      I just gave to a GoFundMe for an acquaintance. Late diagnosis stage 3 breast cancer. Self-employed, so on her husband’s insurance. A week after her first chemo treatment in August, she ended up in the ER and then was admitted to the hospital with a life-threatening infection after insurance declined to pay for a shot to prevent such infections which are known to be associated with her type of cancer/chemo. Then – the next week – her husband’s job was eliminated, with no warning. So now, no insurance except for high $ COBRA.

      I was recently approved for a medication…that has been unavailable since April, due to manufacturer shortage. And denied the alternative drug because it is not on the approved list…but the approved drug is unavailable…

      • @Elliecoo, if you don’t already know this (And apologies if you do, but I’m also gonna write this in case we have someone who *doesn’t* know what to do in this situation!💖💞💗)

         

        Have your Primary appeal the denial–and *also* ask them to say they’re appealing, because of the other one not being available…

        Doesn’t help much in the *short term,* but it SHOULD get you *whichever* one happens to be available to your pharmacy, first!💖

         

        And if you happen to know if he’s got the energy?

         

        Have your friend’s husband reach out to folks who deal with Employment Law in their state!

         

        Folks in that field often work on contingency, so they’re pretty good about taking cases where they’re likely to win.

        I learned that, when I met with lawyers after *I* got laid off on the day I put in FMLA notice for my pancreas surgery.

        In *my* case, I didn’t end up going all the way through with filing a suit–it was just too much to try, and I’d decided to go back to college–and that field change would’ve made the case trickier….

        But if he they can *at all* tie his firing/layoff to the insurance, it may help them💖

  11. The RW is finding out that everything Trump touches dies.

    It might (more likely will) include them and their aspirations and dreams of white billionaire hegemony. I’m guessing no one is really pleased with Peter Thiel these days.

    The Fundies got their “aborshun win” via Trump and now are seeing the pushback of angry women who are watching the rights they took for granted being taken away by sadistic angry close minded old mostly white males.

    “Hell hath no fury like a woman whose rights are scorned.” An update on Willie S.

  12. When my friend first told me that his son was going to Queens, I realized one thing. Things will always change and that his son’s Queens is going to be different than the one my friend and I went to (duh.)

    He didn’t fill in his son on all the (stupid and chauvinistic) things we did knowing full well that things have changed. When we talked about school at dinner before they left, I wisely avoided most of the stupid shit except as tales of middle aged men being dumb young men.

    It is probably for the best to be honest.

    The reason I bring this up is that these angry mostly white guys from Peter Thiel to Tucker Carlson to the numerous loud mouthed Fundy shitheads and the sad boomers who dream back to a time when they were large and in charge when the well connected white hetero male had it so easy (or angry closeted gay males like Peter.)  Or even the oil/gas industry who still can’t realize they might have killed us all.

    But they can’t accept that times have changed and the world they’ve known is gone or morphing into something they can’t recognize. It’s more about “Adapt and die or refuse and die miserable.”

  13. We have two birthdays to celebrate today! Peggy Noonan turns 72. Does anyone else remember the hilarious dissections of her columns on Gawker? That didn’t last long but each one was a gem.

    Also, Primary Colors author and hardline Third Way-believing Democratic die-hard centrist Joe Klein turns 76. If you remember, Primary Colors was published by Anonymous. A certain slice of the New York–Beltway media became obsessed in finding out who Anonymous was. Joe Klein was fingered pretty early on. He denied and deflected. He was asked very publicly if he would risk his “journalistic reputation” on his denial. He said he would. Six months after publication he confessed. He is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

    • That’s Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Peggy Noonan.

      She won for her Trump era columns, no less. The idea that she had anything valid to say about him says a lot about the miserable state of the Pulitzers.

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