Midweek Meh-Ness [DOT 2/4/24]

3/4/24 MegMegMcGee 27

Happy Wednesday; hope everyone is having a great week so far!

Oops, didn’t even realize this was going on…

Biden and Trump sweep four primaries including battleground state Wisconsin
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/02/april-presidential-primaries-biden-trump-2024-election

Whoa!!

And in more natural disasters…

7.4-magnitude quake near Taiwan’s coast sparks tsunami warnings
https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/taiwan-earthquake-hualien-tsunami-warning-hnk-intl/index.html

Stonks!

Dow falls nearly 400 points to continue second quarter’s weak start
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/02/investing/dow-falls-q2/index.html

Sprots!

Iowa-LSU sets women’s NCAA hoops ratings record with 12.3M viewers
https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/39862514/iowa-lsu-rematch-shatters-tv-ratings-record-123m-viewers

CRAB CAKE

Have a great day!

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27 Comments

  1. The tide is turning.

    The Coming Biden Blowout

    Republicans thought about running without Trump in 2024—but lost their nerve. They’re heading for electoral disaster again.

    Why Trump’s Lunacy Is Suddenly Raising GOP Fears of Down-Ballot Losses

    Republicans facing tough races seem to have realized that having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket might pose a problem. What took them so long?

    Hill GOP to Trump: Tamp down the talk of grudges and Jan. 6

    They’re concerned about a rerun of the hair-pulling past — where Republican candidates in battleground races are constantly challenged to answer for his more erratic statements.

     

    • Frum was wrong about a lot of things (especially in regard to Canadian politics and the wah on terrah and pretty much 90% of the shit he wrote about) so I have my doubts about his veracity or analysis… even if I want to agree with him.

      But to be blunt it’s not looking too good for the GOPers especially if the Taliban wing openly starts sparring with the Country Clubbers ending the coalition of the venal and the stupid.

      • I agree with your opinion of Frum, but the article is notable in that a former employee of W is saying the Republicans are fucked.

        That stands in sharp contrast to all the cheerleading we’ve been seeing from the other media: Trump’s gonna win! All you Democrats just stay home because Trump’s got this locked up!

        The other thing is that it’s an admission that the Republicans KNOW they’re fucked. One thing I really haven’t mentioned is the stunning number of Republicans who are resigning. None of those assholes suddenly grew a conscience. They know that if they stay they’re going to lose. Better to walk and not be branded a loser, just in case they want to run again at some point.

        • As far as the resignations, another factor has dropped off the press radar which is the death threats against any members of Congress who opposes Team Trump.

          There was a brief flurry of reports when McCarthy was forced out, but since then as his former allies are retiring, the issue isn’t mentioned any more. Mitt Romney revealed he hired security for himself and his family in his last years in office due to credible threats based on his opposition to Trump.

          It’s not the only issue driving retirements, to be clear. But it’s the kind of crystalizing detail about the atmosphere of fear and loathing that reporters could legitimately use, if they wanted to connect the dots. It’s a good example, though, of how the political press tends to prefer using trivia to suggest things – Patrick Healy on Hillary Clinton’s laugh is a classic example – rather than include clear evidence to make a damning case.

          • That’s an excellent point. Trump’s stochastic terrorism is still in full effect, and it’s not just directed at Democrats. These maniacs start threatening anyone Trump mentions. I’m still amazed none of the judges in Trump’s multiple trials has said “enough” and put him in jail. Anyone else would be behind bars. It’s just like the Biden picture from this weekend — if I drove around with that in my truck the Secret Service would be surrounding my house right now. But Trump posts that shit for millions to see.

            I also think another factor in the shifting press coverage of Trump is the fact that Republicans are going to need a scapegoat for November, and he’s number one on the list. No Republican will ever admit a mistake, and they will never, ever admit that their fascist and authoritarian policies are costing them elections. So the Republican-leaning press like Frum is teeing up Trump to take the blame for massive electoral losses. That’s much better than admitting that “don’t tax billionaires” is a losing platform.

  2. …not to say there aren’t still a number of what they tend to call “hostile foreign interests” who might like to continue where the house of saud left off pouring money into trump/kushner accounts…but it would appear that you don’t have to go that far afield when you need a campaign contribution in kind over & above anything that would be legal if you called it that?

    Hankey, a Trump supporter who made a fortune providing high-interest auto loans to customers with poor credit, soon reached out to Trump’s team to negotiate a deal that would allow Trump to stay the penalty while he appealed a massive New York civil fraud judgment. But when a court reduced the bond to $175 million last week and Trump said he had the cash to post it himself, the matter seemed moot, Hankey told The Washington Post.

    Then, to his surprise, the Trump team last week revived the talks and asked Hankey if he would back the new amount. Hankey promptly agreed. He said that his company is charging Trump a “modest fee,” which he declined to disclose, and that the arrangement allowed Trump to hold onto his money, adding, “At least he’s getting interest on his collateral.”
    […]
    The financial boost for the presumed GOP nominee has thrust Hankey into the midst of a presidential campaign, bringing a new national profile to a colorful 80-year-old worth $7.4 billion, according to Forbes, who worked his way from car salesman to major player in the car loan industry and owner of Xanadu, formerly Olivia Newton-John’s Malibu estate. If Trump is elected, their relationship could come under new scrutiny if the government is involved in matters affecting Hankey’s business.
    […]
    “I’m chairman of the board of several companies, and we just carry on our business and we try to stay away from political issues or taking sides,” said Hankey, who said he has been a Trump supporter “and I will support him in the future, but I wouldn’t consider myself a major supporter.”

    …& while you’re buying that bridge, don would like you to know he also gives money to democrats…wonder if he gives them favorable loans when they’re in a bind, too…what with that sort of thing not tipping the scale into “major” support & all?

    …either way…he’s what you might call a sympathetic ear..what with having a business model geared towards loaning money to people who lie on their applications

    Hankey said that one of his businesses, Westlake Financial Services, provides loans to 1.5 million customers and that “quite often, when credit statements or financial statements are submitted to us, the values are exaggerated on some of the assets. … I would say it probably happens on 75 percent of our applications.”

    …but…he’s a busy guy…he doesn’t keep up with the little things…like who get loaned hundreds of millions of dollars or anything

    Hankey is also the largest individual, non-institutional shareholder of Axos Bank, a little-known online company that in 2022 provided $225 million in crucial loans to keep Trump’s businesses afloat after many of his longtime lenders cut ties in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Hankey said he was unaware of the Axos loans until after they were provided to the Trump Organization. Axos’s president and chief executive previously told The Post he approved the loans because they were profitable for his bank, not for political reasons.

    …still…looks like I might have been headed in the right direction thinking knight insurance might be familiar with how to extract their pound of flesh if they wanted to

    A 2015 article in Forbes magazine described Hankey calculating how he might provide a hypothetical customer with a low credit score a loan at 23.99 percent. The article said that his company at the time had 336,000 outstanding car loans from 23,000 auto dealerships, and that his company repossessed 250 cars per day because of problems with repayment.

    …even if it doesn’t look that likely that he’d call in the note on this one…he might have the kind of money fanta-fingers likes to pretend he has so he could take the hit & maybe even come back & cover the rest of the half a billion & still think of it as covering his investment in legal loan sharking with a bonus tax break for an RoI…but that’s probably just the tinfoil talking…I’m sure his business is only sketchy-adjacent…really

    While the business provided financing to many customers who couldn’t get it elsewhere, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that it sometimes went too far.

    The agency on Oct. 1, 2015, announced that it had ordered Westlake Financial Services and another company, Wilshire Consumer Credit, to provide $44.1 million in relief to customers and to pay a civil penalty of $4.25 million for what the agency called “illegal debt collection tactics.” The news release did not name Hankey, and he was not accused of wrongdoing. Hankey said in the interview that the companies relied on an “electronic program” and that he didn’t think they did anything wrong.

    …& the fact they would have gone the bigger number totally doesn’t mean that anything improper went down when the guy whose yuge apartment mostly only exists in his head pleaded with court that he couldn’t cover his tab

    After Engoron’s ruling, Trump moved to appeal — but first needed to either post a bond of more than $450 million to stay the financial penalty, or pay it. Weeks later, Trump’s attorneys told the court that he couldn’t do so after approaching 30 surety companies.

    But the Hankeys had already begun discussing a potential deal. Hankey said his wife, Debbi, first suggested providing the bond, and then contacted a friend who knew the campaign and connected them with Hankey.
    […]
    “We thought our negotiations were finished,” Hankey said. “And we were thanked by the Trump Organization.”

    But Trump’s company soon reached out again. “They called back and asked us if we would put up the bond for $175 million,” he said.

    It took only a few days to complete the new deal.

    …talk about catching a break

    Instead, he has gained stays in the two most daunting civil cases against him without having to forfeit any of his assets or sell any of his properties. Nor did he have to touch stock he has in his social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., a stake that was still valued at around $4 billion Tuesday afternoon despite the stock price’s recent slide.

    …no wonder anybody under 40 thinks capitalism is a ponzi scheme or whatever it was that thing yesterday said

    Robert E. Malchman, a longtime New York lawyer who has been following the bank case, said that the appellate court’s decision to reduce the bond amount had given Trump a lifeline and that James will probably now have to press her case well after the election through the appeals process.

    Trump still may face the full penalties, Malchman said, even if he returns to the White House.

    “He can be president of the United States again, but that’s not going to affect his civil judgments,” he said.

    He said Trump remains under the purview of a court monitor, former judge Barbara S. Jones, who must approve major financial transactions by the Trump Organization. And he can no longer use the money he has provided as collateral for the bond for other purposes, which could strap him financially. “That’s $175 million that you can’t use for anything else,” Malchman said.
    [Don Hankey, who made a fortune offering high-interest auto loans to customers with poor credit, said providing the $175 million bond to Trump is a good business deal – WaPo]

    …I don’t know who’d be the best candidate…but I’m tempted to try to start a petition & maybe even a crowdfund to provide a bounty for someone to achieve a full forensic accounting of a few of the usual suspects…I don’t mean in a “russia, if you’re listening” way or anything…but…everybody’s at it, right? …so…I dunno…if the FBI & the NSA & what have you have hatch act issues…couldn’t they phone a friend at GCHQ or something?

    …I’ve seen slow horses…gary oldman would have the goods before the kebab shop closed down for the night

    …sorry…but if “usurer stakes con man convicted of sexual assault in fraud case to keep evangelical-endorsed presidential candidacy (& thus hope of escaping catastrophic legal verdicts) alive” is where we’re at in beyond-is-that-the-onion-or-the-news territory I figure why not bid for other options in life-imitates-art-but-on-steroids?

     

  3. Well, it does sound vaguely perfect that this guy shares his name with a cartoon turd at least. . . .

  4. Well Israel’s deliberate strike on the aid convoy has had the desired effect. Other aid agencies have stopped sending their own convoys into Gaza. But no matter. Israel still gets all the weapons and money it wants.

    • Not to mention the evidence of war crimes found across Gaza and most recently at Al Shifa hospital. Doctors, surgeons, patients, pregnant women, children are all fair game to them.

  5. Tesla’s first quarter results were miserable, but even worse in terms of its stock price, worse than analysts had been led to believe.

    When outside analysts are being fed a stream of hogwash, that’s a warning sign that the company isn’t telling the truth to itself either.

    https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-catches-analysts-off-guard-with-kitchen-sink-q1-why-this-fund-manager-says-it-s-hard-to-be-bullish-on-ev-giant-s-stock-1033217904

    It was funny to read about analysts who thought the problem was soft demand in the US for Teslas and the one who thought the problem was their ability to supply Cybertrucks. Because what’s not being said is that both are really a Musk problem. Tesla has a CEO who is poisoning his brand, and making it toxic to buy a Tesla. He’s also hopelessly distracted and contradictory, which is screwing up their ability to build them. This quarterly report is a sign nobody at the company is willing to tell him any of this, either, and who knows how many are captive of groupthink.

    • monkey torture enthusiasts

      What. The. Fuck.

    • Judge McAfee in the Georgia trial delayed annoucing his decision last month to let Fani Willis remain because he wanted to have security for his home and family in place due to threats.

      There’s a disconnect in story after story which treats these things as isolated events and leaves out the blatant pattern. And what’s really bad about the disconnect is that reporters themselves are regularly the target of death threats after Trump goes on a rant – Chuck Todd had to hire security after being targeted.

  9. So, I am now one of the most hated things on earth… an HOA board member.

    We had two openings and only one guy was running. And he is a CRAZY person. So the existing board members panic-called me and one other guy (an incumbent who was not planning to run again) saying they needed adults in the room. I flat out said, I am a boss at work, I don’t want to be one at home. They ALREADY texted me saying there is a zoom at 1pm today. I said ok have fun, I am at work. And everyone else has an iPhone, I have an andriod, so I don’t even get to be on the group text lolol. I semi-volunteered to do the newsletter (since we’ve never had one and I’ve been suggesting one since I MOVED HERE in 2018) but honestly, that is all I am interested in/have the capacity for.

    • I wish you well and hope you keep your sanity before demanding everyone get off your lawn.

    • I hope the membership is reasonably chill. That can have a major mellowing effect on boards.

    • The Triumph des Willens, PumpkinSpies! Taking control of the media is just the first step. From there you will proceed to win a controversial mayoral election, backed by your somewhat thuggish supporters, A statewide movement will coalesce and you’ll be propelled into the Executive Mansion. Your rule is law.

      Every schoolchild must learn an instrument and modern dance. No one can graduate without speaking a foreign language (foreign to them. So if you’re a native speaker of Spanish, Spanish doesn’t count) fluently. Health care reform called PumpkinHealth. Every summer Saturday, when the sun goes down, experimental films from the 1950s and the 1960s will be projected against the wall of the Municipal Building. You will have a staff member, or maybe an entire staff, that will be charged with roaming the country picking up heroic statuary, at swap meets, small-town auctions, individual negotiations with other municipal figures. These finds will be placed around the state, so the visitor might be driving through a remote cornfield and find a tribute to Fulton and his steamboat.

      I know you can do it.

      • **scribbling notes**

        You want to move to IL? Get in on this early? GRASS ROOTS.

  10. This is only one state, but it’s a useful development in changing the way the political press operates:

    https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/02/voter-voices-2024-election-survey/

    Going back for decades, that model was described in press chronicles like The Boys on the Bus and Insider Baseball, where reporters would follow campaigns and let them set the agenda. If Karl Rove decided that the big issue was making John Kerry sound French, that’s what reporters covered, and there would be only a cursory effort to find out who really cared.

    The idea behind this model is to flip coverage on its head. Its goal is to focus first and foremost on what the public wants, and then describe candidates in terms of how well they are addressing those needs.

    To go back to 2020, campaign coverage would focus more on what candidates were proposing to deal with Covid, with less fixation on minor campaign tactics. There would be less chatter about the horse race and much more attention on issues that people care about.

    It’s possible to see how this could degrade into simply switching from polling on candidates to polling on issues – saying things like “this week education was the #2 issue at 32% but now it’s only 29%.” Or it could turn into simply redefining issues in ways which reinforce traditional coverage – saying things like “voters say they care about competence, so we’ll treat that as justifying freakout coverage of Biden’s age.”

    But done even halfway right, it could force coverage away from DC consultants and closer to grassroots.

    Another obvious question is what if the grassroots wants dumb stuff. And there is no question that happens. But on balance, I think the public has a better handle on what’s good for the country than DC insiders, and they’re also less committed to what’s profitable for narrow interests than the pundit class.

    I struggle to see the current batch of political reporters and editors wanting to change. They want to keep hiring more Ronna Romney McDaniels. But the model they’ve followed for decades is failing badly at the financial level, and I think a big part of it is people are seeing a huge disconnect between what they want and what they see on TV with former politicians yelling at each other about the color of a politician’s tie.

    • I’d love to see that here. We’ve got politicians squealing about drag queens and Disney, while our homeowner’s insurance has doubled and insurance companies are fleeing the state. I think if you asked enough people what actually counts, you’d find out nobody is worried about drag queen story time. But it’s an easy target for Republicans to punch down at.

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