Midweek Meh-Ness [DOT 28/2/24]

28/2/24 MegMegMcGee 46

Happy Leap Year Eve gang. Hope you are having a good week so far.

Trump defeats Haley in Michigan primary as Biden wins in Democratic race
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/02/27/michigan-primary-election-2024-campaign-updates/

Hamas and Israel pour cold water on Biden’s hopes of imminent ceasefire
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/hamas-and-israel-pour-cold-water-on-bidens-hopes-of-imminent-ceasefire

Stonks!

Tuition will be free at a New York City medical school thanks to a $1 billion gift
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/27/1234107300/free-tuition-albert-einstein-college-medicine

Sports!

Son drops lawsuit seeking to declare Houston Texans owner incapacitated
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/feb/27/son-drops-lawsuit-seeking-to-declare-houston-texans-owner-incapacitated

Bundt hate in the wild

Have a great day!

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46 Comments

  1. Dr Tree Hugger knows the truth.

    I’m actually glad that so many people voted uncommitted in MI. Biden has been far too willing to take on the right wing mantle on everything from China tariffs to immigration to Israel. He needs to accept the message and make some fucking changes.

    When I first heard about the Einstein gift my first thought was that it’s a natural experiment. We’ve heard for a long time that med students don’t select GP as their specialty because GPs don’t get paid nearly as much as other specialists and they can leave med school with upwards of a half million in debt. So now that education will be free for these students…will more of them go into GP? Or will they still go into the other specialties at the same rates because now it’ll be 100% profit.

    • …so I did listen to it…& it went about like I expected…until the end

      …was not expecting the music that played it out to be what sounded like a steel band version of a dr dre tune?

      …pretty sure it’s “the message” off 2001…around 5:20 mark…so not technically the outro…but it got me curious…I figured maybe it was meant to be wherever he pulled the sample from…but genius tells me that was a track called broken wings by a k’lee…& it sounds less calypso than kung fu movie soundtrack in that…but the message has a “you better listen” chorus that makes a better fit

      …either way

      …did not see that coming?

  3. …that seems like the fatal flaw to what I’d otherwise think seemed a sensible approach

    …we pay doctors a lot because we claim to value the time invested in them having the experience to perform the function we prize…& that part is intended to be a social/public good

    …so why not flip that value proposition & say if you’re willing to go that route it won’t cost you to do it the way, say, an MBA will…juries out on which side of the line you put the lawyers…but teachers & nurses & all those “essential” roles…public subsidies don’t seem nuts to me

    …until you hit the maximize-your-profit paradigm to turn it into a rip-off mechanism

    …feels like there’s something to it that ought to be able to withstand that if we really tried…but everyone’s pretty exhausted already so that doesn’t bode especially well?

    • …didn’t have time to scroll the comments earlier

      …& aside from that being sort of sad when I remember how things used to be…they did at least make several of the points I’d hoped…it’s an absurdity that elon is trying to set up a personal laptop that he doesn’t have an IT department who could provision for him…the MS person absolutely should have tweeted a poop emoji in response…& that telling the world your paper billionaire ass has a new device & “only work email addresses” is the sort of thing that gives office sysadmins sleepless nights

      …but I think I missed the people who surely must have pointed out that…you can’t read a tweet reply chain without giving elon the sort of sign in deets he doesn’t think it’s fair for MS to ask of him…so…hypocrite & all

      …but it’s not a baseless complaint…the defaults in windows at this point actively make it hard not only to configure access as a local administrator account & not a cloud-opt-in tracker-tastic 365 sign-in…& even if you do I’ve seen people inadvertently switch by following prompts they don’t understand that bug them until they do a thing they wouldn’t if they understood what was being asked…but don’t because it isn’t framed as a choice

      …so…elon is full of his usual levels of shit & ineptitude…but…broken clock?

      • Others have noted that you’re required to create an account to use all of the systems on a Tesla, so hypocritical is about right.

        It’s more about optics. Publicly admitting that you’re too stupid to set up a laptop (and it’s possible to do it without a Microsoft account, as Google will tell you) isn’t a good look for a self-proclaimed “genius.” Not having an IT admin to do it isn’t a good look for a billionaire. And broadcasting it just ensures you get unflattering scrutiny.

        I don’t claim to be a genius but I’d damn sure start somewhere else before asking to see the manager like Techno-Karen did.

        • …hard agree…I only figured the caveat was worth noting because I’ve had requests from perfectly sensible people for help getting that done because “it used to be something I didn’t need help doing, but…”

          …it absolutely is do-able…& looked at from the right narrow perspective it’s not even that hard…but the “helpful” setup routine…or wizard if you prefer…does a great job of making it seem to be?

    • Elmo didn’t strike me as off the charts brilliant. Only off the charts asshole.

      As for CEOs and tech…

      In May 06, I was working on the Friday of Victoria Day weekend because there was a release that needed to go out at the end of the month so I was pretty much the only stupid motherfucker in the office or so I thought.

      I suddenly hear the neighboring IT guys suddenly go into a frenzy and begin yelling at each other. Being naturally curious (nosy) I kept an ear open to hear what the hell was going on. It turns out our idiot CEO was having printer problems with a store bought printer at his home office. No biggie, just replace the printer (basic IT solution… anyone could have solved it). Nope. Arrogant fuckwit wanted THAT printer and didn’t want a replacement. Hence the sudden squawking as several levels of management tried to appease this shithead. After an hour of this, they realized that some ears might be listening and moved the call to the conference room.  Too late… the story spread because of some loudmouth asshole who was stuck working on the Friday before the long weekend.

      /I bit my tongue to keep from laughing till I realized that this arrogant motherfucker was our CEO and he’s making decisions based on ego rather than being rationale/

      It took three weeks and about 4 levels of management to “solve” the issue. Being an asshole type, I would have pried off the serial number plate of the original and swap it with a new one. Turns out that’s what they did.

      Shockingly, our CEO ended up ignoring IT security when they told him he shouldn’t use Yahoo messenger which got hacked by Huawei and they allegedly stole a bunch of files for our Bell/Tellus LTE network bid including one I developed for the sales teams.

      Same idiot CEO who would ignore the Wall St implosion and credit crunch (kind of important as we were living off our line of credit at the time) and put us right into bankruptcy.

      Who’s laughing now?

  8. How funny would it be if Trump were found Incompetent to Stand Trial and had to conduct his Presidential campaign from the confines of a psychiatric hospital?  I think one of the prosecutors should move to have him evaluated.

  9. This is a start for political analysis pieces about the GOP and IVF, but it could go a lot further:

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ivf-alabama-republicans_n_65de30c5e4b005b85831e99b

    Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said she supported access to IVF. When asked if she considered frozen embryos children, she said, “I don’t want to say they’re not children.”

    It’s a top level piece focusing on elected officials, but the part that needs explaining is why they’re in this bind.

    They’re in the bind because the hard right religious faction of the party is wildly extremist, and the principle of “life begins at conception” has been drilled into their heads for 50 years. It’s been on countless protest signs outside Planned Parenthood clinics, and it ends up in needlepoint samplers and airbrushed on cars. For decades Catholic kids have been bussed to marches with the slogan drilled into them, and it’s at the heart of what evangelical kids learn in school once abstinence classes start.

    These are the people who make up the rank and file of the GOP, and it’s one of the only bedrock principles they have. Propaganda about the mere possibility of fetal cells being used in vaccines has been one of the biggest recruiting tactics for the antivax movement, and it has become something that the antichoice movement has shown they are willing to sacrifice their own kids to maintain.

    GOP politicians can say they support IVF all they want, but they fall into two camps. Those who believe that IVF is still murder, and those who believe their careers will be murdered if they seriously support IVF.

    • …it’s been said before…but it’s what happens when you’re not at home to joined up thinking & you start…well…not really here but I needed a laugh?

      • That starts off with the surplus kids being sold off for medical experiments, which wasn’t so far off from Ireland, where the surplus ended up in unmarked graves at orphanages or as forced labor in the Magdalene Laundries.

        • …not as well known as the examples you’ve used…but swift’s modest proposal actually got an outing in russia back in the day…people were starving & for a time there was a practice of…well…selling kids…because who could eat their own?

          …sounds like it can’t be true…but…it made it into a BBC documentary recently & they haven’t fired all their fact checkers yet…so…less made up than you want it to be?

  10. Charlie Pierce does his usual fun job here

    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a46971690/jay-rosen-nbc-trump-south-carolina/

    but his hat tip to Jay Rosen is right. Rosen’s thread is here:

    https://nitter.poast.org/jayrosen_nyu/status/1761879735334735959

    Rosen is right to wonder who the audience even is for this article. Trump’s supporters don’t care for a second about real policies, and everyone else has seen all of the times Trump would read a speech about policy, pundits would intone this is the day he became president, and then 12 hours later he would completely throw the whole thing out of the window.

    The best I can guess is this is NBC News signalling to Trump’s team that they’re open for business, and eager to sell off their credibility in exchange for content they can recycle.

    • There are going to be people who want to appear smart who will say “McConnell was terrible, maybe this could be better.” They don’t have any idea how much worse it can get.

      The GOP side of the Senate is going to be as dysfunctional as the House side.

      And if, heavens help us, Trump wins, they will be jumping to pack the Supreme Court. They don’t want to legislate, and they’ll be eager to see someone else rubberstamping what Trump orders by fiat.

    • My personal read on this is that Mitch has lost his iron grip on his party, and so he’s going to abdicate rather than look increasingly pathetic by not being able to control his horde. Better to quit a winner than to look like that putz Qevin. BDC is right; as Republicans lean into their extreme radicalization, the Senate will go the same way the House has. Hopefully from a minority position in both places.

      Republicans can’t learn. As their draconian reproductive policies have proven, they can’t control themselves and they can’t back away from the cliff. Now we just have to see if we can push them over the edge in November.

      • …lost his grip is one way to put it…& I think you’re right…but my brain insists on phrasing it as “is leaving in a strop because the children won’t listen”…I pretty much loathe the dude…but a good bit of why would be a litany of things they’ll be less well-positioned to do without him than they’ve been with him riding herd on that particular legislative choke-point

        …it’s at least dimly possible that without him they actually might be so much worse at the game he more or less wrote the playbook for that their best efforts to bog the senate down will still let more stuff through even if they hold the senate & lose the white house

        …but…for now…I’d like my order of schadenfreude without any sides…for today at least?

    • Late to the party today but I would pay legitimate money to see what the internal polling looks like at GOP party HQ for incumbents right this second. I suspect it’s not great!

      Mitch is old and already known for stroking out so he’s not exactly a bellwether of anything, but to the point I will keep making until I run out of saliva: Republicans had a disastrous ’18, a very bad ’20, one of the worst midterms ever in ’22 (note: against an apparently unelectable vegetable on life support) and have won the popular vote exactly once in the past 32 years. I do think Biden has work to do, etc. etc., but I think things are only going to get worse for Trump over the next few months and if he sinks, the party sinks with him.

  12. Trump has asked the NY appeals court to stay enforcement of the $450+ million judgement, and offered $100 million essentially as a guarantee.

    https://nitter.poast.org/KlasfeldReports/status/1762898356282458557

    The NY AG’s office is arguing no way, and say Trump is conceding that he doesn’t have the liquidity to pay up without selling off assets.

    Trump is arguing that his bind is unfair, because if he has to sell assets he won’t be able to get them back if he wins on appeal.

    I have no idea how sympathetic the appeals court would be – in the Gawker case, the judge said that’s too bad and Denton had to sell. Looming over this is Judge Engeron’s lengthy ruling on all of the ways Trump is a lying bum, which probably lends weight to the AG arguing that he doesn’t deserve a long leash. But who knows how the court would rule.

    It’s also curious how much property Trump would have to sell if he can’t find a white knight to lend him the money fast, which of course he might. His financing is a mess and it’s hard to sell big properties quickly.

    One tidbit I found interesting about the problems Trump is facing finding a bond company is they’re worried what happens if he wins in November.

    https://www.justsecurity.org/92637/what-to-expect-following-trumps-civil-fraud-judgment-a-primer-on-the-appeals-process-and-more/

    If he does, they’re afraid he’d just stiff them, and there would essentially be no avenue to sue him to get their money back. So there’s an irony that by delaying for so long, he’s actually shrunk his options.

    I don’t know what’s happening at the same time with the E. Jean Carroll judgment.  And of course looming over this is whatever agreement Melania wrung out of him when she was refusing to move to the White House in 2017. She’s got to be wondering what happens if there’s a firesale and assets he promised her are gone.

    • …the unwillingness to stand bond (to some extent whether he wins or not) on the basis that the bondsman is on the hook for the whole sum if the court says it has to show up under its control & then has to pursue him…which could happen under what would normally be wildly unlikely scenarios but they all make more sense than the fake electors scam…so…yeah…the carroll judgement 2.0 is still less than 9 figures…so…he could probably find a way to swing that…but it’s the nearly-a-half-a-billion block it’s hard to imagine someone being willing to go out on a limb for when the client is notorious for sticking other people with his debts while he rides off into the zero-liability sunset with the money that should have covered their invoice…even without his whole “by the way if I win I’m going to carve it in stone that I can get away with anything & nobody can do shit about it no matter how egregious” sales-pitch?

      …but…when I’m not being terrified at the ramifications…it’s sort of a fascinating bunch of tea leaves to try to read?

      …he tried with engoron to wheedle a slow rolling of the billing portion of proceedings…presumably to buy time to talk his way into a bond offer…& his rationale was that it was only fair because otherwise there was no “orderly” way to achieve it in the timeframe…because he hadn’t budgeted for a penalty of that order…since it’s inconceivably unfair to him that even if he lost he should have to pay damages big enough to make him sit up & take notice…& that judge told him where to get off in no uncertain terms

      …& he can appeal forever & a day…but there’s a clock on the transaction that has to be completed before that really gets under way…& as you say…making his assets liquid even before he lost his right to run the NY org that owns a bunch of them…not a high speed process unless you take a serious bath in the process & do the rich guy version of taking what the pawnshop will give you on the day…plus it’s all leveraged six-ways from sunday…sometimes to other bits of itself…against other loans &/or businesses…so if you pull out the wrong bit it’s all going to go a bit jenga…& then he’s really & truly screwed in the way he’d feel it most completely…so…that’d be just all sorts of fun to watch

      …but to get the stay he basically has to argue that the penalty is so excessive that it would deny him the possibility of redress because he’d suffer irreparable harm if he took the necessary steps to pay it

      …which on the one hand is pretty much the argument I’d expect better lawyers to make if elon were compelled to offload quantities of pledged tesla stock that would drive its stock price back into the same valuation window as other car makers

      …but on the other hand is…well…only plausible if he puts in court filings…in a case where his swinging the same numbers one way or the other to juice a preferable outcome is part of the established facts of the matter…numbers that lowball the shit out of his net worth

      …he has to argue that he…a man who often claims to be sitting on $10 billion or more…will be irreparably financially damaged if he has to put less than half of one of those down on a table…so…even saying you’re sitting at 5 seems like the court would tell you to quit wasting its time…how low does he pitch it…3…2…2 & a half

      …the “I might not be able to buy it back if I win the appeal” line has some similar problems…but even if it didn’t…that’s surely another explicit “fuck the precedents & the parallels I expect this to go a way it wouldn’t go for anyone else” gambit

      …don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch but if he gets a win before they even finish the standard requirements to set the appeals process in motion…I’ll be pissed…but if it doesn’t take him at least another couple of circuits before he finds a sympathetic court…I will not be held responsible for my reactions

      …not, like…guy fawkes levels of reaction or anything that ought to worry anyone…but…definitely not the sort of thing that gets broadcast pre-watershed?

      • There are even questions about the liquidity he has for the big Carroll judgment. Estimates of his cash reserves are somewhere between (I think) $300-$700 million, but the problem for him is that he has a bunch of loans which require him to meet certain requirements for having cash on hand.

        Basically if you loan money to Trump, you want to be sure he has cash in the bank you can grab quickly to get at least some of it back in the event of a default.

        If he coughs up the cash to keep appealing her case, he may suddenly be violating those loan agreements and give his creditors the right to go after his assets too. And of course that would be even more likely the case with the NY fraud appeal.

        I can’t rule out Satan showing up for him with a container ship full of cash. I just hope that the smell of brimstone is too strong for investigators and the press to ignore.

          • …you know that whole “if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” thing?

            …I think I developed a new one today…if he & his spawn can’t stop whoever ends up in control of the trump org for a year or two…if we started a petition or some sort of grass-roots-y deal & managed to get some traction for the idea…I reckon the Trump Org™…might be the entity that controls the licensing rights to the Trump™ brand

            …they could sell ’em off to the highest bidder to make the org whole…maybe to the sort of bidder…or crowd-funded concern…that could serve him with a cease & desist for using the name

            …sure…it’s ultimately a plan that results in another slate of court-wasting sludge on the docket here there & everywhere…but…you don’t need to prove he fucked the pig…just make him keep denying it

            …&…well…maybe if instead of sheep I count parade-float inflatable diaper baby donalds…I could dream such a dream once I finally drift off to the land of nod?

            • …oh…& while I’m wishful thinking…that other article I’m pretty sure said the average time for one of these things to work through the appeals process to a final determination is…around 18months…&…iirc the BBC quoted a figure of “at least $112,000” as the daily uptick on the interest portion

              …my mental arithmetic is not the sharpest…but 18months…give or take…& going with a round number to make it easy for me…550-odd days…that’s…basically your full half-a-billion when you reach the finish line…tack a few more months’ interest on there & you break that halfway mark, even

              …&…honestly…if that judge dropped the shy-on-precedent hammer on the business license thing with a view to walking it back as a two-step…hats off to the man

              …not least since if the org is intact it can still hold those trademark rights I’m pinning that other dream on

        • …a bunch of pieces a week or so back were talking about him saying a while ago he had $400 million or so in easy reach…& how pretty much all of that had been put in less liquid places since

          …but it depends how you count, to some extent…him personally, in the sense that most people would be able to use the phrase “to your name” about…the consensus seems to put in the ballpark of the carroll judgement…give or take the sort of sums that are considered life-changing to…again…most of us

          …on the other hand…there’s that SPAC money if the courts come through for him while he can keep the window open…he hasn’t leveraged that yet & it’s a designated funnel he’d been counting on by the looks of it…unclear how much of the donations he got out of his rake of the trading & re-trading of those NFTs…or how much he can scrape out of the other kinds of PACs & super-PACs & funds of this or that variety of fine print disclaimers…like…though I haven’t read them to see how it works…it sounded like the stupid shoes came with…you pay now…we send you a pair…sometime…maybe…probably…if we get around to it…no refunds…kind of T&Cs

          …they at least had the stupid hats & t-shirts printed up & shipped out but that one appears to just be a fig-leaf for a desperate cash-grab

          …& maybe…if he can keep the plates spinning…he can use enough of that to keep the creditors sweet about what counts as cash in hand…& get someone to take the SPAC thing as surety for the bond to get the NY thing into an appeals court

          …maybe

          …but there’s cases moving up on him in the rear-view…& blood in the water

          …& he didn’t exactly get where he is by making friends…his concept of loyalty is one of those things where if he’d had the ability to use a dictionary &/or thesaurus he’d have been calling it fealty all along…so…who’s lining up to throw him a lifeline…& who’s remembering they’re a shark?

          …vlad would be tickled if he could limp over the line in november…but…for his purposes it works about 90% as well if he leaves him flailing about like the ham-iest death throes the political…or even world…stage has ever seen…so hard to see why he’d bother…& he has his own dodgy money troubles to stay ahead of…half a billion in USD isn’t something he probably wants to piss up that wall right now

          …so…does he defray it over a spread of smaller bonds people are willing to roll those dice on?

          …does that basically scream he can’t cover the tab anyway?

          …& what’s the next big liability heading down the pike…is it another financial hit when more punitive damages or legal costs drop on him like a ton of bricks?

          …or does the DoJ in the form of jack smith & his crew have some cards they haven’t played yet…that come with proof of some element of his guilt that collapses his bid for immunity while dropping charges & superseding indictments like an oprah giveaway?

          …more details about the classified material that still hasn’t turned up…or where elements of that stuff showed up in places they shouldn’t have…or about the saudi dealings…or…well…the RICO stuff & ongoing obstruction of justice?

          …or does it all get to him to the point that he has a catastrophic systems failure in public & he just pre-lynch-es himself & saves us all a lot of angst?

          …wonder if they have him on suicide watch…or if nobody around him really gives that much of a fuck about the man?

          • I keep wondering if the stress will cause his cholesterol-laden circulatory system to give out. I mean, that’s a LOT of stress.

            I’m sure his family and a lot of others would just be relieved. Hell, Dumb and Dumber might be able to concoct a story where they were forced to do his illegal bidding. If they weren’t, in fact, stupid.

        • …so…I took a second look at the twitter/nitter thread because it occurred to me I might have skipped through a part that I should have slowed for

          …basically…to do it backwards…that last one seems to imply that part of his woe-is-me routine was an attempt to claim it wasn’t that he couldn’t secure a bond but that the judge had prohibited it as an option…& they’re saying that’s bollocks & he should fill his boots if he can find a mug who’ll make the offer

          …but the one above that…I was distracted by the “no way to recover any property sold” part the first time through & sort of blew past the part where he’s basically saying “if you make me sell those for this I have to do it for a shit price no one will ever sell them back to me at because they know they have me over a barrel…in fact…even if I win & I get the cash I give you from the sale back…that & all my shit won’t raise me enough to cover the differential…especially if they make the things actually pay out like they could if a dipshit weren’t running the show…& I don’t have a right to go after the AG for the money I won’t have that I’d need to get to where I’d think of as being made whole”

          …that’s actually a hell of a thing for him to have admitted…even under cover of legalese?

          • Annnnnd just to jump in and note that he has several more criminal cases coming this year!

            I know I’ve said this before, but: Even if the media gives him every benefit of the doubt, they’re also gonna write stories about how he’s in court every other day rather than on the campaign trail, too, and people are gonna notice that (and how he can’t pay supposedly a pittance of his fortune)

            • …gotta love whoever managed to sync the clocks so that if he takes the bond/cash posting route to get the stay while the appeals process drags along & the interest climbs down to the wire like his last-ditch-looking ass might well

              …his hard deadline is the day he has to show up in court…in manhattan…on criminal rather than civil charges

              …talk about a field day for the press…can you even imagine the feeding frenzy if he can’t come up with the cash?

              • I’ve made the “how’s Ol’ Donny gonna wriggle his way out of this one … alas” joke many times, but in all seriousness, this is the closest he has ever been to the wall probably in his entire life. Surely there are people/foreign governments who are tripping over themselves to help him up, but … I don’t think he’s ever been this close to actual consequences before and legitimately might have to face at least some music before all is said and done.

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