TGIF! [DOT 22/4/22]

Happy Friday you guys! I hope you are ready for the weekend. This week started off bad and only improved slightly. Tonight I’m going to see a super fun local cover band. They only play 80s music.

Do you have any fun plans for the weekend?


Ukraine Updates:

Why Mariupol matters to Russia in three maps
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/21/ukraine-russia-mariupol-fall-maps/

Russia-Ukraine war: Russia rejected proposal for Easter truce; more details of Biden’s $800m arms package for Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/apr/21/russia-ukraine-war-latest-ukraine-offers-unconditional-talks-on-mariupol-as-west-warns-of-russian-cyber-attacks-live


Maybe our local #FloridaMan can elaborate.

Florida Republicans vote to dissolve Disney’s special district, eliminating privileges and setting up a legal battle
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/florida-set-to-dissolve-disneys-reedy-creek-special-district.html


Stonks!

Stock futures are flat as the S&P 500 attempts to avoid another losing week
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html


Sprots!

Group of Larry Nassar survivors seeks $130m from FBI over bungled probe
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/apr/21/arry-nassar-survivors-fbi-lawsuit


I hope she haunts the shit out of Sidney.


LOL


Have a great day!

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19 Comments

  1. For all the years I’ve lived in New York and spent time in Central Park I don’t think I’ve ever actually read one of those bench memorials. My loss, I see.

    If I can add to this news roundup:

    In local news, this is no more absurd than other vaxx avoidance attmpts, and shows wit rarely on display from our trusted and selfless public servants.

    In national news, chances are there will be any kind of payout, but I can dream. On second thought it’s too bad there isn’t a way for both of them to lose.

    In international news, sound up (for once), and I hope this isn’t the New Zealand national anthem they’re playing:

    • I thought you meant the birds, not the fruit.  Boy was I confused when I saw the clip.

  2. From what I saw on a clip from yesterday on “Farron Balanced” Youtube, it looks like they’re screwing a “blue” area of Florida by dumping onto them what Diz used to pay for.

    I don’t particularly care for the House of the Mouse/Rat either, but they’re less disgusting than DeThinSkinSensitive.

    • From what I understand the residents of the district need to vote on its dissolution.

  3. I don’t think a lot of people read down-thread yesterday so I’ll repost my Florida commentary with edits as I’ve gotten more facts:

    I will not be handed a tax bill. I don’t live in either of those two counties. Thankfully. And it’s not going to happen at all anyway.

    I’ve also heard (this is fact) there would need to be referendums in the special districts to dissolve them (there are actually several across the state). If true, that’s an obvious nonstarter. Reedy Creek has residents, who are all Disney employees.

    Orange County is blue, so I’d suspect DeSantis of trying to “punish” them too, but Osceola is more purple and has a massive white supremacy presence. He’s not going to sacrifice those votes.

    DeSantis and the Florida Legislature are extorting Disney. I mean literally. One of them said yesterday that “this is what happens when you kick the hornets’ nest.” The Republicans expect Disney to cave and start writing checks to them again.

    And that’s the question. Will Disney cave? My guess is yes, but I’m not totally sure. I mean, if I was CEO I’d declare fucking war rather than let my company be extorted, but that’s just me. I don’t know if the Disney guy has the stones for that.

    Plus it doesn’t happen for a year. So that’s a lot of time for Disney to start coughing up vig again for these criminals. I think they will.

    Finally, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, the whole Disney thing is a smokescreen. DeSantis and the Florida Legislature are eliminating four Democratic seats in the House this week through redistricting. The Disney flap is intended to distract from that goal, as is similar performative nonsense like math textbooks. Republicans are creating cover like an octopus shooting out ink for a serious assault on democracy.

    It’s pretty much too late to stop it and I’m not sure legal action will happen fast enough for November. This is exactly what I’ve been saying — Democrats have fucked away any opportunity to address voting rights, and they’re going to be out in November. Republicans are making a massive play to replace any principled local officials who might actually count votes.

    So in November Democrats lose the House and Senate. Districts are being rigged so that we will never get them back. Florida decides almost every single national election. We’ve lost the Supreme Court. DeSantis will be re-elected in Florida. So we will be under an authoritarian government with a lame-duck president. (Authoritarian you say? Yes, I did. Did you remember that DeSantis has created his own Florida Guard?). Republicans will continue to eliminate voting rights (hello, Jim Crow!) and in 2024 we will get President Trump or DeSantis. Shortly thereafter whoever is elected will be declared president-for-life, and that will be that.

    Democrats have been played on a massive level by Republicans, who strung them along on Build Back Better using their sleeper agents, Sinema and Manchin. Democrats have chased their tails and wasted time (Exactly what did BBB accomplish anyway? Sounded good though!) and refused to address serious attacks on democracy, and we’re all going to pay the price.

    • Manchin screwed them on voting rights too. Basically it came down to not winning Senate seats in Maine and NC so they didn’t have Manchin and Sinema in the mix.

      What Disney can do, but may well not, is exercise the kind of soft power corporations have to control PR — they own a major network and could stop putting their thumb on the scale of their news in favor of the GOP. They could join with other corporations threatened by the GOP and stop backing GOP media structure and dark money, and create alternatives to the corrupted background power structures.

      Basically, the GOP has built a machine that does a ton more than just surface campaign finance, but a lot of CEOs don’t want to challenge that part. To a large extent it’s because that part involves personal connections in a way that writing a check to some Dakota senator does not. But these idiots had better realize that their personal connections are conspiring to ruin them.

        • And that’s the thing — what’s obvious to anyone who doesn’t have their head in the sand is that the GOP will, though a mix of malice and incompetence, cost these guys countless billions.

          The right wing wants to reinstitute Jim Crow along with anti-LGBTQ and antisemitic laws, and those things are horrible for corporate profits. There will be another pandemic and a repeat of the GOP playbook will slam these guys. Turning the US into a kleptocracy like Russia means these guys will find their assets seized by foes and supposed friends at the drop of a hat, and appeasement won’t work.

          But CEOs have their heads in the sand. Some because of reactionary ideology, some because they’re wrapped in a cocoon of Ivy League GOP operatives with the sole purpose of softening and distracting them from seeing what is happening.

          That’s one of the key reasons for the drumbeat on college liberals and alleged cancel culture — it’s designed to scare CEOs into believing their heir won’t get into Harvard, and if he does, some predatory woman is lurking to take him down. It’s a move aimed at creating class solidarity against even the basic interests of class members.

        • There’s a rumor that lots of higher-ups at Disney aren’t happy with CEO Bob Chapek and they’re looking to bring back Bob Iger. Not out of moral qualms over “Don’t Say Gay,” but out of its handling, and that he’s not generating enough revenue. There’s something else too but I forget what, maybe by pissing off Vacation America by raising admission and tchochke prices even higher than what the parks were charging. Apparently Chapek and Iger despise each other and didn’t speak for the entire 2-year transition where Chapek was made CEO but Iger became Chairman.

    • The only potential fly in this ointment is that IF Disney investors decided they wanted to grab the short-term bag, offloading responsibility to local municipalities is a really quick way to boost the stock price. They could slash staff and budgets — Wall Street always loves that — and suddenly not only are the counties stuck with the costs, they’ve also basically taken on wildly overvalued property. Done properly, they might even be able to retrench with a new company Dizneyy Co. LLC and purchase the devalued property in a year or two for half of what they sold it for.

      And before you say “That’s insane, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot!” I’d point you in the direction of baseball, whose owners care WAY more about paying a little less for players than growing the future of the sport even one iota. There’s no guarantee some McKinsey type wouldn’t get this glimmer in his eye and go to work.

      • The only potential problem I can see in that scenario is a drop in services. Orange County provides police and fire backup to Reedy Creek, and Disney pays for those services. IF that ended and a park visitor had to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance and died, Disney would bear the brunt of that lawsuit.

        Disney gets sued A LOT by park guests trying to win the personal injury lottery. Mostly it squashes them, but if you get a serious situation where emergency service is delayed, that would be costly for Disney. Would that outweigh the savings? I can’t really say.

    • There used to be big events down on the Mall in DC. Not sure what they are doing during the panini. One year 18 college kids drove down and stayed at my house for that weekend. They mostly slept outside. It was crazy fun.

    • spent all day ripping up an invasive weed of some kind….

      kinda making me wonder why i didnt just pave the back yard…and got a couple plastic plants and pink flamingos instead

  4. Yeah, Biden is making us look bad on the world stage?

    https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2022/04/trump-fiona-hill-russia-ukraine-wind-turkish-prisons-secretary/

    Good try asshole but Rachel has the tapes!

    Get out the popcorn, this is going to be fun!

    https://crooksandliars.com/2022/04/live-marge-greene-questioned-under-oath

     

    • It’s good that this stuff comes to light, but I hate how people are still writing about it as Trump being erratic.

      He didn’t mistake Fiona Hill for a secretary. He was pulling the kind of power move BS he always pulls. He knows the windmill stuff drives reasonable people crazy — that’s why he does it.

      It’s not 4D chess moves, to be clear. But it’s not random stupid stuff either — he’s using a toolbox of moves he’s built up over 55 years. It’s mob boss stuff.

  5. My God, MTG cannot recall anything that she said or did in the 3 years, she needs a full mental evaluation!  She also needs to be kicked out of congress and put in jail.

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