…morning all…welcome to today’s edition of the shitshow 2.0: elect-it avenue

…alternatively…you can go to the bbc…which…a bit like despair.com…some of them are good for a wry chuckle…& laughs are thin on the ground right now…honorable mention to the guardian for “american dread”…the express went pretty blunt with “he’s been shot, convicted of a crime [no clue why that’s not plural] and branded a fascist…but he’s still the people’s choice”…but the mirror probably has them beat with “what have they done…again?”…the mail…because of course it fucking does…has a column from white lady of relative affluence on “why kamala harris didn’t get the women’s votes she thought were in the bag”…&…if you can’t make it out…the star went large…below “well, this is awkward…” there’s a “how it started”/”how it’s going” pair of tweets from david lammy…AKA the current UK foreign secretary…who is probably even now asking JD for tips on how to get forgiven for drawing the hitler parallel to his lord & master…or at any rate the visible one…but…going to give it to the scots, actually…the national wouldn’t be my paper of choice…I think an independent scotland, on balance, might end up looking like an independent texas…but…credit where it’s due

…&…speaking of spiking on google…friends who looked tell me “who are the candidates for president?” was another from north american IPs on the fifth…which would tally with the reports of people leaving the polling places expressing surprise & confusion that joe biden hadn’t been on the form they filled out…never underestimate how low the low-information voter bar can fall, I guess…& kicking yourself might be easier when you’re already down…but…for what it’s worth…I feel ya

…so…I say this with love…but…it’s the daily record that won me over today

…there’s…something to be said for telling it like it is…but…right now…I’m not sure I trust anyone who claims to be sure they know how it is…let alone how it’s gonna be…I…do trust michael harriot, though…especially when he’s talking about how it was in times that brought us to this present day of “ours”

https://thegrio.com/2024/11/05/can-one-election-end-democracy-it-actually-happened-once/

…just in case cloudflare pulls the stunt it did on me & claimed following the link from where I found it made me look like they should deny me the page…this is the archive,ph version

…but…let’s be honest…there’s a part of me that wants to settle down at the keyboard for the sort of long-haul associated with consuming inhuman quantities of particularly unhealthy carbonated liquid stimulant delivery systems & the most plus ultra sine qua non of ultra-processed “food” to power through a period of “crunch” like a shellshocked twitter mod in a server-room foxhole made from the wreckage of what used to be a load-balancing architecture…& go off…probably about how they arguably managed to make the liar tell the truth…he never “lost” 2020…the steal he implemented by employing the reverse psychology of claiming to “stop the steal” worked like he was the adult & the electorate was made of toddlers…he wasn’t defeated…not then…& thanks to the combined campaign that was his hybrid of a sequence of lawfare rear-guard delaying actions & the full-spectrum disinformation playbook with “active measures” in cyrillic on the cover…& of course ungodly sums of money thrown about by godless, soulless but nevertheless much-adulated exemplars of the worst of “western” society…to present a thesis that, in a meaningful sense…the thing he kept saying about how the only way he could lose the election was if it was rigged…was exactly the sort of projection that’s been a feature of every other accusation he ever levelled at someone else…that, in effect, harris didn’t lose…she was robbed…in broad daylight…by a man who said he could commit homicide in downtown NY & it would go like this

…&…if I’m honest…I…could probably do a better-than-half-assed job of that…as it happens

…also…as it happens…when I say I’m sorely fucking tempted…the rough I’m ready to smooth right into a thin paste on the asphalt…well…no prizes for guessing what sort of usual suspects might be involved

A story in chess lore involves the great Danish-Jewish player Aron Nimzowitsch, who, at a tournament in the mid-1920s, found himself struggling against the German master Friedrich Sämisch. Infuriated at the thought of losing to an opponent he considered inferior, Nimzowitsch jumped on the table and shouted, “To this idiot I must lose?”

It’s a thought that must have crossed the minds of more than a few liberal pundits and Democratic eminences late Tuesday night, as Kamala Harris’s hopes for winning the presidency began suddenly to fade.

…go fuck a bedbug, bret

How, indeed, did Democrats lose so badly, considering how they saw Donald Trump — a twice-impeached former president, a felon, a fascist, a bigot, a buffoon, a demented old man, an object of nonstop late-night mockery and incessant moral condemnation? The theory that many Democrats will be tempted to adopt is that a nation prone to racism, sexism, xenophobia and rank stupidity fell prey to the type of demagoguery that once beguiled Germany into electing Adolf Hitler.

It’s a theory that has a lot of explanatory power — though only of an unwitting sort. The broad inability of liberals to understand Trump’s political appeal except in terms flattering to their beliefs is itself part of the explanation for his historic, and entirely avoidable, comeback.

…yuk it up…if you ever actually figure out that you’re literally why the rest of us can’t have nice things & the last vestiges of your immortal soul wink out in a display of the post hoc ergo propter hoc paradox…you walking phallus of a fallacy…it’ll still be better than you deserve…but…life finds a way…so I imagine you’ll get yours…sooner or later…& it’ll choke you worse than your verbal incontinence does people with a functional suite of cognitive faculties…doubtless even now you’re still too pleased with yourself for managing to open with that ’20s chess tantrum as a master-stroke to reverse-microscope-effect the parallels with the rise of the national socialists without having to say “we can’t be nazis axiomatically because we’d burst into flames like vampires in sunlight if we were exposed to anything with socialism in it so we’re immune, akshully”…but fuck it…how much madder can I feel right now?

…it’ll be fine

But these mistakes of calculation lived within three larger mistakes of worldview. First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if not downright great, in Biden’s America — and that anyone who didn’t think that way was either a right-wing misinformer or a dupe. Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. Third, the insistence that the only appropriate form of politics when it comes to Trump is the politics of Resistance — capital R.

…look…I buy that bret is a native speaker of dipshit-ese…it’s basically the only thing he’s good for at the end of the day…if bret is happy to trot it out then you know the sort of people who wake up every day & look to the I’ll-be-god-damned-if-I-ever-call-that-man-the-president-without-quote-marks for their lead on what “the play for today”™^® is…or joe fucking rogan…or elon bastard musk…or whoever the fuck else they think isn’t part of the “elite” they desperately need to pay protection money to…because they got a nice little mom&pop not-a-democracy* here…& it’d be a shame if something happened to it

[* – N.B. …people who are unaware that “a constitutional republic” is a thing in which leaders & representatives are…& this is the money shot…DEMOCRATICALLY…fucking elected…at any level they’re conscious of when they say that like it’s a burn…can go die in a fire for the sake of the uptick in the global average IQ…please & thank you]

…those folks will lap it up if some other asshole throws it into an everyday conversation as though they should get to do that & not have you hit them in the face with a an instrument as blunt as their fucking mind…with a lot more weight & substance…not to mention pith & moment…& this is how they preen

Regarding the first, I’ve lost track of the number of times liberal pundits have attempted to steer readers to arcane data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve to explain why Americans should stop freaking out over sharply higher prices of consumer goods or the rising financing costs on their homes and cars. Or insisted there was no migration crisis at the southern border. Or averred that Biden was sharp as a tack and that anyone who suggested otherwise was a jerk.

…right now bret is so high on his own supply he DGAF about signing up for the weekend at bernie’s reboot of the worst administration ever to stain the white house…but if his boy is as sharp as bret…we’re talking plastic kindergarden scissors at best…so the fact that I might have a mental image in my head that involves a freshly printed copy of the bill of rights being used to administer the death by a thousand (paper) cuts to a certain misbegotten maggot of a mansplainer…is purely involuntary & in no way a statement of intent

…but

…I think part of my brain broke

…see…when people like bret say “migration” what I hear is “never mind who these people are or where they’re coming from or what’s making it worth the risk &/or expense to leave…or how that happens…or where they go…how fast…in what numbers…thanks to who…& who finds that electorally advantageous to trade on with people who’d rather deny climate change in toto than admit we’re not in fucking kansas any more…I’m sure you’re too fucking dumb to understand any of that…because I know I fucking don’t…& you’re dumb enough to be listening to me saying shit even I don’t fucking believe”

…it’s like when the audio feed is out of sync with the video track

…it’s the same when they say enough people having a sufficiently stunted understanding of how economics work to slide right past “shit getting worse in all the ways you’re so fucking determined to keep saying it can’t be because those problems don’t exist so you won’t let anything that might mitigate them fucking exist without negating any fucking use it might be by doubling down on your coal-rolling unilateral mutual destruction bandwagon dues means shit gets harder & life gets more expensive” & “if you don’t even get that part then obviously you aren’t going to grok the ways the current lot did a hell of a job mitigating that but congrats because a tariff wall slamming into place while you displace a massive slice of a “menial” labor pool that filled jobs most of you think are beneath your arrogant asses should give you exactly what you actually asked for & even you might notice that isn’t going to look like you said it would…not even for you” to “to save us from the elites we’ve decided to have our…uhh…elite…umm…burn it all down to…ummm…save our village…never mind…we’ll just go live in the forest like our forefathers because we’re ®eal americans”

…so…let me dip a bit more from this poisoned well

The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency.

…I’m sorry, bret…the way you’ve cut & pasted this rhetorical technique suggests that you consider this to be a thing which draws a contrast…but what the fuck is your whole fucking cult if not “social engineering according to a group identity”…& a fucking minority demographic at that…which explicitly seeks “the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms”…like needing to look at kids’ genitals before letting them exercise…or thinking elon musk & the once & future king of MAGA are good at “business”…or…deporting anyone who looks like they couldn’t die of sunburn & claiming it proves you love your neighbor…or…fuck it…this list could go on all day

…I’m saying you’re dumber than dirt, bret

…I’d offer to say it to your face…but I don’t want to catch an assault charge…& there’s a decent chance you have the terminal species of glass jaw…in life as you do in print…& I don’t want to have to argue it down to manslaughter by natural causes

Last, liberals thought that the best way to stop Trump was to treat him not as a normal, if obnoxious, political figure with bad policy ideas but as a mortal threat to democracy itself. Whether or not he is such a threat, this style of opposition led Democrats astray. It goaded them into their own form of antidemocratic politics — using the courts to try to get Trump’s name struck from the ballot in Colorado or trying to put him in prison on hard-to-follow charges. It distracted them from the task of developing and articulating superior policy responses to the valid public concerns he was addressing. And it made liberals seem hyperbolic, if not hysterical, particularly since the country had already survived one Trump presidency more or less intact.

…&…there we have it…the truth achieves full inversion…if the problem with the charges against your boy is that they’re hard to follow…they…shouldn’t get pursued…trying was the mistake…I’m reading that the way you mean it, right?

Today, the Democrats have become the party of priggishness, pontification and pomposity. It may make them feel righteous, but how’s that ever going to be a winning electoral look?

…so…the democrats are…you, bret?

I voted reluctantly for Harris because of my fears for what a second Trump term might bring — in Ukraine, our trade policy, civic life, the moral health of the conservative movement writ large. Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change.

A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat [NYT]

…it’s the lack of introspection by…other people…that’s the problem, brett?

…you best pray there ain’t a second coming coming your way, motherfucker

…look…I know this is arguably a bit of a departure from how I usually try to make my way down these things…& very possibly you like it better when it’s more other people saying shit & me S-ing-TFU…&…I could do that…in fact…this is due up shortly so this next part might balloon if I keep adding shit as I trip over it while slogging through today’s sisyphean cosplay routine…there’s a surfeit of shit sandwiches to pick from the smorgasbord

What Trump’s Victory Says About America [NYT]

Trumpism Is Not a Fad [NYT]

What We Just Went Through Wasn’t an Election. It Was a Hostage Situation. [NYT]

Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We Are [NYT]

Why Were Trump Voters Laughing? [NYT]

The Way Harris Lost Will Be Her Legacy [NYT]

Harris Asked Voters to Protect Democracy. Here’s Why It Didn’t Land. [NYT]

Voters Were Fed Up Over Immigration. They Voted for Trump. [NYT]

In Trump’s Win, G.O.P. Sees Signs of a Game-Changing New Coalition [NYT]

How Trump Connected With So Many Americans [NYT]

It’s This Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World [NYT]

…speaking of which

What business leaders said after Trump’s election victory [WaPo]

…you gotta ask yourself what it looks like from the perspective of the only people who matter…now that those are back to not being the ones who get to “decide” the election based on a combination of “low-information” & a geospatial bit of “coincidental” circumstantial over-representation…& who are they in nearly all cases?

Elon Musk could be the biggest winner of a second Trump term [NBC]

…well

If Trump wins the election, these 11 issues will be under threat

…let’s start with the lowest common denominators, shall we?

Meet Musk’s Fixer, the Powerful Executive Reshaping Tesla [WSJ courtesy of archive.ph]

…it seems like if there were more women in the pool the results would be

The sad truth is that anti-feminist backlash helped propel Trump to victory [Guardian]

…better?

In male traders — and most are young men — a run of success creates a testosterone-fuelled “winner effect” in which the trader is biologically driven to take ever greater risks. When he crashes into huge losses, his whole personality changes (a transformation that Coates calls the “hour between dog and wolf”, a phrase apparently popular in medieval times to denote the period of confusion and potential metamorphosis around dusk). The cowed trader becomes apathetic and, for a while at least, excessively risk-averse.

In other words, it’s the perfect framework to think about the environment we’re going to see this week. A hugely important and unpredictable election, with lots of late night trading and major US news falling into European and Asian markets, potentially staffed up with young and inexperienced traders. And then there’s a Fed meeting on Friday.

Things are going to be volatile.

…in…oh…so many ways

It’s not impossible that there’s an element of cortisol reaction in the way that specialist Election Data Knowers have tended to make adjustments to avoid standing out from the crowd.

At some point, though, someone is going to get the sense that they’re winning — either in terms of the political party they support, or their trading position. This is also self-reinforcing, because the “winner effect” (established to a surprising degree of statistical certainty by taking urine tests from the crowd at World Cup Finals) generates a surge of testosterone. 

That hormone makes people more confident in their decisions and inclined to increase their risk. It’s the sort of thing that, for example, might cause someone to end up with $30mn at stake on prediction markets.

It’s possible to mitigate the effects, a bit. Trading desks which employ women (and men old enough to enjoy the cognitive benefits of declining testosterone levels) are less likely to get carried away, as Coates demonstrated. You’re less vulnerable to falling into a cortisol slump if you’ve done sufficient preparation and have enough experience to be able to deal with things “pre-attentively”, without too much conscious thinking. 
[…]
Investors have always hated political risk because it’s impossible to analyse, it’s extremely difficult to hedge and it’s not what they’re used to — the exact trio of “novelty, uncertainty and uncontrollability” which causes the brain to shut down. 

We might have to accept that this week is going to be a mistake-rich environment and pick up the pieces later when we’ve all calmed down.

The hour between donkey and elephant [FT]

…incidentally…the “whale”(…who…was french…& I’m pretty sure un garçon…though possibly not a gascon…& might legit be a “white whale”)…that single-handedly moved the polymarket market with a gargantuan bet the house of thiel was willing to pay out on…based his call on the results of surveys that didn’t ask who the respondent would vote for but who they thought their neighbors would be voting for…which seems to be the polling equivalent of asking the one guard which door the other one would tell you leads to certain death…only in a special remix where the object of the exercise is to pick crucifiction not freedom

…we’ll…sort it out later…after we’ve had to give up being crucified in the afternoons?

Everyone’s ignoring these investors’ warnings on climate risk. You shouldn’t. [WaPo]

…after all…we’re about to be through the looking glass

‘A wrecking ball’: experts warn Trump’s win sets back global climate action [Guardian]

…darkly

In Puerto Rico governor’s race, the statehood candidate who’s pro-Trump edges ahead [NBC]

…so

Michael Fanone knows how many of you feel today. He’s felt it for years. [WaPo]

…yeah

…it really is that fucking bad…but…we knew that going into this knife-fight bare-handed

‘People do not want to believe it is true’: the photographer capturing the vanishing of glaciers [Guardian]

It would take the impossible to stop 2024 from becoming the hottest year on record [WaPo]

Nearly all of US states are facing droughts, an unprecedented number [Guardian]

…suspension of disbelief got nothing on the abdication of judgement

Effects of Republican Senate majority will reverberate through the courts [Guardian]

Special counsel prosecutors will shut down their criminal cases against Donald Trump before he takes office, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, after his stunning victory against Kamala Harris meant they would not proceed to trial.

The move reflects the reality that the cases will not be completed before inauguration day. Once the former president returns to the White House, the special counsel’s office would be prohibited from pursuing further criminal actions under justice department policy.

The justice department has long known that if Trump won, the criminal cases – over Trump’s retention of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election – would be finished because Trump’s attorney general would likely drop the charges.

But it is also understood to be a preemptive measure to ensure that Trump will not be able to order the dismissal of the special counsel, Jack Smith, as he had vowed to do if he takes office and Smith remained in his role.

That possibility had been relished by Trump’s close aides and advisers, who privately imagined Trump ordering Smith’s removal and his team having to vacate their office space in Washington.

The justice department is still examining how to wind down the cases, which are in different stages and are complicated. In particular, the department does not want the classified documents case, which was dismissed and currently under appeal, to go unchallenged.

Failure to pursue an appeal over the dismissal of the classified documents case on grounds that the special counsel himself was illegally appointed could set a problematic precedent and hamper the department’s ability to use special counsels in the future.
[…]
For months, Trump’s overarching legal strategy was to delay the criminal cases until after Tuesday’s election. His hope was that if he won, he could appoint a loyalist attorney general who would simply drop the prosecutions.

He was unsuccessful in delaying his New York criminal case tied to his efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election through an unlawful hush-money scheme, which resulted in his conviction on 34 felony counts. But his conviction barely moved the political needle.

The special counsel’s move to preemptively shut down the two federal cases comes as the former Trump attorney general William Barr in a statement urged federal and state prosecutors to end their cases against Trump.

“The American people have rendered their verdict on President Trump and decisively chosen him to lead the country for the next four years. They chose him to lead us with the full knowledge of the claims against him by prosecutors around the country,” Barr wrote.

“The attorney general and all the state prosecutors should do the right thing and help the country move forward by dismissing the cases.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/06/special-counsel-trump-criminal-cases

…there speaks another bill I’d love to see get a final settlement

Trump’s win is so much worse this time. Americans knew what they were voting for [Guardian]

…or…you know…we could get down to the really burning issues of the day…like

How Harris’s Loss Could Haunt Biden’s Legacy [NYT]

…too soon?

…not for the NY-fucking-T it ain’t…they had that shit waiting to go, more’n likely…because in legacy terms…the NYT might as well *be* bret fucking stephens

In Trump victory, Netanyahu sees himself as ‘the great winner’ [WaPo]

…hands up who’s “sick of all the winning^®“?

Netanyahu ousts defense minister, political rival and fierce war critic [WaPo]

…& who’s sick of the game?

A Bomb Threat to Deter Black People From Voting [NYT]

…& there being no luck involved in the draw?

Elon Musk’s $1M voter giveaways were fixed lotteries, lawsuits say [WaPo]

…& all the losing hands getting dealt from on high?

Growing Up in Climate Chaos [NYT]

…if it’s all about the post-mortems

Anatomy of three Trump elections: How Americans shifted in 2024 vs. 2020 and 2016 [CNN]

…your foundational premise is that the subject is beyond resuscitation

Outbreaks of deadly illnesses could follow if anti-vaccine messages continue, doctors fear [NBC]

…don’t even get me started on the RFK bullshit…not for my sake…I doubt y’all’s blood-pressure could tolerate the ensuing outburst…when the pathogen these fuckers are shedding like their middle name’s “viral load” ought to be enjoying the same level of confinment as fucking smallpox…but they’d rather ban all cures…that’s gonna leave a mark…not to mention cause a spike in my immune response…that may cause involuntary muscle contractions…that look like I might be trying to kick the living shit out of something…that’s just a reflex…I think it has to do with self-preservation…which…I think I’m still entitled to…in a stand-your-ground kind of an environment?

Why a strong female support base wasn’t enough to help Kamala Harris clinch a presidential win [NBC]

…for real…these aren’t questions…this is what it looks like when you’re asking for a fucking fight

…but…what really turned out to be the final straw that got me filling more lines off the top of my head than off the pages of something else…was a particular part of a particular bit of talking head excreta in the midst of what the BBC’s radio 4 calls “the today programme”…specifically…scott jennings…& how he called this “the revenge of the working class”…while on CNN’s air…if you’re interested…it’s about 49m30s into the run-time of a three-hour show

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0024lyw

…he starts off talking about average, everyday americans who’ve been getting up every day & going to work & “getting crushed”…& how they feel they’ve been “crushed in their values”…& that’s why there’s been “a movement to the right” in all the elections since the first time america was this incredibly self-destructive about that sort of thing…& this is what it looks like when “working class americans” tell “elites” that “we’ve had enough”

…sorry…got to the part about how the “mandate” for the incoming adminsitration is “just to make america normal again”…&…something came over me for a minute there…but I’ll mop the soot off the ceiling later…where was I?

…oh, yeah…the part where the interviewer asks “is it relevant that the political conversations seems so removed from what you’ve just described?”…& he starts giving his taek on “the american information complex”

…people like this asshole…they blame “elites”…& their targets are mostly people they feel intellectually inferior to in ways they find intolerable to the ego…so they channel that spite into eliding the outward appearance of affluence that being clever & competent to the level we refer to as “expert” often has the side-effect of serving on the side…into yoking the class-based-resentment-of-the-less-well-off to the horse-pulling cart of their argument that the answer to the implied critique of that dichotomy being an elite:underprivilged relationship allows their ignoble selves to subsume all their pride & ruggedly individualistic dominance through manifest destiny over the oppressive boot of the federal government…or any other authority that might call them an asshole or stop them acting out…into giving the whole fucking shitshow…TO THE GOD-DAMN ELITE THAT’S NEVER ONCE STOPPED FUCKING THEM THE WHOLE DAMN TIME…so…I will agree with the asshole about one thing…there needs to be a god-damn reckoning for that shit…it’s also true that there does need to be a robust, trusted, free press…but…I’m pretty sure what he thinks that means…wouldn’t be…so…for the part “about why it is that half the country is so disconnected from the people who, you know, are – ostensibly – in charge”…& what might be “setting the contours of the political conversation”…fucking where do I start…right?

…&…while they aren’t the people he meant…arguably some folks did just “will into existence a political reality that just didn’t exist”…so…if nothing else…he’s wrong about (at least) one thing…the institutions he talks about setting the national conversation…aren’t “totally disconnected from the people who just elected [a candidate they’d have to be a danger to themselves not to see is not in their interests, let alone the national ones]”…they might as well all be bret fucking stephens he’s so fucking wrong about that part…&…I think he knows that shit…I think that’s the whole fucking point of people like him…& indeed…little boy bedbug…so…it’s…instructive…that when the interviewer wryly comments that that’s ironic given critics suggest that MAGA advocates assert a reality that fails to conform with the observable one outside of their say so…the whole of the response is “he won & they lost”

…at least until he goes on to say that the reality those supporters are living in “is quite bleak”…motherfucker…the fact we gotta share the actual reality with these fuckwits is WHY IT’S FUCKING BLEAK you pure serving of circular logic doughnut-headed unspeakable fucking moron…& as for the part where he begs “can we just get a couple of years where we have an election & then the people who win get to try to run their program?”

…gee…I dunno…you wouldn’t let anyone find out what that might look like last time…so…how about…fuck you very much…absolutely fucking no…not even for a minute…if you want traction with that shit I hope you have to smoke the fucking tyres for every inch…maybe all the noise & the stinking clouds coming off the attempt might catch a few folks’ attention…or better still…maybe you’ll actually break the block…& we can overhaul the whole fucking clowncar before you drive it off the cliff like you’re fucking thelma & louise instead of the guy that never made it out of the parking lot

…like you fucking need to tell us…we’re not your people, motherfucker…we pay attention

…that’s why we know it would be illegal to give you what you’re not only begging for but fully deserve

…still…if…say…I was a certifiably absolutely immune president of the US with black bag spec-ops squads to be my ninja…would I maybe have the winning ticket extrodinarily reditioned to a concrete box deep underground where I could work them over like I thought I was jason statham

…along with elon…& some other bro-heimlich-manoeuvres

…that’s just my new happy place in this brave new world of free speech absolutism?

…for the record…I only just saw this…so…@bryanlsplinter …I hope you’re on the mend & I’m very sorry…I didn’t mean to make it worse?