Wondering on Wednesday 1/31/24

 Ready... set... wonder!

It's rare for me to update my wondering a mere seven days later, but that's where I find myself today. Last week I wondered about the stock market, what Trump thought of it when he was president, and how his thinking has changed.

That was then, but this is now, and with Joe Biden in the White House, Trump is no longer excited about the market's success. Rather, he's telling his supporters that "the stock market is making rich people richer" - as if that's ever been a bad thing for an alleged billionaire. 

So, why am I wondering about this again, you might be asking?  Well, he apparently has changed his mind - again.  Not only is a booming market great again, it's all because of him! Because of his polls! Because everyone loves him and can't wait for him to be president again!

And I have to wonder, was he lying to me while he was in office, or was he lying to me over the past several weeks, or is he lying to me now?

I learned today that a judge in Delaware's Court of Chancery has tossed Elon Musk's Tesla compensation package, saying that $56 billion was an "unfathomable sum."  Kathaleen McCormick wrote in her decision, which is appealable, of course,

Swept up by the rhetoric of 'all upside,' or perhaps starry-eyed by Musk’s superstar appeal, the board never asked the $55.8 billion question: Was the plan even necessary for Tesla to retain Musk and achieve its goals?

The article I linked above has some interesting information of the corporate intrigue kind, including board members beholden to the CEO and shirking their responsibilities, angry shareholders (that's how the suit came to be), and my favorite piece of information, to which I've added the emphasis:

Amit Batish at Equilar, an executive pay research firm, estimated in 2022 that Musk's package was around six times larger than the combined pay of the 200 highest-paid executives in 2021.

I'm wondering, as I re-read that last part for the umpteenth time today, whether incentive-only compensation packages - according to the article, Musk didn't draw a Tesla salary - should have limits? And I also can't help wondering what a less Musk-friendly board would have done in the compensation negotiations.

In a Sidebar yesterday, I talked about the Oklahoma Republican Party voting to censure Sen. James Lankford, and how the meeting was subsequently deemed illegitimate by the 'real' OKGOP.  And what I'm wondering about here is simply this: how many other GOP organizations are at risk for this same kind of thing, where a cabal is bold enough, willing, and able to take over the party, even temporarily, and create this kind of havoc? And how long before we figure out they exist?

Most of us are aware of the penchant for book banning in Florida. This article by Judd Legum reminds us that the whole mess started when the Rs in FLA attacked alleged "grooming" by school librarians pushing "pornographic" materials in their bookshelves.

Florida's Republican legislature passed — and Ron DeSantis signed — several pieces of legislation that made it easier to take books off the shelves of the state's public schools. This was all seen as smart politics, appealing to parents seeking to protect their children from inappropriate content.

Some of the Rs are getting tired of taking the heat for the ridiculous bans; even noted conservative Bill O'Reilly's books were pulled from the shelves. Legislation is moving along that would "make it more difficult for people to challenge books en masse." That's happened in at least one Florida county, where every book in the library was pulled for review. Legum says the legislation

is an implicit acknowledgment that book banning in Florida schools has gone too far. It also suggests that the enormous number of books being taken off the shelves of Florida schools has become a political problem for Florida Republicans. 

I'm not surprised pols are upset about the consequences of their anti-woke, anti-LGBTQ, anti-everything approach to school libraries; here's what really got to me in Legum's article.

The majority of book challenges in the United States came from 11 people. Two of the most prolific, Bruce Friedman and Vicki Baggett, hail from Florida.

Eleven people are responsible for the majority of book challenges in the United States? How can you not wonder with me how that's even possible?  Eleven people, out of a country of over 334,000,000? How does this even happen?

And finally, Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) pulled less than zero punches in comments directed towards GOP members of the House Homeland Security Committee as they considered impeachment charges against Alejandro Mayorkas.

According to the article, Menendez noted there've been plenty of hearings on the border, but none on things like "emergency preparedness, cyber threats, infrastructure protection, and more," all of which would be in the Committee's portfolio.

We have not lived up to our oversight obligation here on this committee because you all are obsessed with the border. Because you bend the knee to the ‘Orange Jesus’ as you refer to him across the aisle. 

You can watch the video of his comments here, and maybe wonder, as I often do, how much longer the folks in the House will keep it together.

What's on your wondering mind these days?

Wondering on Wednesday 7/6/22

Ready... Set... Wonder! 

• I wonder why I can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, but folks can legally purchase so-called 'weapons of war', so-called 'assault rifles' and happily go people-hunting, mowing down children, teenagers, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents - pretty much anyone they feel like aiming at... 

• A little bit ago, I opined that it would be discriminatory if 'life begins at fertilization' only applied to the pre-born conceived in a womb, and not to those conceived in fertility clinics. There's an article in the Boston Globe that explores this issue that I found very interesting.

First, I'm surprised at how little interest there is in regulating all embryos the same. According to a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee, "IVF is not even really on our radar." And second, I have to wonder why red-state legislators "in at least 10 states" have put bills out there that would treat frozen embryos the same as, you know, warm ones - and not a single one of the bills have passed. 

• Here's another one that's got me doing some bigtime wondering. A guy who, I'd surmise, was trying to prove how manly he is, wandered around Broken Arrow, OK wearing a tactical vest and openly sporting both a pistol (in a holster) and a semi-automatic rifle. From the article, it seems pretty much everyone was nervous or scared. For example,

Employees at the Broken Arrow Justice Center ― a government building that houses the local court and police offices ― locked their doors, and someone called 911. 

Oklahoma's constitutional carry law  "allows people ages 21 and over to carry firearms in public without a permit or training." Police didn't have a lot of options to do anything, but as luck would have it, the guy was also carrying brass knuckles, which are illegal under both state and city law. 

I have a hard time with open carry laws, I really do - especially ones that allow rifles to be slung casually over someone's shoulder like a purse. And I don't wonder at all why the sheriff said, "nobody needs to be walking down the street with a rifle. But I don’t make the laws; we just try to live by them and do a very difficult job in a world that’s got those people in it."

Hear, hear - even to his use of "those people" which normally I don't approve. In this case, I'll make an exception.

• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-we ever screwed for electing Trump, or what?) was one of the Trump minions issued a subpoena by a prosecutor in Georgia. His attorneys say they'll fight it, even though they said Graham's "neither a subject nor target of the investigation, simply a witness." I wonder, though, about their grounds for fighting it. Ok, honestly? I laughed at their grounds for fighting it.

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Graham was well within his rights to discuss with state officials the processes and procedures around administering elections. Should it stand, the subpoena issued today would erode the constitutional balance of power and the ability of a member of Congress to do their job.

Now, does anyone else wonder whether Graham was acting in his official capacity as ranking member - not chairman - of the Judiciary Committee when he stuck his genteel nose into the Georgia process, or do you think he was acting as a rank member of Trump's cadre of snoops and liars?

• And the final bit of wondering tonight comes courtesy of Martha Raddatz, who hosted This Week on Sunday. Here's the silly question she asked Mary Bruce, ABC's Senior White House correspondent, to close the show.

And, Mary, we really just have about 20 seconds, but I want to go back to Uvalde. What is President Biden doing about that?

I'm not sure why she dignified the question with an answer, but she did. And when she finally got around to talking about the feds and Biden, it was to note that "it's pretty unclear" how much the feds can do, adding 

But this White House continues to point to that gun legislation they’re passing. Would that have solved this? We just don’t know.

Except we do know quite a bit, Mary.  

Anyway, here's what I'm wondering: why didn't she say, "look, Martha, President Biden is much too busy causing global inflation, global supply chain issues, global food shortages, global immigration issues, and doing too much and not enough to help Ukraine, NATO, the EU, and others, to be able to focus his attention on a single mass shooting that happened months ago. Haven't you been to a gas station lately and seen his sticker?"

What's on your wondering mind tonight? 

Wondering on Wednesday 4/6/22

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What's going on out there in Wonderland tonight? Well...

ABC News is reporting that Hunter Biden, the son of the president, is living in a four-bedroom mansion in Malibu, costing someone around $20K per month, and the Secret Service is renting, at around $30K/month, a nearby mansion as their command center.  

Now, I complained about the costs of protecting the adult Trump children, at their homes and on their vacations, and I complained loudly about the former president making money by renting properties to the Secret Service. I mean, the Trump are at least millionaires; Jared and Ivanka are hundred-millionaires, and of course their father is allegedly a billionaire - but that might include the money in his campaign accounts, I'm not sure. 

So, what's the wondering about Hunter and his arrangement? One, he's living in Malibu - can't he find someplace a little cheaper, or is the light really that much better for his painting there? Two, why doesn't he open his mansion to the Secret Service? And three, are they really protecting him, or are they just keeping an eye on him and sending info to the prosecutors in Delaware? 

Speaking of the alleged billionaire, he recently did a video interview, which was published in The Atlantic. In the interview, he talked about January 6th in a way that, um, puts things in a different light than what most of us have been hearing over the past 15 months. Here's some of how the former president chooses to remember things, as recapped by AlterNet.

When Congress met to certify the Electoral College results, Trump told us, there had been a 'peaceful rally,' more than a 'million people' who were full of 'tremendous love' and believed the election was 'rigged' and 'robbed' and 'stolen.' He made a 'very modest' and 'very peaceful' speech, a 'presidential speech.' The throng at the Capitol was a 'massive' and 'tremendous' group of people. The day was marred by a small group of left-wing Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists who 'infiltrated' them and who were not stopped, because of poor decisions by the U.S. Capitol Police when some 'bad things happened.'

So, what am I wondering? Only this: If I want to have what he's having - whatever it is that gives him such confidence in this altered reality - where do I get it, how much does it cost, and is it legal? 

Speaking of 'bad things happening' - and yes, that's at least partly unfair - there's news about the CDC. Here's how the NY Post reported the story. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday it plans to undergo a month-long “revamp” as it faces a credibility crisis more than two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report.

Pretty much everyone I know, at one point or another during the pandemic, wondered what was going on at the CDC, or what was going through their heads with the many varied twists and turns, and the number of people who were speaking on behalf of, or instead of, or over the top of, the CDC experts. I'm not wondering why they're doing the review and the revamp - I'm just wondering if shutting up all the extra voices is going to be part of the change.

And speaking of public health and whatnot, there's an optical illusion of a running man; it's said that if you see the man running towards you, you have a 'male' brain. If you see him running away, you have a female brain. I don't know if I believe the science of the study, but I do know Republicans believe there are women and men and that's all there is. 

I wonder, if a Republican man looking at the image perceives the man running away, can he really be a Republican - or a man?

Circling back around to alleged billionaires, and Republicans, and men, and women, there was a time when the alleged billionaire went out on a limb and said that a woman who has an abortion should be punished. 

Trump stated that if abortion was banned and made illegal, there "would have to be some kind of punishment" if a woman got one anyway. Matthews, to his credit, did not have a heart attack, or even jump up and down doing a happy dance that he had finally asked the question that might take Trump down.

Instead, he pressed, and pressed, and pressed, trying to get Trump to commit. to a specific punishment. Ten cents? Ten years? Trump answered probably a dozen times that the punishment would have to be determined. And so it went, until the actual exchange was pushed off the air by the comments from everyone else.

And here we are: in Oklahoma, a new bill that makes performing an abortion a felony absent a need to save the life of the woman in a medical emergency.

Any person convicted of performing or attempting to perform an abortion is guilty of a felony punishable by a fine not to exceed $100,000.00 or a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 10 years, or both. 

Gov. Kevin Stitt will sign the bill, gleefully I imagine, when it lands on his desk, as he'll sign all the other abortion bills that are heading his way, including one that mirrors the 'blow in your neighbors' language from Texas. 

Six years and a month ago, in the post about Trump's punish-the-woman comments, I opined that

If the Right wants to be tough on crime, and tough on legal abortion, then they should be standing up in support of Trump's comment, instead of running from it. They should be shouting it from the rooftops, rather than shouting at Trump for saying what he did. They should be castigating him for walking it back, as he did, instead of castigating him for saying it in the first place.

If not, their convictions are without courage, and conversely.

And I wonder, tonight, if anyone thinks I'm wrong on that.