Wondering on Wednesday 4/3/24

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I saw an article in The Week about 'passive investing' - using index funds to do the work for you, or for your 401(k). The Week, if you aren't familiar with it, presents news items with multiple viewpoints from different media outlets. Here's a bit of the piece on index funds, with my emphasis added.

A market doesn’t work if everyone just “sits back and watches their money grow,” said Katie Martin in the Financial Times. It sounds “a little snobbish” to rail against passive investing, “which has unlocked wealth for millions of people who otherwise might not be active in financial markets at all.” But several recent studies have found that indexed stocks have begun to “show lower sensitivity” even to major economic shocks than their non-indexed counterparts. That turns investing from a process of “seeking out, rewarding, and profiting from successful companies” to a “circular bet” on more money flowing into the market.

The article came out before Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT on the Nasdaq)  went public with a value of some $8B, even though the company has ridiculously poor financial performance.

Is this the kind of company you'd 'seek out and reward,' I wonder?

*****     *****

Perhaps as many as half a million folks in California got a raise this week, as the minimum wage for most fast-food workers - and only those workers - increased from $16/hour to $20/hour. The raise stems from a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, and comes a few weeks after workers formed the California Fast Food Workers Union.

Generally, I'm not a fan of politicians singling out a category of workers and changing their minimum wage without adjusting the minimum wages for other low-paid workers, but I don't wonder why politicians do it.

What I do wonder is why so many people think it's OK for the government to make a random distinction between a fast-food worker and a day-care worker, a home health aide, or a janitorial staffer. And I wonder why, when the politicians do this for some but not for all, people are so comfortable telling the other workers to 'just go ask for a raise,' or 'organize and fight for themselves.'

And, of course, I wonder how the pols come up with the convoluted rules they apply. This law applies to "restaurants offering limited or no table service and which are part of a national chain with at least 60 establishments nationwide. Restaurants operating inside a grocery establishment are exempt, as are restaurants producing and selling bread as a stand-alone menu item."  

A shoutout to anyone who can make this make sense. I sure can't.

*****     *****

This one has me scratching my head with wonder. I was not aware that there's a thing out in the Interwebs asking, "Who actually eats at Arby's?" And, until this morning when I saw this article that Arby's is going to give "skeptics" four free sandwiches this month, to try and convince them how good the food is. According to the company's Chief Marketing Officer, the chain is "putting our money where our mouth is," and that April is

the perfect opportunity for any skeptics out there to try any of the sandwiches they've been eyeing.

There's just one catch: the 'skeptics' who have been "eyeing" the sandwiches have to be enrolled in the company's rewards program to get the free sandwiches. Call me skeptical, but I wonder how many of the free sammies are going to go to existing rewards members, not to new customers?

*****     *****

It seems 'the right' found itself in a bit of a snit over Easter Sunday. It seems that 'the left' has attacked Easter with the same zeal as it fights the war on Christmas. First, President Biden dared recognize the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, celebrated annually on March 31st. That's a bad thing, it would appear, when Easter also falls on March 31st - at least according to House Speaker Mike Johnson and the other usual suspects. But that's only half of the problem. 

The other issue? A ban on religious Easter eggs at the Biden White House. I kid you not.

...guidelines for the contest in which kids submit decorated eggs for a White House display specify that the art "must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements. 

There's only one problem: the guidelines don't belong to 'the left' and they don't come from the Bidens. They come from the American Egg Board, which has had the same rules since the 70s. And that means former president Donald Trump attacked Easter using one of the exact same weapons as President Biden used.

So, what am I wondering here? With all the effort 'the right' puts into manufacturing wars by 'the left' against Christian holidays, I wonder why they don't put even one iota of effort into attacking the very un-Christian, unreligious, unpleasant, unpatriotic Easter 'truth' posted by their fearless leader. 

*****     *****

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R-MAGA) is unhappy that LSU's women's basketball team wasn't on the floor for the playing of our country's National Anthem (not to be confused with "America's most recognized patriotic anthem," Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA) at their Elite Eight appearance in Albany on Sunday. 

So unhappy, in fact, that he wants the state's Board of Regents to create a policy requiring student-athletes "be present for the National Anthem or lose their scholarships." He even managed to bring his mother into the mix with his tweet on the subject, which said, in part,

My mother coached women's high school basketball during the height of desegregation, no one has a greater respect for the sport and for Coach Mulkey. However, above respect for the game is a deeper respect for those that serve to protect us and unite us under one flag !

Landry apparently doesn't know that college athletes in his state, and others, typically aren't on the court or field for the anthem, which is played several minutes before the game starts. And he apparently doesn't know that they haven't been, for many years. And he apparently doesn't know that the Regents have nothing to do with scholarships. 

It kind of makes me wonder whether he gave this whole thing any thought at all, or if he just shoots from the lip like the guy who endorsed him for governor.

*****     *****

Oh - in case you're wondering, here's the current status of the GoFundMe to raise money to help the former president pay his judgments. I'll continue to report on this each week, but for now, it looks like it's gonna take a while.

*****     *****

What's on your wondering mind tonight?

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 1/24/24

 

Ready... set... wonder!

If you've been paying attention to financial news lately, you're likely aware that the stock market is booming. The Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P have all hit or neared record highs,  sometimes on consecutive days. 

Remember how big a deal that was during the Trump administration? He talked about it all the time in interviews and on social media. I found over 140 tweets or retweets from him raving about how high the market was, how many records it hit, and how fabulous it was when he was president. For example, here's one from December 31, 2020.

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, I'm wondering, am I supposed to be happy with my 401(k) doing so well, or am I supposed to be mad about rich people? 

*** *** *** *** *** 

This week marked the fourteenth anniversary of Citizens United, the case in which the Supreme Court decided that there are no limits on how much money corporations, non-profits, unions, trade organizations, and the like can spend buying elections, because limiting their money limits their speech.

According to an article from The Hill, 

AdImpact, a political advertising tracking firm, anticipates $10.2 billion will be spent on political advertising across broadcast, cable, radio, satellite, digital and CTV during the 2024 cycle, which would make it the most expensive in history.

And, if the estimate proves true, that'd be over a billion dollars more than was spent during the 2020 cycle, the previous record (emphasis added). The article also notes that

Outside groups have dumped nearly $318 million into 2024 presidential and congressional elections as of Sunday, OpenSecrets reported.

And how does that compare to 2020? It's "more than six times" what was spent during the same time period in '20 (emphasis added).

I won't bother wondering what this does to the voices of regular folks like you and me; I mean, that's pretty obvious, right? We're not actually muzzled, but our voices are surely being drowned out. 

I do wonder, though, why the amount living, breathing people can spend is limited. After all, we're the ones who actually vote.

*** *** *** *** ***

An article from HuffPost informed us that Ron DeSantis ran a pretty expensive campaign.

The DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down combined had roughly $150 million to work with. Much of that came in the form of an $82.5 million transfer from the Florida political committee that DeSantis used to run for governor in 2019 and 2023. It’s highly likely that money dried up in the waning days of his presidential campaign, as many of the governor’s donors had already maxed out their contributions while his donor base did not show signs of expanding.

I'm not surprised he dropped out of the race; many folks think he was really prepping for 2028 and a run against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). The two debated last November, which is when Newsom famously said, "Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024." 

As DeSantis half-heartedly endorsed the front-runner, Trump told us he would officially retire the 'Ron DeSanctimonious' nickname. I'm half-heartedly wondering if no longer having to hear the name is why DeSantis suspended his campaign - and if his donors, and their wallets, wish he had done it sooner.

*** *** *** *** ***

One more about politics, and then we'll move on - I promise. I've been talking about endorsements quite a bit lately, I know, but did you see this one?

Nikki Haley receives major endorsement from Judith Sheindlin ahead of New Hampshire primary

You may be wondering, as am I, how many people knew who Judith Sheindlin was without watching the video or googling her. And I can't help wondering how much influence Sheindlin has? I guess she's still on TV in syndication, but her show ended in July 2021. And finally, I wonder how on earth this can in any way be considered "a major endorsement."

*** *** *** *** ***

It's FAFSA season - that time when families with high school seniors sit down and try to figure out how they're going to fund further education for their kids. While there are reports of issues with the form, the lateness of it, and most importantly with the calculations, that's not what I'm wondering about. 

Rather, I'm thinking about what happens long before FAFSA - when parents fight their way through the challenge of finding available and affordable childcare - and long after, when the kids have been out of college for 10, 15, or 20+ years and still owe on their student loans. 

Here's what I'm wondering: why don't we hear the same complaints about childcare tax credits as we do about student loan forgiveness? If the argument against the former is that we shouldn't have to bail out people who can't afford college, I'd expect the same people to argue that we shouldn't have to bail out people who can't afford to raise their own children.

*** *** *** *** ***

I'll close with a silly observation. I follow a couple of 'old house' pages on social media, which share photos of houses built as far back as the late 1600s, with most being around 100 years newer than that.

Followers of the page are very passionate; for people who complain, and for those who love what they see, everything is fair game:  windows, walls, floors, and ceilings; rugs, art, and collectibles, and where they are displayed;  and most especially, the kitchens and bathrooms. The most common complaints about those two rooms are that everything is too modern, the wrong material, in the wrong spot, or just plain ugly.

I haven't officially commented on this yet, but I wonder why no one ever complains about the houses having indoor plumbing and electricity in the first place?

*** *** *** *** ***

What's on your wondering mind today?

Let's Fight This - TOGETHER!

A Special Message from

the Twice-Impeached 

45th President of the 

United States

They've got it all wrong, the Lame Stream Media, the liars on CNN and MSDNC and the failing New York Times and the Bezos Washington Post and all the rest... they've got it All Wrong. 

Let me give you the Truth about what's happening here. 

First of all, I didn't lose the election. 

I didn't lose the election, so there was no reason for me to pack anything, so I didn't pack anything, because I won and wasn't going to be leaving. And I'd still be your President, Right Now, and there wouldn't have been a problem if only Georgia had found those 11,780 votes like I asked them to, and like Lindsey asked them to, and like Rudy asked them to, and like everyone else asked them to. 

Or Arizona, too, if they had done the right thing. Or Michigan, or Nevada, or  Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. So if they had just done the right thing, none of this would be happening right now, and all my documents would be safe and the Country would be safe, our Borders and our Stock Market and our Taxes - everything would be safe, if they had just done the right thing. 

But they didn't and when that wimp, that un-American, un-Patriotic traitor Mike Pence refused to do the right thing and send it back to the states like he was supposed to, I was stuck. I swear, my Secret Service guys should have just grabbed him and stuffed him in the SUV. Worthless. 

Anyway, Melania was so frazzled that we were leaving - she had more decorating to do, and stuff to document just like she was doing on January 6th and didn't know anything about what was happening, she really didn't - she was upset, she loved it here - she just started throwing stuff in Tupperware bowls and tubs and stuff, even the jewelry I gave her, the ungrateful wench. 

And there I was, alone. Jared was, I don't know, showering all day long or counting his Saudi money with his crook of a father - why did I pardon him again? 

Those worthless sons of mine were probably out golfing or something, or maybe Donny Jr was home waiting for what's her name, the "The Best is Yet To Come!" girl I paid $60,000 to for introducing Don Jr. to the crowd at the Ellipse on January 6th - what a waste of money she is! And how on earth was she married to that incompetent commie nutjob in California, Gavin Newsom? And now she's my son's fiancé? What did I do to deserve this?

And my beloved Ivanka was home with those Beautiful grandchildren of mine, aren't they Beautiful? They are the most beautiful grandchildren a man could have, right? Just Beautiful, through and through.

So the staff people, the ones that I hadn't scared off,  the staff came running up to the residence with boxes every day, packing, packing, boxing up everything they could get their hands on, I don't even know what they put in all the boxes, the stuff was just thrown in, all willy-nilly, and then the boxes were stuffed in the truck and off everything went to my Beautiful, Historic, Important Mar-a-Lago, the most Famous house in all the world.

I barely managed to get my hands on the compromising photo books, and my pictures of Vlad - it was crazy.

And then, when they reached out to me last year, I had no idea there was anything being stored at my beloved Mar-a-Lago that I wasn't supposed to have. I thought I had taken care of most of the stuff anyone would worry about; that was ripped up and disposed of at the White House. 

And what about that Crooked Hillary flunky, Maggie Haberman, the third-rate NY Times reporter - half the kid her parents were, for sure, sharing those pictures... who takes pictures of other peoples' toilets?

And remember when I complained about having to flush and flush and flush? Yeah, well now you understand right? Damn 'green' toilets. You gotta flush and flush and flush them, it's a mess. Horrible.

And in January when I gave them boxes, they were boxes I had never even seen before, maybe someone found them in the back of Melania's closet, that's why I didn't know anything about them. And so, they took the boxes and I thought that was it. They even got back that meteorological map of Dorian - just like I told you, Alabama was in danger the whole time! 

And then they said other stuff was missing.

And so I let the lawyers handle everything, and they all said we gave everything back, and that's what they told them, so I just assumed that there was nothing left. They even signed something, saying they had given everything back, I didn't even know we had anything, I didn't pack anything.

And then we heard from them again - good lord, don't these people have anything do to other than pester me about boxes of stuff I know nothing about? Why aren't they trying to put Crooked Hillary in jail? Why the hell aren't they publishing all the stuff off Hunter's laptop, all the Biden Crime Family stuff, instead of trying to pretend there's a Trump Crime Family? What a lie! Everything I have, I've earned the hard way, ever since I was a kid. Even my bone spurs, hard-fought battle but I got them.

'Put a new lock on the door', they said - 'it's not secure enough,' they said. So we did, and even that wasn't good enough, they wanted the camera footage and they sent a subpoena, and still we were cooperating with them, just like from the beginning when the White House Staff filled the boxes and put them in the truck and then they came and picked stuff up. 

Just like I've said all along, if they wanted the boxes back, I would have given them back, but they never asked. And once they sent the subpoena, why should I give them back the boxes? Just because they sent me a subpoena? 

I've gotten hundreds of subpoenas in my life, and I never just do what they ask me to, that's ridiculous, especially when Trump is under attack, all the time, my entire life. I've been sued more times than anyone in history! My legal files are the biggest you've never seen! They're massive, way bigger than Obama's! I can show you - mine are bigger, no question about it.

And it doesn't matter anyway, because I declassified everything - every single piece of paper, photo, post-it note, article, white paper, briefing book, eyes only piece of paper they shoved under my nose - I declassified it ALL - all at the same time. They must know that, everyone knows that - I can do it, and I did it, and all of this is stupid. Nothing is classified anymore, I declassified all of it, I stood right there over the boxes. 

Oh, wait that's not how I did it, I had no idea what was in the boxes, the staff took care of that. But I declassified everything, everything in the residence was declassified, even if it wasn't classified in the first place. 

And even if I didn't, it doesn't matter, because all of this is old stuff now, since they kicked me out of my White House in January 2021, that bastard Mike Pence, we should have hung him, just like I said. So how can something a year-and-a-half old be a threat to Our Great Country? 

Well, it was Great once, now it's a Third World Country with the libs and Sleepy Joe and Carmella and Drunk Nancy and Cryin' Chuck and the Radical Left Squad and the Woke Mob in charge - what a Mess they have made of our Beautiful Country, right? Antifa and BLM and all the rest...

And now that we've got this NEW Witch Hunt, after the Fake Russia Russia Russia and Impeachment#1 and Impeachment #2 and Mueller's Fake Witch Hunt, now we've got another one to deal with and I tell you, real Americans are just not going to stand for this anymore! We must FIGHT to get Our Great Country back again. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Because these documents that I never took and didn't know I had and they could have had back at any time just by asking for them and they're not top secret any longer because it's old stuff on old paper, and besides, I declassified EVERYTHING, and this RAID on my Beautiful Home, the most Beautiful, Famous home in the world, ask anyone, this Raid and this Unlawful Search - they touched Melania's clothes, can you believe that? I think one of them even put on her I Don't Care Do U? jacket, we saw that on the camera, I'm sure we did.

These are just the tip of the iceberg that's going to hit Our Country if we don't stop the woke mob, the lazy liberals who are trying to turn us into a Fourth World Country and if there weren't any of those last week, we're the first and best Country ever to become one. And don't believe any of that Climate Change crap; if it was so warm, why do we still have icebergs? And that iceberg aiming for America right now? 

Civil war, I tell you. Some people are saying we're on the verge of a civil war.

I even called Merrick Garland - and have you ever heard anyone so wimpy? His mother Judy, boy could she sing, right? He sounds like a little kid up there, trying to convince his parents he wasn't out drinking with what's her name, that Renate person... oh wait, that's a different judge, never mind. 

Anyway, Garland, I called him, asked him what I could do to calm things down after HE raided MY house, SEIZED my documents that I never had and even if I did have them, it doesn't matter because there's nothing wrong with it, and besides, I declassified everything back in January before I left Washington so I wouldn't have to be there for the Fake Inauguration of the Fake President. 

Here I am, trying to help, and what do I get? NOTHING! Merrick Garland, he didn't even take my call. We get nothing, Patriots - you and I, we get nothing. But that's all going to change. 

With your help, and your prayers, and your donations, we will Fight this Together! We Love You. You are all Beautiful, Special people. Stand back and stand by, and if you do that near an FBI office, that's even better. 

We Love You. 

And we will fight this together.

Rush your Generous Donation to the

Protect Melania's Wardrobe and Keep The "Justice" Department 

and the Liars at the FBI from Ruining Our Great Country PAC

right away (you can just ignore the highlighted box

making this a daily contribution - that's just a joke). 

We love you. And together We. Will. Save. America.

And if you donate within the next 45 minutes, we'll make sure

the President sees your name at the top of the list of America-loving Patriots.

And if yours is the lucky name he circles with his Presidential Sharpie,

you could win tickets to his next rally. 

And remember to vote against

Liz Cheney. Even if you don't live in Wyoming. 

Thank you for your support. 

You're a helluva Patriot.

Sunday School 7/19/20: The Final Chapter

Yes, it does take three volumes to cover a Donald Trump/Chris Wallace interview.  Parts one and two are in the books; here's the last of it.

After Wallace pointed out that in the latest Fox News poll, Joe Biden beats Trump even on the competency question, there was some back and forth on that test that Trump aced, shocking all of the doctors, no one had ever done so well on it, and, oh by the way, Trump said there was no way Wallace could pass it. And then,

If Joe Biden got in, first of all, he won't call the shots. The people - the radical left people that surround him will call. Religion will be gone, OK? Life, you could forget about that, the whole question of life. Supreme Court - (Wallace confirmed he was talking about abortion) Absolutely. A hundred percent. That whole question, which is a very - you know, it's always been a 50-50 thing... it's actually trending a little bit more towards one side now. 

On religion:

Well, look at what they're doing to the churches. They won't let the churches even open if they want to stand in a field six feet apart. We've had churches that wanted to stand in fields six feet apart. There has never been an administration that's done so much as I have. From tax cuts, to regulation cuts, to rebuilding the military, to getting choice for the vets. Nobody's done the things I've done. Nobody. In three and a half years, no other president's been able to do what I've done.

On the pace of reopening and whether the economy will be an issue in November:

I don't think so. I think the economy is expanding and growing beautifully. Now, the Democrats want to keep it closed as long as possible because they think that's good for election. But I think the economy is doing very well. Now we're coming back and we're coming back at a level that nobody would have thought possible. And we are -- and, by the way, take a look at another -- I mean, a gauge, whether you like it or not, the stock market. The stock market, Nasdaq hit its all-time high two weeks ago and has beaten it 14 different times, OK. The stock market, Dow, et cetera, is a thousand points away from its all-time high, meaning very close. We're going to have a stock market perhaps on November 3rd that's the highest in history.

On having no plan to replace Obamacare:

Well, we haven't had -- excuse me, you heard me yesterday, we're signing a health care plan within two weeks. A full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we're going to solve -- we're going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan, and various other plans. And nobody will have done what I'm doing in the next four weeks. The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had by approving -- by doing what they did, their decision on DACA. And DACA's going to be taken care of also. But we're getting rid of it because we're going to replace it with something much better. But what we got rid of already, which was most of Obamacare, the individual mandate. And that I've already won on. And we won also on the Supreme Court. But the decision by the Supreme Court on DACA allows me to do things on immigration, on health care, on other things that we've never done before. And you're going to find it to be a very exciting two weeks.

On how it would be if he lost in November:

And you know why I won't lose, because the country, in the end, they're not going to have a man who has - who's shot. He's shot. He's mentally shot. Let him come out of his basement, go around, I'll make four or five speeches a day, I'll be interviewed by you, I'll be interviewed by the worst killers that hate my - my guts. They hate my guts. There's nothing they can ask me that I won't give them a proper answer to. Some people will like it. Some people won't like it... But, look, let - Let Biden sit through an interview like this. He'll be underground crying for mommy. He'll say mommy, mommy, please take me home. 

He can't do an interview. He's incompetent. There's a number you don't mention. It's called the enthusiasm number. The enthusiasm for Trump is through the roof, even higher - even higher than last time. The enthusiasm for Biden is non- existent. Everyone knows he's shot. (Wallace notes enthusiasm against Trump is high) Well, that's OK. That's his only shot. And that's his only shot. I agree. And those people know I'm doing a good job. But it's something in my personality that they don't like because, look, nobody's done what I've done. Biden wants to come in and ruin our country, triple your taxes. He wants to do things - he wants to add regulations that I've all cut. And we still have regulation, a lot of regulation, but I've cut it down to a level that nobody's - nobody ever thought possible.

He will destroy this country. But it won't be him. It will be the radical left. The same type ideology that took over Venezuela, one of the richest countries in the world. They now have no water, they have no food, and they have no medicine.  That's going to happen here if he wins.

On how he will regard his years as president, whether it ends in 2021 or 2025: 

I think I was very unfairly treated. From before I even won, I was under investigation by a bunch of thieves, crooks. It was an illegal investigation. Russia, Russia, Russia. (Wallace asks about the good parts) No, no. I want to go this. I have done more than any president in history in the first three and a half years, and I've done it suffering through investigations where people have been -- General Flynn, where people have been so unfairly treated. The Russia hoax, it was all a hoax. The Mueller scam, it was all a scam. It was all false. I made a bad decision on - one bad decision. Jeff Sessions. And now I feel good because he lost overwhelmingly in the great state of Alabama. Here's the bottom line, I've been very unfairly treated. And I don't say that as paranoid. I've been very - everybody says it. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. But there's tremendous evidence right now as to how unfairly treated I was.

President Obama and Biden spied on my campaign. It's never happened in history. If it were the other way around, the people would be in jail for 50 years right now. That would be Comey, that would be Brennan, that would be all of this - the two lovers, Strzok and Page, they would be in jail now for many, many years. They would be in jail. It would have started two years ago and they'd be there for 50 years. The fact is, they illegally spied on my campaign. Let's see what happens. Despite that, I did more than any president in history in the first three and a half years. 

I hope you got all of that, from this part and the first two. Remember, there WILL be a quiz on all of this. I don't normally do that, but this is hardly a normal interview.

Stay safe, and I'll see you around the virtual campus.

Wondering on Wednesday (v158)

So, what's on our collective minds this week, the last Wonderful Wednesday before Christmas?

Some might be wondering why the president decided to declare victory in Syria and announce - via  a tweet - that he was going to bring the troops home. Among the people wondering about this are folks at the Pentagon, who (again) were uninformed about one of the president's policy statements until it social media, catching them off guard. The very first thing I wondered when I heard this is whether anyone had checked the tapes to see what they've been talking about on any of the Fox shows, since that's where those "many people" the president often references work.  (I honestly don't have the energy to check this myself.)

Don't get me wrong - wiping out ISIS, or 99% of ISIS as some suggest, is a good thing. But is tweeting that we're going to be walking away, without a whole lot of detail for our friends and allies (or our own people) really a smart way to do it? I've wondered about this whole 'announcing our military intentions' thing for a long time, well before the current administration took office - I mean, that would be like Apple announcing their new technology via tweet well before the Chinese even had a chance to try and steal it, or something.

I saw on the news tonight that the stock market is down some 5.8% on the year, and that got me wondering if it wouldn't be more honest and transparent if we reported the market results not relative to the immediate past prior trading day, but to where we started at the beginning of the year. So, for example, instead of saying the Dow was down 351.98 (today's close compared to yesterday's close), we would report it as being down 1,500.35 (today's close compared to the close on January 2, 2018).
I think this would go a long way toward helping people understand that winning thing we're supposed to be getting so tired of by now.  And it would might help people make better judgments of the truthfulness of  presidential pronouncements on the market (which, of course, he only makes when things are going well).

We may be avoiding a government shutdown, a proud moment for a president shutdown, a border security shutdown, after all.  There's activity on a number of fronts here, apparently, which changed the president's mind on the shutdown (he loves that word, shutdown):

• his own people immediately started walking back the pride aspect of his comments the other day with Chuck and Nancy;
• the Republicans in the Senate let him know it was an asinine thing to be proud of;
• he ordered his cabinet of only the best people to find money in their budgets to help come up with the $5B he said was needed to prevent the shutdown;
• he said he didn't need $5B after all, $1.5B was all he really needed
• he recalculated his "and Mexico is going to build the wall pay for the wall" statement, again,  instead saying that they will indirectly pay for it because of all the new pesos flooding into the country because of the renegotiated NAFTA deal

We can wonder about which of those things might have been the one to break the camel's back, as it were, but the real wondering about all of this shutdown stuff has to be reserved for Mitch McConnell, who today let us know that

... Republicans will continue to fulfill our duty to govern. That's why we will soon take up a simple measure that will continue government funding into February. So we can continue this vital debate after the new Congress has convened. Because, make no mistake - there will be important unfinished business left in front of us. And we'll owe it to the American people to tackle it.

Yes, the Senate Majority Leader has now officially understood that the Senate has a responsibility to the American people. And I wonder, did he get struck by lightning or something, to come to this revelation? "We'll owe it to the American people?"  You already owe it to us, Senator Obstructionist. You ALREADY owe it to us.

And finally, in the spirit of Christmas, let's talk about music. For it seems lots of people are still wondering why people ever wondered about 'Baby, it's Cold Outside' (a Christmas song having nothing at all to do with Christmas), and those same people are also wondering why people who wondered about 'Baby, it's Cold Outside' aren't instead wondering how cold it must be for a homeless, drug addicted, PTSD-suffering veteran, single mother, domestic violence victim who doesn't have two pennies to rub together and they need to start doing something about it.

Now, this is not about wondering about people who are wondering about a song, it's wondering about people who have so much time on their hands that they can not only tell other people to stop wondering about one thing, but also tell them to start wondering about other specific things.

I have to wonder about all of that...

Wondering on Wednesday (v155)

Welcome, friends, to our regular wondering and wandering through the news. Here's a snipped of what's on my wondering mind.

Facebook is under fire again, this time facing grilling from an international panel that's frustrated with the social media behemoth for a host of reasons, including privacy issues, not being able to control misinformation and propaganda, and worse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not attend, which did not endear his company to the inquisitors - no wondering there.

But what I do wonder about is this: if you think Facebook has an obligation to protect us from ourselves and our inability to discern what's real from what's fake, what's intentional misinformation from what's an accidental share of something outdated, or from the general threat of interference in elections, who else should ace the same solution, whatever that might be? Would be be everyone below or to the left or right of the green box on the Media Bias Chart 4.0? Or would the yellow box get to stay  too, as long as it was heavily disclaimed?

And, as I've wondered before, who's more dangerous, a 400-pound guy in a basement, the Russian intelligence machine,  the Chinese government  picking pro-Trump industries for tariffs, or the president himself?  For example, here's just one of the president's many actions on Twitter today:

That's right - the president of the United States retweeted this picture today.  #MAGAMA, if you know what I mean.

Also today, NPR reported that enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans is down some 400,000 people in the first 17 days this year compared to last year. Also down this year? Spending by the feds on support for enrollees in the plans.  In 2016, $63 million was spent on funding for navigators, the people who help others, in person, find a plan and get enrolled. Last year, it was $36M, and this year? $10M.

Now, we can somewhat logically guess that some of the decrease in enrollment is because of the lower unemployment rate; after all, most of us get our insurance through our employers not through healthcare.gov, the federal exchange. But it's hard not wondering how much further the Trump administration will go to 'repeal' the ACA by continually drying up the funding. You know, like they  might do with the Mueller investigation...

Finally today, I can't help wondering whether the speech by Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, was driven at least in part by the president's treatment of Powell and not only by the collective thinking of the central bankers. From this article on The Street,

Prior to Powell's appearance, Donald Trump criticized him and the Fed in an interview with the Washington Post in which he accused the central bank of pushing US stocks lower and triggering a decision by General Motors Co. to shutter five plants in North America and two additional plants outside North America, and cut 15% of its salaried workforce. 

Trump  told the Post in an interview that he wasn't "even a little bit happy with my selection" of Powell to head the Federal Reserve, adding that the Fed's current stance on interest rates was "way off base." Trump's remarks followed a similar interview with The Wall Street Journal in which he accused the central bank of being a "bigger problem than China."

Now, maybe Powell is another Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, a guy who will continue to do his thing in spite of the obvious attempts at interference from his boss. But at the end of September, Powell suggested our low interest rates was no longer necessary, suggesting that rates would continue to rise in the near future. I don't pretend to understand this stuff, but the timing of this change, which delighted the market today, is interesting. 

And one thing we won't have to wonder about much is how soon the president will being tweeting about the stock market again.

There's more out there we could focus on -- what's on your list, I wonder?

TGIF 7/27/18

What kind of week did you have? Was it better or worse than these folks?

How about that Michael Cohen, the president's 'fixer', the deal maker's deal maker?  It seems like just a short while ago that Rudy Giuliani was saying Michael Cohen was an honest, honorable lawyer and yet, last night during an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN, the messer-upper (Rudy) was now contending that Cohen has been a liar from the beginning, lies all the time, which lie can you believe, and so on. And I thought, wow - when the lying president's lying lawyer calls you a liar, that's a pretty bad week, right?

Who else had a bad week?  Mark Zuckerberg and anyone who owns Facebook stock, and anyone who owns Twitter stock, and maybe anyone who owns any other social media stock  Yesterday, Facebook took a huge hit, and in two days its stock has dropped around 20%. Today, Twitter took a huge hit as well, dropping in similar fashion. Both companies have been trying to address bad actors, purging fake accounts, and the like, and also dropping 'real' or 'active' users or at least not growing as fast as investors would like. Facebook faced some particular wrath lately due to its decision not to ban holocaust deniers from the platform. Sure, they're wrong and history deniers and all that, but we have to learn from them and teach them what's right and we can't do that if we shut them down or something. Infowars was another beneficiary of that thinking.

On the good week side of things, there was happy baby news from the Animal Adventure Park, outside of Binghamton, NY: Internet star April the Giraffe and her zoo mate Oliver are expecting another baby in the spring!. Folks will recall the frenzy when the park streamed live footage of April pretty much doing nothing except eating, and sleeping, and eating, and sleeping, for what seemed like weeks on end last spring, with all of the excitement culminating in the birth of baby Tajiri. We're set to go through all of that again early next spring, although owner Jordan Patch noted that while the average or normal gestation period for giraffes is around 15 months, April likes to go longer.

Rod Rosenstein could have ended up on the short end of the stick this week, after the House Freedom Caucus decided to file a resolution of impeachment against him - but that was foiled when lame duck House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated he was not supportive of their shenanigans. The HFC gang decided to table their request and instead will maybe give Rosenstein a contempt of Congress citation if he doesn't start playing better in the sandbox with them.

TGIF, everyone.

Trump in Transition (v28)

The president, in his own words, before a meeting yesterday with his generals or something. Orange emphasis is mine.

So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys — a good man.  

And it’s a disgraceful situation.  

It’s a total witch hunt.  

I’ve been saying it for a long time.  

I’ve wanted to keep it down.  

We’ve given, I believe, over a million pages’ worth of documents to the Special Counsel.

They continue to just go forward.  

And here we are talking about Syria and we’re talking about a lot of serious things.  

We’re the greatest fighting force ever.  

And I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now — and actually, much more than that.  

You could say it was right after I won the nomination, it started.

And it’s a disgrace.

It’s, frankly, a real disgrace.  

It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense.  

It’s an attack on what we all stand for.

So when I saw this and when I heard it — I heard it like you did — I said, that is really now on a whole new level of unfairness.

So this has been going on — I saw one of the reporters, who is not necessarily a fan of mine, not necessarily very good to me.  

He said, in effect, that this is ridiculous; this is now getting ridiculous.  

They found no collusion whatsoever with Russia.  

The reason they found it is there was no collusion at all.  

No collusion.  

This is the most biased group of people.  

These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I’ve ever seen.

Democrats all — or just about all — either Democrats or a couple of Republicans that worked for President Obama, they’re not looking at the other side; they’re not looking at the Hillary Clinton — the horrible things that she did and all of the crimes that were committed.  

They’re not looking at all of the things that happened that everybody is very angry about, I can tell you, from the Republican side, and I think even the independent side.  

They only keep looking at us.

So they find no collusion, and then they go from there and they say, “Well, let’s keep going.”  

And they raid an office of a personal attorney early in the morning.  

And I think it’s a disgrace.

So we’ll be talking about it more.  

But this is the most conflicted group of people I’ve ever seen. 

The Attorney General made a terrible mistake when he did this, and when he recused himself.  

Or he should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used a — put a different Attorney General in.  

So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country.  

But you’ll figure that out.

All I can say is, after looking for a long period of time — and even before the Special Counsel — because it really started just about from the time I won the nomination.  

And you look at what took place and what happened, and it’s a disgrace.  

It’s a disgrace.

I’ve been President now for what seems like a lengthy period of time.  

We’ve done a fantastic job.  

We’ve beaten ISIS.  

We have just about 100 percent of the caliphate or the land.  

Our economy is incredible.  

The stock market dropped a lot today as soon as they heard the noise of this nonsense that’s going on. 

It dropped a lot.  

It was up — way up, and then it dropped quite a bit at the end.  

A lot.

But that we have to go through that — we’ve had that hanging over us now from the very, very beginning.  

And yet the other side, they don’t even bother looking.  

And the other side is where there are crimes, and those crimes are obvious.  

Lies, under oath, all over the place.  

Emails that are knocked out, that are acid-washed and deleted.  

Nobody has ever seen — 33,000 emails are deleted after getting a subpoena for Congress, and nobody bothers looking at that.  

And many, many other things.

So I just think it’s a disgrace that a thing like this can happen.  

With all of that being said, we are here to discuss Syria tonight.  

We’re the greatest fighting force anywhere in the world.  

These gentlemen and ladies are incredible people, incredible talent, and we’re making a decision as to what we do with respect to the horrible attack that was made near Damascus.  

And it will be met, and it will be met forcefully.  

And when, I will not say, because I don’t like talking about the timing.

But we are developing the greatest force that we’ve ever had.  

We had $700 billion just approved, which was the reason I went along with that budget because we had to fix our military.  

General Mattis would tell you that above anybody.  

We had to fix our military.  

And right now, we’re in a big process of doing that.  

Seven-hundred billion and then $716 billion next year.

So we’re going to make a decision tonight, or very shortly thereafter.  

And you’ll be hearing the decision.  

But we can’t let atrocities like we all witnessed — and you can see that and it’s horrible — we can’t let that happen.  

In our world, we can’t let that happen, especially when we’re able to — because of the power of the United States, because of the power of our country — we’re able to stop it.