Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

We will not go back.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

“They all knew.”

Innocent people do not delay justice.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

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58Comments

  3. 3.

    Jackie

    OT:

    Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) “is prepared to blame his wife at his bribery trial for withholding information from him about gifts they allegedly accepted from businessmen seeking favors, a newly unsealed court document shows,” Bloomberg reports.

    “The revelation came Tuesday in a portion of a March court filing in which lawyers for the New Jersey Democrat asked a US judge to try him separately from his wife, Nadine. They are accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a car to help three businessmen and the Egyptian government. Menendez is also accused of acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.”

    Menendez is a sleezebag. I can’t wait for him to be a former senator when Andy Kim is elected and restores honor to NJ.

  4. 4.

    Scout211

    I have to say that the DJT stock losing value daily is amusing.

    Today’s dip in value was prompted by the company announcing that they were getting into streaming. What?  Do they want to lose value? It almost feels like a giant scam.  You know, like the rest of Trump’s life

    Shares of TMTG (DJT) tumbled 14% Tuesday after closing 18% lower Monday. Driving the stock lower Tuesday: The company’s premier product, Truth Social, announced a major expansion into streaming, a notoriously cost-intensive business in which media behemoths like Disney have struggled to turn a profit.

    TMTG’s stock, majority-owned by former President Donald Trump, is down more than 70% from the all-time high it set on March 26, the day after it merged with a blank-check acquisition company to go public. Although the company is still worth billions of dollars, it is struggling to make money and desperate for cash.

    Experts have warned investors to be careful if they choose to trade the stock, because the company doesn’t have the fundamentals to back up its sky-high valuation.

  5. 5.

    Poe Larity

    All these glorious institutions failing…

    The Justice Department is preparing to sue Live Nation as soon as next month, an antitrust challenge that could spur major changes at the biggest name in concert promotion and ticketing

  8. 8.

    Jackie

    @Scout211: I heard with one ear, that TIFG won’t personally be hurt financially for ?? reasons, but, as usual, his loyal MAGAts who believe in him, and are buying in, will be.

    Yet, they’ll still believe…

  10. 10.

    Jackie

    From DOJ:

    TRENTON, N.J. – A Monmouth County, New Jersey, financial counselor with the United States Army and major in the U.S. Army Reserves today admitted defrauding Gold Star families and related crimes, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

    Caz Craffy, aka “Carz Craffey,” 41, of Colts Neck, New Jersey, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner in Trenton federal court to the indictment filed against him, which charged six counts of wire fraud and one count each of securities fraud, making false statements in a loan application, committing acts affecting a personal financial interest, and making false statements to a federal agency.

    “Those who target and steal from the families of fallen American servicemembers will be held accountable for their crimes,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said. “Nothing can undo the enormous loss that Gold Star families have suffered, but the Justice Department is committed to doing everything in our power to protect them from further harm.”

    justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/us-army-financial-counselor-admits-defrauding-gold-star-families#

    Much more at the link. Suffice it to say, there are several statements of disgust re: Caz Craffy.

  12. 12.

    Shalimar

    @dmsilev: A reporter on I think Chris Hayes’ show earlier was talking about one investor who thought the price should go to 1000 per share.  He did not say based on what, though he does not believe in the fundamental numbers.   I am a fantasy-oriented person and I don’t even get how someone talks themselves into such complete nonsense.   Wishing for unicorns does not create unicorns.

  13. 13.

    Brachiator

    Although the company is still worth billions of dollars, it is struggling to make money and desperate for cash.

    Now this is some bullshit. The company is not worth billions. And neither is Trump.

  14. 14.

    Urza

    @Shalimar: Thats just it, since the Bush administration conservatives have decided to create their own reality and try force it on everyone else.  The longer they do it without actual reality bursting their echo chamber the crazier they can get.  Its like any conspiracy theory, once you believe that most of the wealthy people are immortal lizard people from space its not a far cry from them drinking adrenochrome from infant blood and whatever else Q spouts.  Stock prices are easy to imagine are going to work a certain way because you know the truth when no one else does.

  16. 16.

    Jay C

    @Brachiator:

    You’re probably quite right about the value of TMTG*, but The Orange Anus owns 78,800,000 shares: so even at a desultory value, he’s still got a sizable chunk of change coming when/if he sells out. Which AFAICT, was the whole point of the exercise. Well, that and a pretty sophisticated pump-and-dump short-sale scheme….

     

    *what financial professionals would refer to as “bupkis”

  18. 18.

    wjca

    @Scout211: I have to say that the DJT stock losing value daily is amusing.

    Buy a loser in order to own the libs?  Interesting “logic”

  20. 20.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Shalimar:

    A reporter on I think Chris Hayes’ show earlier was talking about one investor who thought the price should go to 1000 per share.  He did not say based on what,

    The awesome business genius of Trump, of course.

  21. 21.

    beef

    I wonder if Trump bought any puts on his stock.  Probably get him in trouble with the SEC, but that’s not his biggest problem.

  26. 26.

    ewrunning

    Did anyone else read Alicia Montgomery’s takedown of NPR in Slate? Unsurprisingly, she describes a leadership bent on finding the elusive middle position between two sides as their belle ideal of objectivity. However, the worst part (aside from the sexual harassment episodes under Mike Oreskes) are in this discussion of editorial discussions during the 2016 campaign:

    “I remember one editorial meeting where a white newsroom leader said that Trump’s strong poll numbers wouldn’t survive his being exposed as a racist. When a journalist of color asked whether his numbers could be rising because of his racism, the comment was met with silence. In another meeting, I and a couple of other editorial leaders were encouraged to make sure that any coverage of a Trump lie was matched with a story about a lie from Hillary Clinton. Another colleague asked what to do if one candidate just lied more than the other. Another silent response.”

  27. 27.

    Chet Murthy

    @Jackie: I’m so old I remember when Va Gov Bob McDonnell and wife did this same trick.  IIRC it didn’t work for them; what  did work, was SC(R)OTUS being in the bag.

  28. 28.

    hitchhiker

    Is anybody here on threads? And if so, can you tell me what I’m doing wrong.

    I have a bunch of people I follow, mostly people who followed me or whose names I know and respect.

    I open the app, toggle to make sure I’m on “following” and not “for you.”

    And the feed is neither chronological nor limited to people I follow. The top posts can be 2 days old from some rando piping up about why going to the gym is an occasion of sin for Christian men.

    What the fuck.

  31. 31.

    fish bicycle

    It seems that some style article on ol handsome Joe and his dapper ness aroused the ire of spray-on hair Goebbels, Stephen miller, who whined that the bewigged hantavirus and his most recent mail order bride were “style icon[s]” and thereby deserved it more, I guess, because that is definitely how fashion puff pieces work.

    To some extent I agree which is why at my next felony trial I will make sure to sport French cuffs.

  32. 32.

    Anotherlurker

    Since this is an open thread, let me rant about FB.  I recently purchased a new computer.  In the routine of signing into websites and other internet accounts, I had no problems. I request to change my password and they authorize a 2nd step to my phone #. All is going smooth until I hit Facebook.  I go thru the process of requesting a pw change., they tell me that a code will be sent to my phone #. They display the number and it is correct. It is my phone #.   I never received a code. I try again. Same result. I repeat the request for a pw change twice more.  Same results.

    2 days later I try to post to my fb page and I’m told that they have disabled my account because they can’t verify.  This is like a Monty Python routine.   I have learned a lot from this experience.   FB is a scam set up by a grifting Billioniare that sucks information and gives nothing in return. They are incompetent.  They have O customer service.

    I enjoyed being in touch with my scattered friends but the abuse of an incompetent organization is just too much.

  33. 33.

    RaflW

    @Jay C: I’ve been a stock investort for 40 years, and I don’t have a working knowledge of why “a blank-check acquisition company” should exist, much less get to Issue what seems like near-worthless shares.

  34. 34.

    Chet Murthy

    @RaflW:

    1. regular securities markets adequately, so that investors are more-or-less protected from rampant thievery
    2.  “come on, you don’t need an umbrella, you’re hardly getting wet!”
    3. go to #2
  39. 39.

    Shalimar

    @NotMax: If it reaches 1000 per share, the total value will be over 2.5 times what Musk paid for Twitter.  It’s so much beyond insane I don’t even have a word for it.

  44. 44.

    danielx

    @RaflW:

    Off the top of my head, as a device for making money appear out of thin air for a very limited number of people*. An exercise in creative finance for the benefit of insiders like the orange hairball, doesn’t matter whether the ostensible purpose of the whole scheme ever makes money for investors or not. It’s never made money. It’s never going to make money, ever. As for the fools putting their money into shares it would be a lot easier to just donate money to Trump directly and skip the frustration of watching the value of their investment slipping every day. He doesn’t care how short a haircut his shareholders have to endure as long as he makes money. It’s a Trump University type scam, one more in a long line of cons and frauds.

    When one of Trump’s casino companies went bankrupt, one of his comments was to the effect that he personally took a ton of money out of the operation. Period fucking dot.

    *Also to give him his very own social network upon which he can say anything he pleases including a shit ton of outright lies and threats without getting kicked off.

  46. 46.

    West of the Rockies

    @Shalimar:

    Trumplings are cultists. They are misinformed, (probably) under-educated, and almost devoid of reasoning ability.

    It would be sad if they weren’t so full of hate.

  47. 47.

    AlaskaReader

    @RaflW: What underpins capitalism is nothing more or less than the legalized means to shove any and/or all downside risk off on others while the ‘licensed operators’ take profits.

    Get yourself a license or a concession and you too can do to others as capitalists have always done. Make someone else pay so you can skim from the top.

  48. 48.

    Chet Murthy

    @Chet Murthy: @RaflW: sorry, I see I made a typo: s/regular/regulate/

    You’ve been around long enough that you remember when there were rules about having to have a certain minimum amount of capital to invest, in order to get a brokerage account?  That was designed to keep the sheep out of stock investing, on the theory that they’d only get shorn.  Obviously, with the passage of those 40 years, our entire society has become more and more red-in-tooth-and-claw, and people have invented more and more ways to sidestep those regulations, get to those sheep, shear them but good.  And it’s not just stocks: look at the way that sports betting has gone from something that everybody agreed was wrong, but hey, a lotta people do it, to something that is celebrated and discussed on TV, and (IIUC) is soon (maybe already) going to be legal in all 50 states

    ETA: and look at that Robinhood app.  I mean ….. sheesh.

  49. 49.

    Jay

    @danielx:

    It’s actually supposed to be an investment vehicle.

    The idea is that a few big bucks pool their money and issues shares based on??????? Basically that fact they are big bucks.

    Smaller Investors can buy in by buying shares.

    The “fund” is then used to buy other publically traded companies, with out telegraphing whom they are going to buy.

    It’s basically Berkshire Hathaway, PepsiCo, etc with out any any holdings yet, just stock shares and a pile of cash.

  50. 50.

    Martin

    @danielx: Right, but none of those reasons are why the government created corporations or shareholders or the issuance of stock.

    So these are all just exploits of a system that should have a specific purpose for society in order to exploit people. Government shouldn’t tolerate that.

  51. 51.

    Martin

    @Jay: Right, but it’s not an investment vehicle because there are no fundamentals there. It’s basically bitcoin – give us money as an article of faith, not that we will use that money to any productive use for society, just that we think we can get a bunch of suckers to put cash in and then bail on them and leave them holding the bag.

    I mean, there’s a tremendous amount of that kind of shit out there already, but they generally were kept off of the exchanges.

    And smaller investors buying in was always the thing you wanted to discourage because they’re just lambs to the slaughter. That’s why being an accredited investor was a thing – you have this capital requirement, if you fuck up it’s not your life savings because you can now do the stuff where there’s no net.

  54. 54.

    Jay

    @Martin:

    I am just pointing out The Theory. Properly run, it could be a good thing. The Fund could accumulate small/medium companies with good management, good products, good ideas and in the process of takeover, solve the smaller/medium companies, capital issues, allowing them to expand and grow, bring new products to market, and allow small stockholders to share in the profit, at a reasonable risk.

    But of course, they require the MOU’s to start the fund, and they stay in control, so it’s either “loot and pillage”, or “shear the sheep”.

  55. 55.

    piratedan

    @Ruckus: yeah, my usage of FB went right down the chute as soon as I understood how Zuck was cahooting with the Russians and Cambridge Analytica.  I figured it was time to shelve that and just make phone calls instead.

    I couldn’t understand why so many people decided that Threads was a great option as an alternative to Twitter, as if having Zuck controlling your feeds was any better than Musk.

  56. 56.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @piratedan: I only ever found FB useful as a communications tool for people I already knew. Now, it’s like trying to call someone on the phone, and being subjected to an hour-long infomercial before connecting you with the wrong person.

  57. 57.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Shalimar: Maybe they were one of those people who got convinced by the GameStop short squeeze that contrarian investing in failing meme stocks will make you the king of the world.

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