Archives for February 2021

Thursday February 4, 2021

So we now have a woman who won a seat in Congress who has said she wants to kill the Speaker of the House, who has mocked the children killed in Sandy Hook and Parkland, who has said that lasers from space controlled by Jews started one of the wildfires in California and the Republicans have been asked to strip her of her committee assignments. They have refused so now it will go to the full House to vote and the Republicans will have to publicly go on record as to whether they are for her or against her.

It seems the majority of those Republicans are with her.

That is the state of the Republican party. 

Nancy Pelosi did a stunning thing the other day. She had the minority leader of the house have a “Q” posted after his name, not an “R.” “Q” for Quanon. That is where we are. I hope that all those that vote to let this woman keep her committee assignments get a “Q” because that is where we are.

What is she saying? Oh you know. The usual, “I haven’t done anything wrong. All I have done is ask questions that I got off the internet.” Kind of the same thing Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz said about the electoral process. They have questions.

Yeah. Right.

At some point, and I hope we have reached it. It is time to say, “Enough. Go to your room and don’t come out.”

When you back these bullies into a corner the arguments are all the same: “I didn’t do it. Well, maybe you think I did, but I was just trying to you know… So what? There’s no law saying I can’t!…Who me? What about you? …”

Enough.

PS The modern Republican Party

Thursday February 4, 2021

The buffalo horned Qanon shaman hasn’t eaten for a week. His mom is worried. “You  know he can only eat organic food.” Yeah. Bull. Too bad Stephen Miller isn’t his jailer instead of these patsy folk who are actually gong to give him organic food. Will mom pay for it? 

Cute.

Then there’s the FDA director. She said schools can reopen without teachers getting vaccinated. Oh! The Outrage! What is wrong with her?

Nothing. Why don’t you listen to what else she said?

She said, “If.”

If you follow the guidelines. 

What? Someone would have to do something?

Yeah. You’d have to do what the scientists have been telling you to do.

Oh? You don’t want to do that? Freedom? Second Amendment? Blah blah blah. Fine. Your school stays closed. 

Then there’s the review of the Trump administration’s handling of the Corona virus response. This is issued by the GAO. There stuff is pretty dry, accounting type stuff. For them to be shocked or to even hint in writing that they were shocked is well shocking.

Guess what? They were shocked.

For all those who have been posting those memes about how bad Biden is try this on for size.

The GAO recommended 31 things that the Trump administration should do immediately to stem the pandemic. This was a while ago. This follow up report says that of the 31 there were 27 that were never done! That’s an 87% total failure rate. So they did something on four. Not sure what, but they did a little sump tin’ . Tell me again how great Satan was and how bad Joe is?

Please.

PS My dad was good friends with Fred Whipple.

Tuesday February 2, 2021

There are several threads of stories running around from yesterday.

All the news folks are excited by a front page story in the New York Times which outlines in detail what Satan did after he was told that he lost the election. That was 77 days before the Inauguration.

The story recounts how he went through various circles of denial, retrenchment, and attempts to steal the election. This culminated the article says in the January 6^th storming of the Capitol.

But the article is wrong.

That is not the culmination.

The struggle continues.

We now have the impeachment. A shit show like we’ve never seen before and know all to well and seen before.

Much like the NYT article, there are bits we’ve seen or heard before and it will all be regurgitated. Then the vote will come. Will all these chest thumping “patriotic” Republican Senators vote for the obvious that is laid out in front of them or will they vote “No”?

Most folks think they will vote to let Trump go, and he is doing everything he can to tell them that he did it and so what? It’s not like any of them will stand up for this country and for our democracy. That is all a sham and an illusion. They will once again prove their fealty to the very rich and powerful who continue to try and ruin us as they grab as much of the pie for themselves as possible. It’s a grand game for them.

There are signs of hope on the horizon. At least signs that we may right the ship enough to continue on for a bit.

One) is the case will be laid out very clearly for all to see what Satan did and the NYT article lays out how he was aided by the rich, the crazy, and the Republicans in the Senate and the House. 

Two) GameStop. There’s a huge problem there. Not only for the stock deal but for the industry as a whole. Rich people and the big trading houses have been playing a game. They’ve been selling options betting that GameStop’s stock will go down and that the company will eventually go bankrupt, which it should in the normal world. Why? Because people aren’t going to a store like GameStop to buy games. They are down loading them off the internet. The stock was worth $17 to $20 a share before the insanity and it’s argued that it wasn’t even worth that. So the logical bet was to buy options that said the stock would go down and you could buy the stock when the option came due at a lower price. That’s logic, not reality. ( Weird, huh? Tell me again how the stock market is rational? ) Okay, then all these little investors (called by the big hedge fund and trading folks “stupid” ) started buying GameStop. The price of the stock went up. Holy Sh*t! Said the “smart” money, “we better buy that stock we need quick before the price goes up some more.”

Just to be clear if you sell options and you don’t own the stock (called “selling naked”) you have to cover that bet when the option comes due, no matter what the price. This is known as “a short squeeze.”

Here’s the HUGE PROBLEM – there ain’t enough stock to go around. In other words when the bill comes due it can’t be paid. Period. This has never happened before. Wait? What? How can that be? You ask. Ah Grasshopper someone is cheating. Someones have been cheating for a long time, on a regular basis and they are about to get caught big time. Think of it as denying that Covid is real and then getting it and ending up in the ICU. (Okay, not a good analogy because you can still deny that it’s Covid. Best I can do.) 

Here’s what I don’t know. When the person selling naked says, “Okay, I’m willing to pay whatever to cover my short position, which I have to do.” In fact, it’s automatic, they have no say in it. The trading house just do it. What happens when there is at no price the stock to cover it? 

How can this happen? You ask again. Verily, I say unto thee, “Someones is cheating!” In theory when someone sells a stock naked someone else is there saying, “I’ll cover your bet with the shares I have.” In reality (nasty nasty reality) that’s not what happens. The big trading houses and traders (the “smart money” remember?) say, “Yeah, okay. We got this. I’ll get the stock when I need it.” ) They even have a term for this kind of stock. (They should call it “fake” or “ghost” but they don’t. It’s a more obfuscated term.) But here’s the HUGE PROBLEM, there are more short positions on GameStop then there is stock, by about 30 million shares more. In other words when the “smart money” goes to get that stock from somewhere there ain’t nowhere to get it.

What will happen? I don’t know. We’ll watch them try to weasel out somehow. There’s a term for that. It’s called Cheating. The technique they will use is called Lying. But it will be in more positive glowing terms. Like Right to Work means “we can screw you over for any reason,” and minimum wage means “we’d pay you less but the government won’t allow us to do so.”

I am continually astounded by two situations: Wyoming, and people on pensions, Social Security and Medicare that vote for Republicans.

Wyoming takes more money from the Federal government than any other state versus how much they pay in taxes. Yet, they are heavily Republican and opposed to all this government welfare, of which they are the prime recipient. Mike Enzi, one of their Senators, boasted that if it wasn’t for him holding up and demanding changes to Obamacare “We’d have national health insurance.” He’s proud of that fact. He told it at a rally in his state. Here’s a part of the country that if it wasn’t for the Federal government’s assistance would look like rural China. Yet, they continue to back defunding the government.

Then there are the people who bitch about the government spending “their money” on things they don’t think are necessary and they vote Republican. Yet they are dependent on things that were given to them by the efforts of Democrats that were fought for them in direct opposition to the type of Republicans these people support.

So we’ll see what happens with GameStop this week and the Impeachment starting this week. 

Oh yeah, then there’s the various bills in the Senate that Republicans want to slow down and water down. Remember when Obama reached across the aisle? Remember the hundreds of changes he made to Obamacare for the Republicans? Then they voted against it and kept trying to overturn it? Yeah. We’ll see what happens.

Stay tuned.