Author Archives: Hue White

Ask and be answered. Yesterday, I wondered if DJT’s cryptocurrency treasury still existed. Today, Dominic Basulto on The Motley Fool (TMF) answered (paywall):

Last summer, Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ: DJT) — the social media company majority-owned by President Donald Trump — made headlines when it announced plans to transform itself into a Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) treasury company. Trump Media now holds 12,062 Bitcoins, worth nearly $755 million at today’s prices, so it followed through on its promise.

However, that Bitcoin position is currently deep under water. Trump Media recently reported a $190 million paper loss on its crypto holdings, due largely to the fact that the price of Bitcoin has been in decline for more than 10 months now. As a result, Trump Media will pivot away from Bitcoin and back into its core business of media and advertising.

DJT is still in Bitcoin, working on getting out. Depending on how they invested in Bitcoin, it might take a while. Basulto has further thoughts on Bitcoin and suggests keeping an eye on a company named Strategy (MSTR). As TMF is a pay service these days, I shan’t quote more.

But I continue to expect the entire cryptocurrency industry to shrink back from its currently bloated position, and it could, in several years, POP! out of existence. While the industry has cultivated allies in Congress, of whom I do not keep track, and that’ll help it survive, on balance it seems the risks of using cryptocurrencies far outweigh the conveniences.

For those investors who are stubborn, DJT’s price is, as of 9:55 AM here in Minnesota, below $8/sh, and $TRUMP is at $1.40. The latter has been down as far $1.37. None of this is promising for the conventional & conservative investor, or so this guy with an opinion thinks. Remember, I’m not an investment advisor.

The newly confirmed Attorney General of the United States, Todd Blanche, in his first speech to Department of Justice employees:

“I promise you that I will lead this department with integrity. I promise you that I will focus on our core mission, which is to uphold the rule of law fairly and impartially, to keep this great country safe and to protect the rights of every citizen in this country. And I think about integrity, … it’s a promise that we’re going to uphold the law without fear or favor,” he said. …

“I think disagreement is extraordinarily healthy. I think disagreement is the only way that we make the best decisions as a department, … and I want to encourage everybody to do that,” he added. [Politico]

It’s hard to see anything wrong in the speech, but past actions do not match the speech.

“Under his leadership, hundreds of DOJ’s career workforce have been fired because of their backgrounds, their perceived politics, and for fiercely pushing back in conference rooms throughout the country. Thousands more have left because leadership has consistently violated the principles Blanche articulated: prosecuting defendants based only on the facts and the law; holding those who attack law enforcement accountable; and respecting the courts,” Stacey Young of Justice Connection, a group of former DOJ employees, said in a statement. “Attorney General Blanche’s platitudes will only resonate if his actions start matching his words.”

There’s potential in his words, but if he continues the Bondi tradition at DoJ, then all that potential will be wasted. I admit to being intrigued.

In the week since my last note on Trump Media & Technology Group (stock symbol DJT), the price of a share terminated its brief sojourn above $10 to $8.27 in what must have been a discouraging turn of events for the amateur investors who are known to have initially crowded onto this leaky boat.

I’ve not seen any evidence or announcements of their cryptocurrency “treasury” being liquidated, and I’d interpret this report to confirm that perception:

Falling cryptocurrency prices took a heavy toll on Trump Media & Technology Group during the second quarter, saddling the Truth Social parent company with a $238 million net loss—a steep increase from the $20 million it lost a year earlier.

In its second-quarter earnings report, Trump Media said the “vast bulk” of the loss came from non-cash charges rather than money spent or assets sold. Those included more than $190 million in unrealized losses across digital assets, pledged digital assets, and equity securities. …

The report did not disclose how much of that quarterly hit came from Bitcoin alone. [decryptvia yahoo!/finance]

The drop in the value of bitcoins and $TRUMP may have also contributed to the short term drop as well as not auguring well for the future. Here are their trailing seven day charts:

Bitcoin from CoinMarketCap.

$TRUMP from CoinMarketCap.

A contributing factor for DJT’s sudden slump? Last week I mentioned the corruptive potential of their new Truth API offering; this week …

On Wednesday, The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court, targeting Truth API, a service launched by Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. (NASDAQ:DJT) on Aug. 1.

The service charges between $60,000 and $100,000 a month for early access to posts from 10 prominent Truth Social accounts, including Trump’s.

The plaintiffs argue that the arrangement effectively places presidential communications behind a pay-to-access system and violates constitutional protections that require equal access to government information. [BENZINGA via yahoo!/finance]

Will the judicial system buy into the argument? I don’t know. But this confluence of events surely doesn’t favor DJT, now does it?

Belle of the Ranch suggests this entire episode was scripted to control the news cycle. Is Trump’s War going badly? Well, rather than having news about shrinking missile stockpiles and morale, imply the nasty ol’ Iranians threatened the President, and he ended up waving most of his staff and the covering news reporters around as a decoy.

It certainly reduces the coverage of the news implying Trump is an incompetent, doesn’t it?

Today we made it to only a single Minnesota Fringe Festival show, probably the last we’ll see this season.

Is That Why? is one of those shows that has to work to find its home, and the Fringe is probably that home. In this show, Ari Hoptman, who teaches classes concerning the German language at the University of Minnesota as his day job, presents a number of interesting, unconnected facts and explanations – or mysteries – about linguistics in a rapid fire manner for a good hour. I don’t know where he gets the energy for this, because I was exhausted but fascinated when he finished. He covers mostly Germanic languages, such as the true difference between High and Low German, but also occasionally treks off into Finnish and more obscure corners of the linguistic world. If this sounds interesting and you’re considering seeing his final show for this season’s Fringe, which is tomorrow (Sunday 16 August), be warned this is only of smallest venues of the Fringe, so show up early and put away that claustrophobia doll – there’ll not be room for it.

Steve Benen remains mystified by the habits of President Trump:

“We totally control the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said. “We have control over it. Nobody else, only us.” He added soon after, “We have total control over the Hormuz Strait right now. They don’t have control. We have total control. We own it.”

A day earlier, the American president similarly insisted that the Strait of Hormuz is “open now,” adding that the U.S. is “the only one that has control” over the waterway.

I am mindful that “Trump says false thing” is not a headline that generates a lot of attention, but this is qualitatively worse than the Republican’s usual nonsense. In the midst of a war, the president is (a) aware of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz; (b) negotiating with Iran in the hopes of ending its control over the Strait of Hormuz; and (c) bragging incessantly about Iran’s lack of control over the Strait of Hormuz. [Maddowblog]

Trump’s behavior is quite the denial of reality, isn’t it? And then, as CNN reports, it goes even further:

Iran said the key waterway “cannot be seized with a tweet” after President Donald Trump claimed he would declare the strait US territory after the war.

My bold.

Now, claims that President Trump is waging a one-man propaganda war against Iran are certainly plausible, as are assertions that this is part of an effort to blunt the numerous Trump’s War criticisms, and their authors, in preparation for the mid-term elections. Less noised about, but, again, within the realm of possibility, are satisfying his need, generated by the undeniable pathological narcissism afflicting him, for acquiring public glory through conquering territory and growing the American Empire, such as it is. It might be successfully argued that the repetition is a little difficult to rationalize in this scenario.

But, to my mind, the explanation which covers the facts best was, and I apologize to long-term readers who tired of my repeated references, provided by Chad Bauman in 2020.

With diffuse roots but emerging most forcefully midway through the twentieth century in Pentecostal and charismatic circles, prosperity theology draws selectively on biblical passages (chief among them John 10:10, in which Jesus says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”) to insist that God desires our physical and financial prosperity. Our task, in a phrase popularized by the movement (and its detractors), is to “name it and claim it.” …

The president’s admiration for prosperity theology is well-documented. He was raised in Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church, which was pastored by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, whose The Power of Positive Thinking, was a key text in the prosperity movement and took the nation by storm. [Religion Dispatches]

Trump’s naming and claiming the Strait of Hormuz, quite literally. If he does it enough, God will capsize to his desires and reward him. Yep, I do think he believes that. Or is, at least, so frankly desperate enough to take a shot at it.

Do I take Trump seriously in this matter? Not at all. No one else should. But we can expect some more empty-headed chanting from our morality-free President.

Leucism:

• Leucism is a condition with a partial loss of pigment in the skin, fur, or feathers.
• The eyes remain unaffected, retaining normal pigmentation (typically black or pigmented).
• This condition is caused by a genetic anomaly, usually recessive in nature. [GeeksForGeeks]

Noted in this news report, “Photographer captures rare white loon in Canada,” Jeff Wagner, CBS Minnesota:

Dale Gentry, the director of conservation for Audubon Upper Mississippi River, said it’s shocking to see a loon with such a color. “I’ve never seen one in person, and I’ve only seen pictures on the internet,” said Gentry. “Albinism and a leucistic bird, they have some sort of genetic change that influences the genes that code for a pigment in their feathers called melanin.”

Pictures at the CBS Minnesota link, above. If you know loons, the photos are a trifle shocking.

A poll from The Economist/YouGov is not encouraging for those few still on the side of the President. This would be Question 3, Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President?:

              Total
Approve       33% ...
Disapprove    62% ...

Then there’s Question 23, If the elections for U.S. Congress were being held today, who would you vote for in the district where you live?

                            Total
The Democratic candidate    40%
The Republican candidate    32%

And on and on. Those clouds you’re trying to touch? Your plane is in a death spiral.

THE MORE THINGS DON’T CHANGE

… the deeper the swamp becomes? The AG position at the DOJ has been officially filled by Todd Blanche, formerly personal attorney for the President, who mysteriously worked hard to be approved by a skeptical Congress. Republican Senators Murkowski and Collins voted against him.

Collins called Blanche “a capable lawyer,” but she said the Department of Justice (DOJ) under his leadership [as assistant and later acting AG] has “become increasingly political.”

She cited several actions that she believe have “further eroded the department’s independence” as “the basis for my vote to oppose his confirmation.” [The Hill]

President Trump was furious with Murkowski, but not Collins.

Trump’s War continues to burn, U.S.S. Lincoln is setting records for deployments and consequential drop in morale, public disapproval of the President continues to mount, and VP Vance looks like a deer in the headlights, when he’s seen at all.

Who wants to vote for chaos?

NATIONAL UNDERCLOTHES

Try not to have accidents, unlike last time.

• In what might have been the marquee event of the last week or so, the 11 August Republican special primary election in South Carolina did not yield an outright winner and nominee. Senator D. Graham (R) took 32.8%, Rep Norman (R) won 23.5%, followed by Russell Fry, Mark Sanford, and Mark Lynch. The first two advance to a run off, scheduled for 25 August. Notably, 40% of the vote might be classified as “not Darline Graham,” so I think Rep Norman has a shot at winning the special primary, and if he were to do so he’d be the presumptive Senator from South Carolina – and, by losing, D. Graham would become yet another Trump-endorsee who found the burden too great to bear. Can Rep Norman do it?

  In other news, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) is endorsing Senator D. Graham for the seat, while businessman Mark Lynch, who came in fifth place in the primary, endorsed Rep Norman.

• Minnesota held its primaries on 11 August, and for the Senate Michelle Tafoya won the GOP nomination over GOP-endorsed Adam Schwarze, who did beat the polls with a 23.5% portion of the votes, much better than said polls predicted. The Democratic primary voters selected Lt Governor Flanagan over Rep Craig, and by a significant margin: 58.9% to 39.5%, close to 20 points. The last few polls had suggested an exceedingly tight race in which Rep Craig’s superior finances might provide the advantage, but no; professional political analysts credit Flanagan’s ground game. I understand from some voters that they were offended by the tail of commercials from Craig, so perhaps Craig or her allies misunderstood Minnesota sensibilities.

  Mz Tafoya, as I heard on MPR, proclaims herself beholden to neither Party nor President, and supports abortion rights. I see this as a necessary beginning in a State in which most voters consider the President to be a moral and practical failure, but I doubt Tafoya will win the Senate seat.

• In Montana Seth Bodnar’s (I) and Rep Bankhead’s (D) opportunities to withdraw in favor of the other have passed. Can either beat both the other and the third candidate with a real chance, Kurt Alme (R)? Seems unlikely, but have a go at it, folks.

• 

  On The Issues: Gov Roy Cooper (D-NC).

  Elon University is giving former Gov Roy Cooper (D) a 53% – 42% lead over Michael Whatley (R) in the race for the open North Carolina Senate seat. I am not familiar with Elon University, but those numbers seem plausible. Along with those are numbers indicating the President is underwater in the job approval department in the estimation of North Carolina voters by 18 points, so it’s no surprise the Republican candidate, Mr. Whatley, is trailing badly. Gov Cooper (D) is not a moderate, see right, making the general run of North Carolina Senate polls even more interesting, and suggesting the GOP has really shot itself in the foot by following Mr. Trump, rather than tossing him out on his ass.

• VoteVets is stepping into the Alaska Senate race:
  

  VoteVets Action Fund is going into Alaska, launching a $225,000 ad buy against Sen. Dan Sullivan for his votes against reining in President Donald Trump’s Iran war powers, according to details first shared with Semafor.

  It’s the start of what’s expected to be a larger VoteVets campaign against Sullivan, who is facing former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in a highly competitive race.

  The ad ties Sullivan’s Iran votes to rising costs in Alaska: “Nine-dollar-a-gallon gas in Dillingham, nine bucks a pound of ground beef in Anchorage. That’s not the cost of living. That’s the cost of Dan Sullivan’s votes,” the ad says. “Sullivan voted a dozen times for this war in Iran.” [Semafor]

  I do have to wonder if there is a quid pro quo, stated or not, when these independent entities intrude on races. But dollars are a necessary-but-not-sufficient component of a successful campaign.

• In Texas an Emerson College poll is giving Republican Ken Paxton a 47% – 46% lead over James Talarico (D), calling it a dead heat. Under Party Affiliation Republicans outnumber Democrats, 47.6% to 32.4%, and the power-holding Independents/others are at 20%, suggesting a number of Republicans are either voting Talarico or not voting at all. I can’t fault their position.
• Fox News Poll is joining other polling services in giving Maine’s Troy Jackson (D) a small lead over Senator Collins (R) of 48% – 46%, with a margin of error of ±3 points, or a dead heat.
• Don’t get excited and/or appalled, depending on ideology, by this poll from Bullfinch Group, even if it does put the Idaho Senate seat in play, placing Todd Achilles (I) only four points behind Senator Risch (R).
  

  Recent statewide polling of likely 2026 voters in Idaho shows Independent Todd Achilles in an exceptionally strong position against incumbent Republican Senator Jim Risch. Achilles trails Risch by just 4 percentage points while boasting a stellar net favorability rating and huge room for growth.

  Why not? My posts from 2024 indicate Bullfinch had poor accuracy and might have been partisan. Such problems can be reformed away, of course, but I have no reason to assume such reforms have taken place.

ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?

Not really. I don’t have to be entertaining or profound in every Campaign Update.

We made it to two more shows, which I’ll review in a hurry as the first has only one more showing, scheduled for tomorrow [Friday].

Latin Papi [Latin Daddy] is a two dancer presentation of hot Latin dance offs and interpretations. A bit loud for the sensitive, but this is why I go to the Fringe – I won’t see something like this at a cinema or theater. And it’s fun. In fact, over the years I’ve seen maybe a dozen dance shows, from modern, such as Latin Papi, to ethnic dancing, such as, if memory serves, Thai. Only one, in a modern tradition and from many years ago, didn’t work.

Watership Down is, I’m guessing, a straight recounting of the classic kid’s story concerning rabbits, their leader, their mystic, and their quest to survive. It’s not really Fringey, but it was really an excellent show. My Arts Editor practically exploded as we walked out, excited by the singing (“they all know how to sing!”), the acting, and the big, scary dog. Come for the dog, stay for the story, as it were. Recommended, if you liked the book, or think you would. My only complaint was that the characters would have benefited from more differentiation.

We still have another show left on our pass, so we hope to use that up over the next three days. On what? We don’t know.

I don’t recall seeing these orange things before. iNaturalist suggests it’s a goldenrod soldier beetle, as does at least one friend.

I gotta say the roiling concerning the President’s recently being transported from Turkey to the UK in a plane other than Air Force One, and secretly at that, strikes me as a trifle artificial. After all, the President is the President, and the occasional subterfuge to keep him safe from attempts by national adversaries to assassinate him doesn’t strike me as a terrible crime.

Not like sending goons in ICE uniforms to Minnesota to try to spread terror.

Or continuing his lifelong grifting ways.

Or endangering NATO.

It feels more like his protectors did something unusual, but not criminal, and the critics had a freakout.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it was a terrible crime. But no one’s made an intelligent argument affirming that position, yet, on the matter.

Hadestown: The Musical (2026) is a movie of one production of the aforesaid show, Hadestown. The tale interfaces the romantic tale of Hades and Persephone with that of Orpheus and Eurydice. The former concerns Hades, brother of Zeus, falling in love with Persephone, but her absence causes mother Demeter to send the world into sterility. In the end, Hades permits Persephone, now his queen of the Underworld, to return to the surface for six months of each year.

The latter concerns the kidnapping of Eurydice, beloved of Orpheus, and her travails in Hades. Orpheus boldly descends to find and rescue her, but it’s perilous and tricky.

I enjoyed all the aspects of the movie, from acting to singing to special effects. It is very much a Broadway musical, so if you have a particular allergy to that style of musical, or to Greek tragedies, you should avoid this; otherwise, it’s not bad at all.

This would be fun as an impromptu graffiti.

Day the World Ended (1955) is a messy, grimy take on a messy, grimy subject, when mankind takes that unconscious decision to end it all through the unplanned aggregate of selfish actions that results in a most deadly war.

Throw in some zombies, symbolic of the consequence of the un-wisdom exercised by those who couldn’t tolerate their rivals, whether it be because of honest self-interest or faux-divine, present in this very cul-de-sac of survivors, and it’s something of a complete traversal from the fellow trying to save this little chunk of mankind, to the hot head who can only think of himself, to the creatures waiting to destroy them in the hot zone above them.

Salt with way too much literal power for the individual, whether it’s the guy with the gun or with the nuclear weapon, and this is your favorite soup, metaphorically seasoned with arsenic.

Unfortunately, sympathizing with the characters is a little hard, and I’m not sure why. It may simply be the fact that the movie was made in an unfamiliar era, a time when we were transitioning from a more communal society to a more individualistic society, so it’s harder to slip into the personas of these characters.

Or maybe they’re not well-presented by the script, or well-portrayed by the actors.

But it’s a raw take, to be sure, thrusting the audience into an unfamiliar scenario and watching the various personality types react. It’s interesting, and yet a bit horrifying.

If you do stumble across this, enjoy.

Establishment strikes back in Wisconsin and other takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries

Dolts. This is an election, meaning a collective third party, the voters, made their preferences known. The Democratic establishment didn’t go roaring across the street with steel pipes and crowbars in hand.

Perhaps surprisingly, in the Case of the Reflecting Pool Fiasco, US Attorney Pirro as not been fired for doing the right thing in this Trump Administration, namely dropping the charges of vandalism against David Hearn for want of evidence, as well as evidence that the contractor botched the job.

Not yet, at least.

This failure to victimize a leading member of MAGA, former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, lowers the chances of the Trump Administration imploding, as a core of MAGA will remain loyal until Pirro, or someone of equal prominence, is unfairly victimized by the childish bully leading the Administration. That existential danger may be why Pirro is still in her job, although I’d guess an ally told Trump not to fire Pirro, rather than he figured it out himself.

But the drama continues until either she’s gone, or she files plausible charges against someone else for either this case, or some other.

You may have heard of Trump’s Golden Fleet of Trump-class battleships. You may have heard they’ll be expensive, and that they won’t have a use.

But of course they’ll have a use.

They’ll make for fine target ships.

Last week we saw our first two Fringe plays of this season’s offerings.

It’s-a-Me, a Musical! is based on SuperMario Brothers, games and movies and merchandise, stripped of enough detail to discourage lawyers bearing trademark infringement paperwork. It being a first-night presentation, it suffered from the usual technical glitches; but it also needed several rewrites of the script. As is, despite the earnest efforts of the performers, it’s not compelling, and my Arts Editor wants that hour of her life back. The one real plus? The production program was the best I’ve ever seen at a Fringe show. Alas, that didn’t save this production.

The second production of the night was the mystifying Fly Tape. Three siblings, speaking mostly in cliched slang, are rummaging through their late mother’s lifetime accumulation of stuff, discovering uncomfortable secrets along the way. Sadly, these performers, despite efforts that, again, can only be described as earnest, cannot overcome the script. I think that it’s a lack of chemistry, with a consequential glacier pace that did the presentation no favors. The mystery is the intermittent presence of a character who is auctioning off, through a puppet he carries, some of the mother’s possessions to the audience. If you choose to see this production, on entry keep an eye out for a basin of coins and scoop up one or two. You can use them to participate in the production.

Another visit on Thursday, we hope.

It’s classic Tuberville…

“I’m going to go back to Alabama and, hey, we might build a 30-foot wall around our state, because I know what’s coming. I can see it coming, I can hear it coming. You can just smell it out there, that they want to take this country over.”

“They’re a lot more aggressive than we are as Americans,” Tuberville said.

A spokesperson told AL.com Tuberville was referring to “radical Islamic terrorists who want to destroy America.” [AL.com]

At least the Senate won’t be putting up with him after next January. He’s running for Alabama governor in November.

Caping:

A cape is a sleeveless garment, tied around the neck from everyone from bullfighters to superheroes. Caping is slang for “defending or supporting” someone, especially someone considered unworthy of it. [Dictionary.com]

Ah. Noted in “Rep. Jim Jordan is meddling in South Korea’s war on disinformation,” Ja’han Jones, MS NOW:

One can easily read that excerpt and presume Jordan and his colleagues are just caping for Trump-aligned social media companies — such as Elon Musk’s X platform and the Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta — that have been known for spreading misinformation and disinformation and could face scrutiny under South Korea’s new law.

This sort of feels like the spastic actions of a failing empire, doesn’t it?

House Judiciary Committee Republicans sent a letter to the South Korea’s Media and Communications Commission on Thursday expressing their concern over recently adopted online regulations they say could allow the government to censor free speech and attack opposing viewpoints.

The letter, reported first by CNBC, calls for a briefing from South Korean officials on their plans to enforce an amendment to the country’s existing data privacy law, which took effect in July and has been dubbed the “fake news” law. It allows the government to issue fines to media outlets and content publishers with more than 100,000 subscribers if they intentionally spread false information.

“This amendment serves as a major threat to online speech and expression and would allow the KMCC to punish American companies and their users for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” the lawmakers, including House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote. [CNBC]

Trying to dictate another country’s actions, impose American laws on foreign lands, and all that rot. It almost strikes me as pathetic.

“How to project Ugly American while never leaving home Washington!”

It’s just so appropriate …

It was the mistake heard ’round the world. In late June, NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg misheard an announcement on the final day of the Supreme Court’s most recent term and reported that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring.

The report sent shockwaves through legal and political circles, but as NPR soon made clear, it was wrong and the conservative jurist had made no such announcement.

Nevertheless, the reporting generated a new round of chatter about Alito and his future, and in the weeks that followed the NRP error, … [Maddowblog]

Bold all mine, folks. Along with the chortling.

One of the ways President Trump has been regarded is as an avatar of the common sense voter. What is a common sense voter? You know the type; I can hear them echoing in my head. “It’s only common sense that …”

Quite often, but not always, a decision made by, or action initiated by President Trump or his minions, conforms to someone I’ve heard, or could have heard, saying, “Finally, President Trump has taken the common sense approach and …”

Yeah, my reader might have a relative that pops right to mind.

Or recognize themselves.

And it’s not confined to one political group. I’ve heard President Obama proclaim his propositions for gun control were “only common sense,” a statement that raises a couple of red flags for me. Heck, if I can stretch a point here, my own father, a liberal, claimed Social Security didn’t have to be in financial difficulties if they would only something something annuities. While the deadly phrase, common sense, was not attached, it was strongly implied.

To return to my primary point, President Trump’s Administration, from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s contemptuous proclamations, to White House communications director Stephen Cheung arrogant announcements and reproaches, to Hegseth’s well-groomed lunatic decisions, to the President himself, has issued a series of decisions, opinions, announcements, litigation, failures to act, and over-reactions, that has been a nearly uninterrupted series of disasters for the Administration.

This isn’t like previous Administrations where a few maneuvers, while well-meant, did not pan out. Yes, perhaps Biden’s stimulus was out of line; Obama, as I recall, tried to subsidize a solar power company, and that went belly-up.

But Trump and his minions make one bad decision after another. Pick your area and you’ll find a horde, such as RFK, Jr, and all of his decisions that hurt vaccines and the confidence we should have in them. It’s almost hard to find a good decision in the bunch, although my Arts Editor, a former banker, is in favor of the decision to kill off the penny.

And that’s the only one.

Yeah, in this plenitude of decisions, from starting a war with Iran to pardoning drug pushers and criminals so they’re beholden to Trump to firing members of the FBI simply because they were tasked with investigating Trump stealing papers to which he had no right to beginning planning for a useless class of battleships, his best decision was … to kill off the penny.

The rest, crippling our preventative health services and wasting our munitions and not throttling President Putin of Russia when the opportunity presented itself, has been a disaster.

And so we bear witness to the death and disaster that follows the common sense voter. They finally got their wish, and their common sense, used in place of the expertise which they do not possess, the evidence which they only wish they had, has played the United States into the hands of the Russians, the Iranians, and other adversaries, while betraying Canada and so many other allies.

Perhaps H. L. Mencken should be studied in high school, just for this quote:

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

In the future I dearly hope Trump and his common sense voters are generally recognized as a sign warning of the foolishness potential of being common sense. It’s just like pouring sugar in a gas tank.

Continuing the Truth API thread, here’s Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) (via yahoo!finance) with the beginning of a report on the first use of the Truth API feature of Truth Social:

Trump Media & Technology Group stock rose on Monday morning after its pricey new service kicked off on Saturday with a big success, essentially giving its institutional-investor customers a sneak peek at President Donald Trump’s “cancel the attack” on Iran post. Trump’s Truth Social post published at 10:05 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 1 announced that “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to” including immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Customers of the service that Trump Media & Technology Group announced on July 16 with an Aug. 1 launch date get a direct data feed that provides real-time access to posts, possibly seconds ahead of regular users.

And that’s not the half of it. While I do not have an IBD subscription, I did manage to access the entire article, and, well, this is appalling …

For Trump Media, which had just $871,200 in sales in Q1, the new Truth API service could be the ticket to its first substantial revenue. News reports indicate that charges for institutional investors, including high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms, may run as high as $100,000 a month for the service, or $60,000 per month for a three-year contract that would run beyond Trump’s second term in office. …

“Trump will want them to be happy with their new service,” Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, posted on X. “So expect more frequent market-moving posts.”

Corruption one way, corruption the other. Trump needs to provide more market moving posts in order to attract and keep customers of Truth API, so … what will he make up next? Announce an invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to secure rare metals for the United States?

And then he’ll discover he has to execute that invasion, otherwise Truth API loses value.

This is why an immature fascination with money is entirely inappropriate in government officials. Private and public interests are rarely in accordance.

That said, DJT price per share breached $10/sh again, and now sits at $10.23/sh. Does this mean it’s on its way up?

I don’t think so. The momentary success of Truth API may delay, but not suppress, the corruption inherent in that feature when it’s combined with Truth Social’s chief feature, the President. As investors view its use and performance, and think about the implications, as I’ve done above, the wise investors will walk away. Combine that with the ridiculous market cap of this company, and it seems highly unlikely that it’ll keep bobbing up this high.

Especially given the constant stream of bad news that seems to follow Trump from golf course to his office and back to the golf course.