How’s Your Elevator Pitch? March 31, 2021March 30, 2021 Everybody’s selling something. Click here to see what my pal Marc Fest can do for you — in just one hour. Or what he can do for your boss or your daughter or the non-profit you support or the entrepreneur whose start-up you’ve helped fund. Or your candidate. Click here to read the testimonials. BOREF. Here’s the latest . . . including a 3-minute video. As always: only with money you can truly afford to lose. But with BOREF valued at less than $40 million, and the potential eventual value to airlines and airports in the billions each year, I am hoping one day to see our patience rewarded. Speaking of which . . . PRKR. If, like me, you bought vast quantities of this stock over the past 16 months at a dime and at 35 cents, with money you could truly afford to lose, I see no reason to buy still more at today’s much higher prices. But I did anyway — a little yesterday at $1.16, which turned out to be the low of the day — thinking that, as soul-crushing as the delays in their big Jacksonville, Florida, QualComm case are — which presumably had something to do with knocking the stock back from last month’s $1.91 high — the trial is likely to happen eventually . . . at which point it’s not crazy to think the market may again bid the price up to $1.91 as it awaits the verdict. On the $1.16 I paid yesterday, that would be a 64% profit in what could be less than a year. I might well then take something off the table, if not before, because of course the jury might find in favor of QualComm. But I’d hold most of it, because there’s also what seems to me a reasonable chance of a ten-figure award that could send the stock a good deal higher. And in the meantime, there’s the not-insignificant case against Intel that’s teed up for trial in Texas near the end of the year.
Silt Accumulates March 30, 2021March 29, 2021 OCTOPUS LOVE: I plugged My Octopus Teacher last month on the strength of the trailer alone. (See: Octopi On Ecstasy; Arachnids On Acid.) Now I’ve watched the film. More beautiful than any aquarium. Truly remarkable. PENGUIN LOVE: And if you think man-octopus love is odd, take 3 minutes to watch this penguin. (Thanks, David!) Join PETA? GLDD: I’ve been writing about it since 2006, often under the heading, “silt accumulates.” If you still own some, this analysis suggests it could make sense to keep it for the long haul (to which I would add: especially if you’d otherwise have a hefty tax to pay on your gain). PRKR: The company yesterday announced the delay of its trial, but also the private placement of $3.6 million in new shares. SIGNALING FOR HELP: By now, everyone knows to shout “call 911! call 911!” What if everyone came to know this silent hand signal as well? All you’d have to do when there was a gunman behind the door when the pizza arrived was flash the sign and hope the delivery guy knew the sign and had the presence of mind to play it cool, waiting until he was out of earshot to dial 911 for you.
The Reverend’s Five Kids March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 But first . . . GEORGIA. Must-watch Keith Olbermann. Two minutes. PRKR. Our July 6 Orlando court date against Qualcomm was pushed back until “at least” November or December. The judge — one of just four in his district division — seems justifiably overwhelmed by everything, criminal and civil, on his plate. Disappointing — but not, I think, the end of the world or of our gamble. BOREF. Jim B.: “Wondering what you think about this: Borealis appoints Thomas Gengl as CEO.” → Different Borealis (“an international provider of polyolefins”). “Also, I’m dumbfounded at the disparate data Ameritrade gives me about BOREF. In my “positions” page it shows a sharp jump of 74 cents, giving me a 14% gain today. When I hover my cursor over BOREF, it confirms this, showing a volume of 34 shares. Can you make any sense of this?” → There’s a wide spread between the bid and asked prices for shares of OUR little Borealis. So if someone submits even a tiny “market” order for 34 shares, the price will plunge to the bid (if the order was to sell) or jump to the ask (if the order was to buy). None of this matters. If WheelTug eventually gets FAA approval and takes off, as they continue to inch forward toward doing, BOREF shares likely will, too. Only for money you can truly afford to lose. (And use “limit” orders.) And now . . . NICK KRISTOF: “Rev. Rick Joyner, the prominent evangelical preacher, is known for calling on Christians to arm themselves in preparation for a civil war against liberals. Here’s the awkward part: His five children would be on the other side of that war. . . . I talked to all five and to their dad for my Sunday column, which explores the struggles of this family that is in some ways a microcosm of a polarized America. I think it may offer some guidance for the rest of us. You can read it here.” Have a great week.
Building Back Better March 26, 2021March 25, 2021 Did you watch the President’s first news conference? Treat yourself. Both the tone and the substance gave me such hope. Calm, dignified, normal, thoughtful, earnest, honest, determined . . . Imagine: putting millions to work at good jobs revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure. Imagine: increased investment in science to keep us competitive and improve/extend our lives. Imagine: a broad voter protection bill (HR1) that curbs gerrymandering — thus giving moderates a shot at being elected, compromise a shot at being reached. Imagine: common-sense gun-safety measures 90% of the public want to see. And did you know the President’s first call with President Xi lasted two hours? Here is libertarian-conservative George Will on Biden’s Reaganesque/Trumanesque foreign policy. Our friends on the other side of the aisle want the nation to focus mainly on the thousands of young people seeking asylum, hoping to work hard and make something of themselves as the Irish, starving from a potato famine, and the Cubans, fleeing communism, and the Jews, fleeing fascism, and so many others have. They downplay the 600,000 we will have lost to COVID (“it is what it is,” proclaimed their leader) while stoking fear of this smaller number coming with energy and dreams as so many of our ancestors did. Not to say we should have open borders — we can’t and we don’t. But asylum? That’s not a new — or a bad — idea. If anything, for both moral and economic reasons, we should welcome it. Have a great weekend!
The Two Gun Safety Bills March 25, 2021March 25, 2021 Ted Cruz: “What happens after every mass shooting is Democrats propose taking away guns from law-abiding citizens.” That’s a lie. Almost no one — and certainly not the two bills the House has passed in the wake of the latest mass murders — proposes that. As Cruz well knows. Has he no shame? (Actually not. Trump insults his wife and suggests his father helped assassinate Kennedy, but Cruz supports the “pathological liar and utterly amoral bully” anyway.) Wayne A.: “You asked what would Jesus do? I do not think Jesus would spin an obvious religious hate crime against Christians by a Muslim to be a need to punish 30 million law-abiding gun owners.” → If it was a religious hate crime, why attack the patrons of a nondenominational supermarket? But leaving aside motive . . . . . . and noting that most of our mass murderers, like those at Las Vegas and Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook and Columbine and Parkland and Pittsburgh, are not Muslim . . . . . . here are the two bills currently up for Senate approval. How do you see them hurting even one of the 30 million law-abiding gun owners you reference? Presumably, you think there’s some line beyond which a citizen would need to demonstrate special circumstances to purchase weapons — shoulder-launched missiles or machine guns, for example. Is it crazy to suggest that line be drawn to ban sale of cop-killing bullets? Assault weapons? I was kind of thrilled when ANIX, suggested here around $4, touched $8 a few days ago. Less thrilled now that it’s dropped almost all the way back. But the ballgame’s not over. Only for money you can truly afford to lose.
Seriously: What WOULD Jesus Do? March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 Trump’s lawyer argues she’s not liable for slander because no reasonable person could possibly have believed her crazy claims on Trump’s behalf. Or something like that. How did our country ever become such a — temporary, let us pray — clown show? And since prayer alone may not do the trick, click here. Speaking of prayer, consider Nick Kristof’s latest, excerpted here from the indispensable New York Times: Progressive Christians Arise! Hallelujah! [With a churchgoing Democrat in the White House, faith becomes more complicated in America. Thank God.] Young and middle-aged Americans could be forgiven for thinking that Jesus was a social conservative who denounced gay people and harangued the poor to lift themselves up by the bootstraps, until he was crucified for demanding corporate tax cuts. That perception might arise because since the 1980s, the most visible Christians have been conservative evangelicals who often emphasize issues that Jesus never explicitly mentioned, such as abortion and homosexuality. But now more progressive Christians are moving onto center stage. Enter Joe Biden, one of the most religious presidents of the last century. . . . Yet the Trumpian wing of evangelicalism is doubling down. Pastor Rick Joyner, a prominent evangelical leader, said this month that Christians should acquire weapons to prepare for a civil war that is now inevitable. . . . Jerushah Duford, a granddaughter of the Rev. Billy Graham . . . compares the damage right-wing Christian extremists have done to Christianity to the harm Muslim extremists have brought to Islam. . . . The progressive wing of Christianity is not, of course, new. It began with Jesus. “Woe to you that are rich,” Jesus says (Luke 6:24). He advises a rich ruler to “sell everything you have and give to the poor,” and then suggests “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:22-25). . . . “My hope is that we move into a season where Jesus followers are no longer seen as synonymous with hate, exclusion and hypocrisy, but as beacons of love and grace,” Duford said, noting that her famous grandfather focused on a message about God’s love. . . . Would Jesus have rejected Medicaid expansion? Opposed relief to struggling families? Opposed reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act? Opposed honoring the fallen Capitol police? Armed himself with assault weapons? Cited scripture to justify slavery? To justify discrimination? With which group on the Edmund Pettus Bridge would he have aligned himself? The state troopers? Are these even close questions? Have a great day.
Meet Stella March 23, 2021March 24, 2021 But first . . . I went to bed Sunday night with SPRT at $2.14 (which is sort of like $1.14 for those of us who bought it long enough ago to have gotten the non-taxable $1 return of capital) . . . and woke up to see that I could sell it for $8, which I promptly did. Some of you emailed to relate similar stories. This made me really happy. Apparently, some company that mines bitcoins . . . (and what a worthwhile endeavor that is, bound to enrich humanity by consuming vast amounts of energy to make bitcoin less scarce) . . . wanted a cheap way to go public. Merging with an existing little public company was a good backdoor way to do it. “Sometimes, patience pays off,” I wrote here a couple of years ago. “Buy when everyone else thinks it’s hopeless — like SPRT last week? (I bought more at $1.65) — but only with money you can truly afford to lose, because all too often everyone else is right. (SPRT faces some significant challenges sown by the previous management; but I like the CEO and am betting that in the long run this may work out.)” In reminding me I had written this, one of you credited me with “prescience.” Believe me: it was not prescience. Or patience. It was complete, nutso, delightful dumb luck. I also sold my CNX yesterday. Here’s why. I have no idea if the analysis is solid, but I don’t mind taking a double on the shares bought when we doubled down (and a modest profit on the initial shares). Especially because, if you double down in dollars, not shares, you come out well ahead. (Right? Buy one share at $14 and two more at $7. When the stock gets back to $14, you have $42. A nice profit.) And now . . . Meet Stella. She’s 16. I think you’ll like her. I don’t want to spoil it by telling you what the 5 minutes are about. Let her tell you.
HR1 Would Make America A Democracy March 22, 2021March 21, 2021 As noted this past Thursday and Friday, not everyone wants that. Some Republicans would even make it illegal to offer your grandmother water or a snack as she waits in line for hours to vote — lines, as Senator Warnock notes, Republicans have purposely made longer. Read abut HR1 and see what you think: THE “FOR THE PEOPLE ACT” WOULD MAKE THE U.S. A DEMOCRACY. The bill is the most crucial legislation considered by Congress in decades and would change the core structure of U.S. politics. Fred: “I agree with you on most things but cannot agree with you on voting. The Republican bills aren’t trying to get rid of all early voting, just cutting back on the days. The Republican bills are not trying to do away with all mail voting, just trying to restrict it to people that can’t make it to the polls. I think voters should have some responsibility. Why should your vote count if you drop it off at the wrong precinct? It’s your job to find out where to vote. It’s not racist to tighten ID requirements.” –> Thanks, Fred. I don’t think the 250 new bills pending in Republican-controlled state legislatures are motivated by a desire to keep elections honest. Republicans have tried for decades to find cases of individual voter fraud, but they are, in fact, insignificantly rare. (See Thursday’s links.) If you wanted to vote illegally, how would you do it? Would it be worth the risk? Why do you think others would take the risk if you would not? It’s so hard to get people to vote AT ALL! (And if a relative handful of people do risk prison or deportation to vote illegally, why do you assume they are disproportionately Democrats and not, say, Proud Boys or Klansmen?) Republicans themselves have explained — in court, no less — that they’re not racist. They want to keep blacks from voting not because they’re black, but because they vote blue. There may be a bit of rationalizing going on there, but let’s assume it’s true. I still think it’s wrong intentionally to make it hard for people to vote, no matter what party they favor. I think we should make voting as easy as possible for everyone, not just the best off. Have you ever had to wait in line 2 hours or 5 hours or 12 hours to vote? BONUS: TRICKY STAIRS Andrew Reinbach: “Biden was bouncing up the stairs when he tripped. Film of the trip displays no feebleness, and when he gets his feet right, he bounds up the stairs. Here’s Pence stumbling.” → Not to mention Jerry Ford. Or that FDR wouldn’t have been able to climb the stairs at all, yet accomplished a great deal for the common man, and to defeat fascism. Have a great week!
Making Martin Proud March 19, 2021March 19, 2021 You’ve probably seen Raphael Warnock’s maiden Senate speech by now. If you haven’t, treat yourself. It is America at its best. Reverend Warnock is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — Martin Luther King, Jr.’s pulpit. He did his predecessor proud. Chip Ellis: “Here’s an idea: Keep the filibuster . . . but instead of requiring 60 senators to break it and allow a bill to come up for a vote — 60% of the Senate — make it 60% of the population they represent. Each Senator’s vote would be half of their state’s % of US total population based on the last census.” → This is really kind of brilliant. Senators representing just 40.1% of the country could still thwart the will of 59.9% — never fear! We would still be a “minority rules” democracy. Each Wyoming voter would still have 60 times the clout in the Senate as each California voter . . . except when it came to votes on “cloture.” California’s 12% of the U.S. population would be accorded 12% of the say in whether to allow a vote, compared to a tiny say for Wyoming. But when a bill did come up for a vote, California’s 37 million denizens would be accorded no more Senate votes than the Wyoming’s 563,000. Each, as now, would get 2. Discuss. And have a great weekend.
No Taxation Without Representation! March 18, 2021March 18, 2021 That was once a patriotic cry with wide appeal. It didn’t apply to women for more than half our history or to blacks until 1965 (unless they could guess the number of jellybeans in a jar) but gradually over the years we were moving ever closer to giving every citizen a vote — until Chief Justice John Roberts reversed the trend in 2013. And look: you can argue that votes should be weighted by life expectancy, with young voters given more weight than older, because they will enjoy or suffer the consequences of the election for longer. Or the reverse: give more weight to the votes of our elders. What does an 18-year-old know! Or weight votes by educational attainment. Should a high school drop-out have the same say over a zoning proposal — or a presidential platform — as an architect or an economics professor? Or by net worth. (Of course, we already do that: rich people can amplify their vote with political giving.) Or we could just say . . . “You know what? In this great country of ours, every citizen gets one vote.” If you like that idea, you are — on that issue, at least — a Democrat. The Republican leadership — on that issue, at least — parts company with you. Behold: Only Congress Can Save Our Democracy March 17, 2021 By Rev. William J. Barber and Penda Hair Attorney Michael Carvin, representing the Arizona Republican Party, had almost finished his argument to the U.S. Supreme Court when the newest Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, asked him why Republicans have an interest in stopping Arizona from counting otherwise valid votes when the voter mistakenly cast her ballot in the wrong precinct. The pair of consolidated voting rights cases were brought on behalf of Latinx, Native American and African-American voters because the refusal to count wrong precinct ballots unequally affected people of color. Carvin’s answer was jaw-droppingly shocking, not because it was untrue, but because he let the cat out of the bag, admitting the widely known truth about voter suppression that Republicans have denied for decades. Carvin responded: “Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game…It’s the difference between winning an election 50 to 49 and losing an election.” For decades, the Republican Party has been trying to win elections by making voting difficult for racial groups likely to vote for its opponents. We are intimately familiar with the modern Republican Party’s voter suppression playbook, which creates rules and requirements that seem neutral but make it harder for people of color to vote and have their votes counted. As President of the North Carolina NAACP, Dr. Barber filed a federal lawsuit, for which Ms. Hair served as lead counsel, challenging the Republican majority’s passage of a 2013 North Carolina “monster” voter suppression law that added numerous obstacles more harshly impacting African American and Latinx voters. Like the Arizona case, the North Carolina law banned the partial counting of valid votes cast out-of-precinct in federal races such as for President, Senator and Governor that are not tied to living in a particular precinct. It also adopted the nation’s strictest photo voter ID requirement, cut early voting, and eliminated same day registration, among other suppression measures. We proved racial motive using the Supreme Court’s framework to analyze direct and circumstantial evidence to determine whether the Defendants’ stated motive—preventing voter fraud—was actually a pretext for partisan-inspired racial targeting. After years of painstaking investigation and weeks of trials, we were able to prove, as the Court of Appeals found, that the North Carolina General Assembly had targeted African American voters “with almost surgical precision.” Years later, Carvin’s candid response confirmed the real reason for Republican-led campaigns across the country to make voting harder based on race, ethnicity, gender and class status: to gain a “competitive advantage relative to Democrats.” That is exactly what the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found in our North Carolina case. Refreshingly, Carvin did not trot out the usual playbook used to defend voter suppression—that it is needed to address voter fraud. Until Carvin’s admission, Republicans routinely cited voter fraud, almost with a wink and smile, as the justification for erecting barriers to voting. Study after study has found that no election fraud of the type that these barriers could impact exists. In 2020, Donald Trump took this disinformation to a new level, claiming without any proof that the election was stolen due to voter fraud by people of color, while in the same year opposing improvements that would make voting safer and more accessible during the pandemic because “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Trump’s own Attorney General, as well as Republican Governors and election officials, conclusively rebutted this outrageous “Big Lie” about voter fraud. In more than sixty lawsuits brought across the country by Trump and his supporters, courts consistently rejected claims of voter fraud, the most definitive refutation of the voter fraud fig leaf to date. Yet the false drumbeat of voter fraud propaganda led to an armed insurrection on January 6th aimed at overturning our democratically elected government. The myth of voter fraud placed our democracy at risk of armed insurrection, and the more than 250 voter suppression proposals already advanced in statehouses this year place our democracy at risk of overthrow by voter suppression. It is time to put an end to this reign of voter suppression. Democracy should not be “zero sum.” Congress must immediately enact legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act and to set minimum federal requirements for practices that encourage and facilitate voting, taking into account the history of racial subjugation in America and the real-life circumstances of voters whose economic and family situations make it difficult or impossible for them to succeed in the obstacle course states continue to erect at the ballot box. Designing a voting system to exclude voters because of their race or the political party they tend to support is illegal under the Constitution. Carvin stripped away the fig leaf Republicans have used for decades to disguise their true motive in erecting obstacles for voters of color. This latest confession of true motive, combined with numerous court rulings documenting the unravelling of the lie, reinforces the undeniable truth revealed by this perilous period in the history of our democracy: it is time for the entire system of voter suppression measures nationwide to crumble. Given the Supreme Court’s recent weakening of the Voting Rights Act and the rush to enact voter suppression legislation in the states, only Congress can save our Democracy by honoring the will of the people and passing legislation that will restore the preclearance protections of the Voting Rights Act, set minimum federal standards for voting, and correct historic categories of exclusion from the ballot based on racial discrimination. Congress should lose no time in enacting restorative and forward-looking voting legislation that protects the heart of our democracy for the next generation. Rev. William J. Barber is President of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. Penda Hair is Senior Counsel at Forward Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy group working for racial and economic justice in the South. We have to let go of this notion that people different from us are a threat. “Irish need not apply” was once widely accepted — but where would America be without her Irish Americans? Trump has incited hate crimes against Asians — but they’ve made and continue to make such a tremendous contribution to our country. Straight white Protestant males, too – I totally love ’em! And Jewish Americans! And Italian Americans! And the Native Americans whose land we stole! And Hispanic Americans! And Nordic Americans! And Slavic Americans! And Catholic Americans! And atheist Americans! And Muslim Americans! And the African-Americans who literally built the White House and Capitol and so much that underpins our economic might . . . who gave us jazz and the blues and the NBA and the best president of my lifetime — who saved us from a global depression that would have brought misery to billions regardless of color or creed. And LGBTQ+ Americans, who gave us Broadway and Ellen and the CEO of our most highly valued company. No one group are all angels . . . with pizza came the mafia . . . with Einstein came Epstein . . . and few individuals are all-angel either (with “ask not” came philandering; with “a shining city on a hill” came Iran-Contra) . . . but this melting pot, this country that strives to be a beacon of hope and decency to the world . . . is something to be celebrated and protected by all of us, very much including our straight white male fellow citizens, who also built this country, who founded this country, who are indispensable to this country. They should be proud of our diversity, just as we should honor their contributions. “Jews will not replace us!” But we will complement you and enrich your culture and quality of life. Same for every other group I’ve mentioned — and those I’ve not. So much is riding on our not going the nationalist, tribalist, racist route.