Author: A.T.

How Does THAT Make You Feel . . .

. . . ABOUT YOUR SHRINK?

Millions more Americans are seeking mental health therapy.

I read this and wondered, where are all the new therapists gonna come from?

And then I read this, from Shelley Palmer‘s always-fascinating blog:

Earkick is an AI-powered mental health app that offers real-time support and self-care tools. It boasts a 4.8/5 rating on the App Store, with users praising its effectiveness in managing anxiety and stress. The app provides daily journaling, mood tracking, and personalized feedback. While it doesn’t claim to replace professional therapy, it serves as a valuable tool for those seeking immediate support.

Meanwhile . . .

HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR GENDER?

Everyone is reading Andrew Sullivan’s How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way.  It is controversial and, to my mind, very worth considering.

And comes just as I was corresponding with a recent Rhodes Scholar who runs an LGBT nonprofit.

I had urged him and his team not to specify their pronouns, except where guidance was needed . . . linking him to my recent screed, Enough With The Pronouns!

He replied:

From our point of view, given that we work with Gen-Z LGBTQIA+ community members who generally support pronoun use, we think it is strategic for us to continue stating pronouns in OutVote-related communication. But we do understand your argument and think this is an important conversation to keep having!  See: How Gen Z Changed Its Views On Gender | TIME  2023

To which I replied:

Thank you for the TIME link – not new, but new to me.  Wow.  I guess I should amend my screed to suggest pronouns not be +indiscriminately+ used.  I.e., it makes sense to use them in addressing a Gen Z audience, especially a queer one.  But – until the world changes some more – candidates (and the rest of us) should generally not use them unless the gain they expect from young voters will outweigh the loss they can expect from everyone else.  Does THAT make sense?

He said it did.  And so I have.

Randi, David, Ken, and HYMC

CORRECTION: Next Monday’s Virtual Conversation with Heather Cox Richardson and DNC Chair Ken Martin is not free.  It’s a $25 ask. 

Today’s 3pm Indivisible planning call is free — and will be attended by thousands of us.

Union leaders’ exit from DNC exposes ‘mind-boggling’ tensions inside Democratic party.

If you read the whole story, you might conclude that headline is unhelpful sensationalism.  (I love and support the Guardian, but still.)

Let me add my own two cents.

I know union leader Randi Weingarten.

Rather than craft a practical solution to COVID once it became clear that children and healthy adults under 50 or 60 were not at great risk — providing on-line schooling for children living with at-risk relatives taught from home by at-risk teachers — Randi pushed to just shut it all down.  This caused enormous long-term harm to children and enormous economic damage to their families.  I believe she failed to see the big picture.

In today’s situation, she certainly does see the big picture — that we have to win! — but rather than remain on the DNC and help mobilize her union members to do all the things she wants the DNC to inspire people to do, she made it about her.  Like other wonderfully idealistic people — Ralph Nader comes to mind* — she put ego ahead of what really matters.

David Hogg‘s departure as a DNC Vice Chair is more complicated and could certainly have gone more smoothly, yet I’m a fan.

He proposes to raise $20 million to unseat Democrats — not, in my view, an appropriate role for a DNC officer — but to do it only in deeply blue districts not at risk of flipping red . . . and to primary only Democrats who don’t seem to him and his team to have the fire in the belly required to meet this moment.

My calculus is: worst case, Leaders We Deserve will be wasting 20 million Democratic dollars, if the candidates he backs don’t wind up strengthening the Party.  Over two years, in the scheme of things — as horrifying as this is — $20 million isn’t all that much.  Best case, his efforts will electrify a generation of young people who’ve given up on politics and feel unrepresented.  That could be worth a lot more than $20 million.

So, I’m a fan — as I am of DNC Chair Ken Martin.  Ken is terrific.  And a winner.  And deserves our support.  Tune in Monday to hear him in conversation with the amazing Heather Cox Richardson.

*Had Ralph, days before the 2000 election, urged his swing-state supporters to vote for Gore — since there was obviously no chance he would win — Gore would have won by an even wider** margin, there would have been no war in Iraq, no right-wing Supreme Court, no Trump, no inaction on the climate crisis, far less inequality . . . the list goes on and on.  All because Ralph refused all his friends’ entreaties to put country over ego.

**Bush allegedly won Florida by 537 votes.  Had the “over-votes” been counted — where voters punched the Gore chad but, to be doubly sure, wrote in “Gore” — he would have won by about 45,000.

HYMC

In order to raise more working capital, HYMC recently sold $40 million of stock and warrants.  Including its $128 million in debt (coming due in 2027), the company is currently valued at $300 million, give or take (depending on how you account for the warrants).

I asked Copilot (Microsoft’s AI):

What are Hycroft Mining’s proven and probable gold and silver reserves worth?

Copilot shot back:

As of the most recent estimates, Hycroft Mining’s proven and probable reserves include approximately 12 million ounces of gold and 481 million ounces of silver.

To estimate their potential worth, we can use current market prices:

  • Gold: ~$2,300 per ounce
  • Silver: ~$29 per ounce

Rough Valuation:

  • Gold: 12,000,000 oz × $2,300 = $27.6 billion
  • Silver: 481,000,000 oz × $29 = $13.95 billion

Total estimated gross metal value: ~$41.55 billion

Of course, that’s a theoretical maximum. Actual economic value would be significantly lower after accounting for:

  • Extraction and processing costs
  • Recovery rates (not all metal is recoverable)
  • Royalties, taxes, and capital expenditures
  • Time value of money over the life of the mine

Still, it gives a sense of the scale.

It does indeed.

Suggested here at $2.20 a couple of years ago (adjusted for its reverse split) and now around $3.20, I’m gambling — with money I can truly afford to lose — that: (1) the price of gold and silver may rise further, and/or (2) yet more gold and silver may be found to lie under HYMC’s 64,000 acres, and/or (3) someone may one day come along and acquire HYMC for (say) 5% of the value its reserves, which would give us a modest homerun.

Alternatively, gold and silver prices could fall, the estimated reserves could prove over-estimated (or too expensive to mine economically), or the company could run out of cash, leaving us with nothing but dashed dreams and bitter recriminations.

Speaking of which . . .

BOREF – Even if I could find a broker that trades it, I wouldn’t sell (and to whom?!).  But as the years turn into decades and the decades pile up, I’m beginning to think air travel may be superseded by teleportation before we ever see a dime.

SQNS – A big disappointment, they seem now to be trying a Hail Mary speculation on Bitcoin.  I suppose that if Trump so craters the dollar that Bitcoin replaces it as the world’s reserve currency, SQNS could yet pay off; but I hope not.

PRKR – I haven’t sold a share.  I still have this naive faith that justice will prevail.

ANIX, CNF, RNGE, UNIT, VERU, OPRT — high hopes for all.

One of the few names I’ve suggested that’s not a swing-for-the-fences speculation is CHRB.  This odd little “senior note” has been paying us its outsized $2.125 annual dividend even as it’s climbed from the $13.50 we paid toward the promised August 31, 2026 $25 pay-off.  Not a home run, but a solid hit.

BONUS

Trump’s CFPB rollback will cost Americans $18 billion a year, consumer groups say.

 

Six Links For Your Consideration

1. A Virtual Conversation with Heather Cox Richardson and DNC Chair Ken Martin — next Monday at 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific.

If you’re not happy with total MAGA control of the government, blow $25 and sign up for the call!

2. A Deeper Look (Literally): What Trump’s “Big Strike” Did and Did Not Achieve.

3. It “likely only set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions by months.”  Here’s hoping Trump’s efforts to bring peace to the Middle East succeed.

4. Should Iran instead foolishly decide to activate sleeper cells it claims it has positioned here, never fear: an eager 22-year-old oversees the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention.

5. Senator Alex Padilla addresses his colleagues . . .

6.  . . . including “knee-jerk moderate” Lisa Murkowski.  Might she caucus with the Democrats?

VERU vs TSLA

Suggested here at 52 cents three months ago, VERU remains, at 66 cents, an interesting speculation.  My friend who suggested it notes the large short interest in the stock — a bad thing if the shorts are right and it goes bust; a great thing if they at some point decide to cover their short positions to avoid ruin.

What has my friend excited is that (he writes):

Two of the three drugs competing with VERU’s Enobosarm reported results recently that dramatically underperformed.  VERU’s 3 mg dosage (taken in pill form) reduced loss of muscle mass by 97.2% . . . while Scholar Rock’s intravenously administered drug and Regeneron’s injected drug reduced muscle mass loss by only 50.0% and 51.3%, respectively!!!   Neither of these two competing drugs improved total weight loss significantly, either, as compared to Enobosarm!!!

So, as against two of the three competitors, he reports, our drug is way more effective — and taken in pill form.

As for the third, he writes:

Lilly’s drug (IV induced) (data expected 11/2026) that they acquired from Versanis for $2 BILLION is in my opinion the only drug still in the running to compete with Enobosarm.  If VERU could be worth the same $2 BILLION, then, with 147 million shares outstanding ($2 BILLION/147 million = $13.60) VERU share price target might reasonably be $5 or $10 or $15 — no?   A 10X or 20X.

Highly speculative, but — I would argue – not as nuts as TSLA.  (See: Tesla Stock Valuation Looks Insane.)

Could TSLA, currently valued at over $1 trillion, reasonably be imagined to jump 10- or 20-fold in the next two or three years, to $10 trillion or $20 trillion?  I don’t see it.

Might its market cap fall to just (say) five times that of Ford and GM combined?  That I could imagine — and would cut its share price in half.

And what if Tesla were one day worth only twice Ford and GM combined?  Stranger things have probably happened.

 

Weekend Reading

ICE believes it will never face accountability again.

The principles of policing . . . versus a police state.

A few last words about the MAGA man from Garrison Keillor, who concludes:  “I apologize for this ugly column. I shouldn’t have written it. I promise not to do it again.”

To which we can only respond: “No!  Encore!  Encore!”

WEEKEND LISTENING

Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Transgender Care for Minors

Should state governments be empowered to overrule the decisions of parents, children, and their doctors?  Yes, rules John Roberts: in America individual liberty extends only so far.

 

Oh, My

Okay, I’m basically taking the day off, but because many of you are allies of the LGBT community — for which I am truly grateful, and for which, in my view, the country is better off — I offer these two items:

An anecdote from Star Trek’s George Takei re Howard Stern.  Oh, my.

The review of a new play I was leery about attaching my name to (you’ll instantly grasp why when you see the title) (and also because my support was so minor, it didn’t seem any credit was warranted, let alone a photo with the cast on Monday’s opening night) but the cast and script and direction and staging are BRILLIANT and I’ve never seen anything better.  Plus, it’s at Playwright’s Horizon, a non-profit, so I’m not trying to enrich myself by selling you a ticket (which may be impossible to get after that review, anyway).

Happy Pride, everybody.

IMPORTANT BONUS

I attended a small fundraiser with DNC Chair Ken Martin last night.

He was so good.  We are in extraordinary hands.  I know things seem bleak, and the Party, adrift — but if you had been there, I think you would have left feeling, as all of us did: this guy gets it.  This guy is going to make it happen.  This guy deserves our full support.  And you know what?  We’re going to win.

(Though having now finished Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin, I have to tell you it’s really hard not to be really angry with the very small handful of people who allowed this tragedy to unfold in the first place.)

 

A Quick Poem

By Leo Herrera, read at the protest I attended yesterday:

Trump vows changes to immigration crackdown to protect migrant farmers, hotel workers.

Well, that’s a start.

Who knows?  Maybe he’ll expand it to include health care workers, construction workers — and anyone else who isn’t an actual criminal.

Kind of what Obama did while he waited for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

(The Senate passed it 68-32 in 2013, but House Republicans, knowing it would pass there, too, wouldn’t allow it to come to the floor for a vote.)

(Biden, too, could have signed a tough bill — the Senate vote was 57-43 — if only Trump hadn’t wanted the crisis to continue, to use as an election issue.)

Support the opposition!

 

I Mean, Just — Yikes

Unfolding as I type — Israel and Iran.  My own view is that we never should have pulled out of the deal Obama struck with Iran.  But even if I’m right, that’s spilt milk.  Dare we hope Iran’s religious tyranny will be toppled and its people welcomed into a world of peace and prosperity?  (And that Israel’s religious extremists will somehow loosen their grip?)

Meanwhile, what otherwise would have been today’s lead story:

Pete Buttigieg on the handcuffing of a United States Senator (100 seconds).

In a related note:

JD Vance lays out the plan (60 seconds).

Have you found your Saturday peaceful protest?

Click here!

More than 2,000 of them are now planned.  If the two I’ve attended recently are any guide, you’ll have fun and feel good about having joined in.

No Kings!

(Or as the Brits and some other countries with kings are styling their protests in sympathy with ours: “No Tyrants!”)

 

“I Hereby Retire From Satire”

Andy Borowitz yesterday:

I swear I am not making this up. Tonight Trump will go to the Kennedy Center to see “Les Miserables,” a play about a mass uprising against a tyrannical king. I hereby retire from satire.

The Big Beautiful Bill — 90 must-watch-and-share seconds.

Beware LA Protest Mis-info

There is a lot of misinformation going around about the LA protests, from both the left and the right.

If you have time: Heather Cox Richardson in Conversation with Secretary Buttigieg.  Superbly thoughtful people.

Have you found your Saturday protest?  Click here.  And join today’s call!