Author: A.T.

The first 12 seconds, from Trump’s former press secretary, are particularly good:

---

Donald Trump lives in his own reality, and he lies casually, but he’s very very good at it.  He used to teach me: “Stephanie, as long as you keep repeating something, it doesn’t matter what you say.”

---

Not only is he one of just three U.S. presidents ever to have been impeached, let alone twice (with a 57-43 bipartisan majority of senators voting to convict the second time) . . . the only U.S. president ever to have been indicted, let alone four times . . . he is also the only president ever to have kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.

(And to have exchanged “love letters” with a dictator; sided with Russia over the FBI; and said, “Hitler did a lot of good things.”)

I emphasize this last point, because his instruction to  Stephanie Grisham — “Stephanie, as long as you keep repeating something, it doesn’t matter what you say” — is essentially an instruction on effectuating The Big Lie.

>> From Scientific American: Repeated exposure to implausible statements makes them feel less so.

>> From an American correspondent’s introduction to that 1941 book of speeches:

---

[Hitler’s oratory] stirs hatred and feeds self-vindication, and whether on paper it bears inspection for consistency, logic or soundness is immaterial.

---

>> From a French journalist’s foreword:

---

To use constantly and untiringly the same arguments, and to pound into the heads of his listeners the same formulas, is part of Hitler’s oratorical technique.  . . .  [He] is past master at throwing up verbal smoke screens . . . He knows equally well the effectiveness of massive oratorical assaults that shake the nerves of his victims or opponents . . . he knows how to give pledges that will be broken later . . . he uses insults and lies in the same manner as his generals use planes and tanks to break through the respectable but often weak front of his adversaries. . . . His crudity frequently borders on downright vulgarity.

---

Sound like anyone we know?

How else to explain all the good people who believe Trump is the victim of a witch hunt?

One of those good people — Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, as it happens — reads this column daily; and, daily, sends refutation or taunt.

Yesterday, he sent this clip about remarks made by a former white Christian nationalist Trump appointee (whom Trump subsequently pardoned), blaming Jews for their deportations to the concentration camps. 

My reader called it a reason to question Trump’s judgment (ya think?), “however, nothing Trump did compares to the Biden crime family bribe-taking, Afghanistan debacle and cutting down the oil production that created the 9% inflation.”

I pointed out all the obvious things anyone on “our side” would.

>> That leaving Afghanistan by May, 2021, was a deal TRUMP had committed the U.S. to and that — though it certainly could have gone better — it might not have been an easy thing for the military to execute even if Trump had still been in charge. 

>> That attributing the spike in global inflation to Biden’s restrictions on future oil exploration — rather than to pent-up COVID demand, supply chain problems, and Russia’s  invasion of Iraq — made no sense.

>> And that the “Biden crime family” consisted of one community college professor not known for her lavish lifestyle; one former drug and alcohol abuser who shamelessly traded on his father’s name; and the Amtrak-riding kingpin himself, on whom Trump — with all the powers of the presidency and, presumably, Russia’s intelligence service — had been unable to pin any crime.

Much like the much-anticipated Durham report that flopped — but unlike the much-anticipated Mueller report that turned up what more than 1,000 former Republican and Democratic federal prosecutors deem to have been multiple felonies — all Trump’s efforts, and those of now-Special Counsel David Weiss, have failed to reveal anything of note the President has done.

(Ah, retorted my reader, “Garland appointed the fox, David Weiss, to guard the hen house and YOU don’t see any corruption?”  I pointed out that TRUMP appointed David Weiss in 2018 and Garland let him stay and continue his investigation.  And that when Weiss recently asked for the extra powers of a special counsel, Garland granted them.  Would my reader have felt Garland was less corrupt, I asked, if he had replaced Trump’s guy with a Biden appointee?  Less suspect if he had refused the Trump appointee’s request for extra powers?  To which my reader replied — and I quote — “George Washington appointed Benedict Arnold.  History is replete with despicable traitors.”)

I know what you’re thinking: “Why do you even bother?”

And I generally don’t — it’s quicksand. 

Millions of misinformed people like my reader are certain that Marxists like me and Joe Biden are out to ruin America with all this bipartisan infrastructure, record-low unemployment, renewed manufacturing base, affordable health care, and, of course, our plan to give women and parents the right to make difficult health care choices with their doctors.

They have drunk the Kool-Aid.

All this against the background of . . . what does any of it have to do with Trump, anyway?

If evidence emerges that Joe Biden is a crime family boss (or Tom Hanks, a serial killer), the same Justice Department memo that shielded Trump from prosecution while in office would shield Joe (though not Tom).  But once out, that evidence should be presented to a grand jury — or four, if warranted — and the process be allowed to take its course.

As is now finally happening with Trump.

The difference being that, where Biden in such circumstances would conduct himself with decorum, Trump is making veiled threats to witnesses, jurors, and poll workers and leading his followers to make explicit threats — very much as a crime family boss would.*

Let us hope that those witnesses, jurors, and poll workers find the courage not to cave (because our democracy hangs by a thread); and that you, dear reader, have a great weekend.

* Bolded links, like this one, are by way of recommendation — items I think you might want to read or watch.  Light-face links are just by way of substantiation — in case you want to know what something is based on, or who someone is, etc..

. . . and desperately need to be reformed (if you ask me).

An enforceable code of ethics for the  Supreme Court for obvious starters, but it’s way more than that.

Six years ago, a woman walking in Central Park was almost killed a falling tree.  A settlement — $5.5 million — was reached last month, and it cost her $1 million in legal fees to reach it. (The defendants doubtless had big legal fees, as well.)  Is this really the best system for settling such cases?  Six years?

In 1996, I put Prop 202 on the California ballot to encourage “early settlements.”  It was endorsed by the business community and conservatives like Robert Bork; but also by two former deans of Harvard Law School, Derek Bok and Erwin Griswold, former ACLU President Norman Dorsen, and even a former president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Leon Silverman.

It came really close — 48.79% of the vote!

I called California’s then-Secretary of State, Bill Jones.

“All I need,” I told him over and over for an hour, “is for you to find . . .”

No, wait; wrong fantasy.  I didn’t call him; I admitted defeat.

But I still believe something like Prop 202 makes sense — a way to give both sides an incentive to settle more quickly.

I just finished listening to Big Sugar, a riveting nine-part podcast about a 15-year legal battle that the plaintiffs quickly won — $51 million — but that Big Sugar ultimately won.  If you listen, I doubt you’ll think justice was done.  (Interesting sidenote: the same scientists paid to say there’s no link between sugar and diabetes morphed into the scientists who found no linkage between smoking and cancer or fossil fuels and climate change.  But I digress.)

It reminded me of ParkerVision’s 13-year battle with Qualcomm, where a jury awarded PRKR $173 million in 2011, but where, so far, the company has received nothing.  And may well never.

It reminded me also of its recent suit against Intel, where a jury could well have awarded more than $250 million — which the judge could then have trebled — but where, for reasons hard to fathom, the jury was not given a chance to hear the case.  Instead, the judge more or less forced ParkerVision to settle for $25 million.

Maybe 20 years from now there will be a podcast about that one.

(I still have a huge number of shares, and there’s some possibility of upside from today’s dime a share — hey, 20 cents would be a double!  A buck someday would be a home run!  But I’m no longer holding my breath.  The justice system crushed us.)

The big frustration, though, 10 billion times as important as ParkerVision, is how hard it has been, first, to impeach Trump — don’t read the Mueller report or credit the view of more than 1,000 former Republican and Democratic prosecutors, just take his word for it — and, now, how hard it’s been to pursue the indictments.

We all watched him urge his followers to come to DC — “it will be wild” — and exhort them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” knowing many were armed . . . we all watched them storm the Capitol . . . he watched them storm the Capitol . . . for 187 minutes before he reluctantly called them off . . . we have all heard his call to Georgia’s secretary of state.

Why does it take years and years to investigate and adjudicate?

Why not quick justice for the really obvious pieces and then a succession of “superseding indictments” as the full scope of the conspiracy becomes better and better known?

I’m not an expert, but I can’t believe this is the best we can do.

Grrrrrr.

Five facts about the indictments.

1. Biden didn’t indict Trump, four different grand juries did.  “The reason we HAVE grand juries is to make sure no one gets indicted out of a personal vendetta.”
2. This isn’t about “free speech,” it’s about what he did.
3. It doesn’t matter whether Trump believed the election was stolen.
4. Trump has been given deference most other criminal defendants never would.
5. It’s not political: Trump was in legal trouble long before politics.

See if you agree.

Separate from his potential criminal liability, to be decided by juries, there’s Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Is he Constitutionally disqualified serving a second term, regardless?

---

Two conservative law professors active in the Federalist Society argue that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment makes Donald Trump ineligible to hold government office.

---

The Federalist Society is no friend of the Democrats, as you know.  Yet these guys deeply researched the question and reached  four firm conclusions:

---

First, Section Three remains an enforceable part of the Constitution, not limited to the Civil War, and not effectively repealed by nineteenth century amnesty legislation.

Second, Section Three is self-executing, operating as an immediate disqualification from office, without the need for additional action by Congress. It can and should be enforced by every official, state or federal, who judges qualifications.

Third, to the extent of any conflict with prior constitutional rules, Section Three repeals, supersedes, or simply satisfies them. This includes the rules against bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, the Due Process Clause, and even the free speech principles of the First Amendment.

Fourth, Section Three covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support as “aid or comfort.”

It covers a broad range of former offices, including the Presidency. And in particular, it disqualifies former President Donald Trump, and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.

---

Here are the twists and turns of what needs to happen to get this decided by the Supreme Court — pronto. 

There’s no time to lose.

BONUS

The 10 Best Investing Books of All Time — allegedly.

GOOD NEWS

---

In the one year since President Biden signed the historic CHIPS and Science Act into law, companies have announced over $166 billion in manufacturing of semiconductors and electronics, and at least 50 community colleges in 19 states have announced new or expanded programming to help American workers access good-paying jobs in the semiconductor industry.

In total, since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, companies have announced over $231 billion in commitments in semiconductor and electronics investments in the United States.

---

We’re coming back, baby.  The Biden team have done a great job on this — worth reading in full.

And this:

The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think.

---

. . . Wind and solar power are breaking records, and renewables are now expected to overtake coal by 2025 as the world’s largest source of electricity. . . .

---

Way too late — I blame Ralph Nader — but better late than never.

(Even China’s going into overdrive, expected to double its capacity by 2025, five years ahead of schedule.)

APE/AMC

APE converts into AMC a week from Thursday, at which point the reverse 1-for-10 split will also occur.  I decided discretion is the better part of valor and sold most of my APE yesterday.  Not as big a gain as I’d hoped, but my experience is that stocks rarely do well after reverse splits . . . and AMC plans to issue a whole lot of new shares soon, perhaps adding more to supply than to demand.

But what a saga.

For a while, at least, I’ll be watching mostly from the sidelines.

But first . . .

TWO MINUTES

Watch!  We need to run this guy for office!

APE / AMC

Settlement approved.  The convergence has begun.  In after hours trading, AMC fell $1.34 to $3.92 Friday; APE rose 42 cents to $2.20.  At some point soon, when every 100 APE shares become 88 AMC shares, there will only be one price to look at.  (Multiplied by 10, because there will simultaneously be 1-for-10 reverse split.)

I love the movies and AMC is my chain of choice, but it’s a tough business.  If I can get $2.50 or $2.75 for APE shares bought at $1.05, I’ll be happy.

POPE FRANCIS

World Bank suspends lending to Uganda because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act

---

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act fundamentally contradicts the World Bank Group’s values. We believe our vision to eradicate poverty on a livable planet can only succeed if it includes everyone irrespective of race, gender, or sexuality. This law undermines those efforts. Inclusion and non-discrimination sit at the heart of our work around the world.

---

“Interesting that the bankers are ahead of Jesus’s representative on earth when it comes to compassion,” I wrote a friend.

“His representative here is just a little slow, that’s all,” he replied.  “It took the Church 500 years to apologize to Galileo for persecuting him because he explained that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  But they DID apologize to him.  Which gives me faith that another apology (to LGBT people) is forthcoming no later than 2523.”

To his great credit, as noted in April, the Pope has been basically great on this issue:

---

Being homosexual is not a crime.

It’s a sin.

But it is also a sin to lack charity with one another.

Let’s distinguish sin from crime.

Every man and woman must have a window in their life

where they can turn their hope and where they can see the dignity of God.

And being homosexual isn’t a crime.

It’s a human condition.

---

Later going on to clarify:

---

When I said it is a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that EVERY sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.

---

And yet despite his directives, the Archbishop of Uganda openly supports what the World Bank has condemned . . . and the Pope — his boss — does nothing.

World Bank — 1, Pope Francis — 0.

And now . . .

THE NEXT MARKET PANIC

How AI could cause a crash.

One more reason to keep cash reserves — and definitely not to buy stocks on margin.

Have a great week!

Yesterday, a conservative judge and a double-Trump voter who stormed the Capitol.

Today, two conservative law professors active in the Federalist Society (whence all Trump’s judges were sourced).

---

Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.

The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”

He summarized the article’s conclusion: “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.” . . .

First the judge:

“American democracy is in grave peril,” he says — and that peril comes from Trump.

Well, duh!   But hearing it from a distinguished conservative from Virginia — for whom John Eastman (aka “co-conspirator #2) once clerked before moving up to clerk for Clarence Thomas — gives it more weight.   Worth reading and sharing.

Now the voter.

A double-Trump voter and Capitol stormer has some words for for her fellow Trumpers.

Listen (2 minutes) or just read the transcript I’ve condensed:

---

NPR REPORTER AREZOU REZVANI: More than 1,100 people who participated in the insurrection have been charged. 70-year-old Pam Hemphill of Boise, Idaho was one of them.

HEMPHILL: I pleaded guilty because I was guilty.

REZVANI: This retired alcohol and drug abuse counselor who voted for Barack Obama followed her friends’ and family’s support for Trump over time.

HEMPHILL: He wanted to stand up against China and the border.  And he had convinced me and everybody else that the Democrats wanted this to be a communist country.

REZVANI: So she voted for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020. After he lost, a friend gifted her a flight to D.C. for the stop the steal rally, and off she went. . . .

HEMPHILL: I want the world to know that I followed a cult leader, and I’m really sorry that I did because I’m really ashamed of it. But I can’t blame me 100% because I was lied to by Trump.

REZVANI: And for that, Hemphill believes Trump deserves to face consequences.

HEMPHILL: The indictment shows me that even if you are one of the most powerful people in the world, that you are still subject to the laws that allow this country to be safe and free.

REZVANI: Hemphill’s choice to speak up hasn’t been easy. She says she’s received numerous death threats in recent months and is in the process of moving. But she doesn’t want to say where because the movement she once supported has now turned against her.

---

And what is a fascist, anyway?  Robert Reich explains.

Hillary Clinton examines The Weaponization of Loneliness, bringing a topic that can seem soft and social-science-y into urgent focus.

And more.

But start with this:

WELL, THAT WAS FAST

SQNS, suggested here two weeks ago at $2.37, announced yesterday it had agreed to be acquired at $3.03.  As I type, it’s jumped to $2.80, an 18% gain.  For those who hold until the deal closes “in the first quarter,” a promised 28% gain.  I’m inclined to hold for the full $3.03 (and the dream someone might bid it higher); but you never know what snag might crater the deal and put us back to square one, so it’s your call.

APE is taking longer.  Suggested here at $1.05 nine months ago, it’s the virtual twin of AMC.  Yet when I looked yesterday mid-day, AMC — buoyed by the $1.5 billion success of the Barbenheimer movies — was up 30 cents to $5.23 . . . while APE was down 8 cents to $1.72.

By the close, AMC was up only 19 cents and APE down only 2 cents.  But it’s still nuts.  Upon their conversion, every 100 APE shares will become 88 AMC shares.  So APE should trade at 88% the price of AMC — not yesterday’s 33%.

On the remote chance you own AMC, because you like the company’s prospects, sell immediately and buy APE instead.

NOBODY’S PERFECT

There is much to laud about Anthony Fauci, especially his work decades ago with HIV-AIDS; but I am one who has long believed that — after the first few very scary months of COVID before we knew anything — we should have tried much harder to open schools . . . while making accommodations for those at serious risk . . . just as we managed to keep grocery stores open and UPS delivering.  The damage we’ve done to millions of kids is enormous.

And I’ve always been a little nervous about the way Dr. Fauci dismissed the possibility that COVID originated in the Wuhan lab he had a hand in funding.  On that point, this article could be described as damning.

THE THUNDERBOLT KID

If you grew up in the Fifties, as Bill Bryson did, read it or, better still, let him read it to you.  Huge fun.

OK, now:

TWO PLAYS I LOVE BUT HAVEN’T SEEN

Sweat was recommended by a friend.  I had forgotten entirely until it arrived — had no clue what it was about (or even, actually, which friend had recommended it) — but dove in.  As mentioned a week or two ago, I was gob-smacked.  And in the same way it’s often true “the book was better than the movie,” so, it seems to me, reading Sweat is probably better than seeing it.  That way, you have all the time you want to pause and think as you go.  Not to mention the time and money saved not having to buy tickets and fly somewhere to see it (most recently, Detroit this past June).

The Accidental Death of an Anarchist I read as an eBook on my phone.  I was not about to fly over to London to see it, though it’s getting standing ovations every night.  I was just curious to see what I had somewhat reluctantly invested in.  Having now read it, all I’ll tell you is that (a) I would have invested with gusto, had I actually read it; and (b) it is a 1970 Italian masterpiece wonderfully updated and relocated.  So sharp, so funny, so inventive.  Try to know nothing about it.  Just start reading.

And finally (apart from the BONUS CARTOON that follows):

REFILLING YOUR UNREFILLABLE PEPPER GRINDER

I hate waste, as long-time readers know, so — trivial though it is — throwing out the now-empty disposable pepper mill someone had brought at the beginning of the summer made me crazy last week.  I know:  We are in mid-coup!  The planet is burning up!  Who has time to worry about this?!

Apparently, I do.

I fished it back out of the trash and tried to think what tools I might have lying around to make the world a better place.

A wrench?  Pliers?  The edge of a screwdriver?

In fact, the tool that did the trick is called YouTube.

I typed in a few words and — presto:

How to Open Pepper Grinders from the Supermarket

More amazing still — “Handy Andy” being the last moniker anyone who knows me would apply — I followed the instructions and it worked.

Don’t say I never gave you anything.

BONUS CARTOON

Krugman: Is a U.S. Debt Crisis Looming? Is it Even Possible?

Executive summary:  NO.

To which I would add a few thoughts of my own.

First, even for me, who kinda gets it, this is reassuring.  So enjoy the reassurance.  I did.

Second, as you’ve heard me say for decades:

Just as a $300,000 mortgage is worrisome on a home appraised at $290,000 but trivial on a $4 million home . . . frightening for a family earning $40,000 a year but inconsequential to a family earning $800,000 a year . . . so is it not the size of the National Debt that matters, but its size relative to the economy as a whole.

Imagine that we run $1 trillion deficits annually for the next 50 years.  Oh, my God!  Oh, my God!  Oh, my God!  Another $50 trillion on top of today’s $31 trillion?

But if our economy grows at 4.5% a year for those same 50 years — the Fed’s 2% inflation target we’re once again close to achieving plus 2.5% real growth — our GDP would have grown from $26 trillion to $243 trillion.

So the by-then $81 trillion we owed would bring us back from today’s Debt/GDP ratio of 120% or so . . . about where it was after we borrowed like crazy to win World War II . . . to 33% — about where it was 35 years later, before Reagan/Bush 43/Trump sent it soaring with tax cuts for billionaires.

Except that if we’re smart, our future deficits will go not toward defeating fascism in World War II by blowing things up, but toward building things that will last 50 and 100 years . . . i.e., revitalizing our infrastructure and investing in our kids . . . even as we defeat fascism here without spending a dime, simply by voting Democrat in 2024.

And continuing to vote that way as long as it takes for the Republican Party to regain its footing as a party of real facts, not alternative facts, with leaders like Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and Chris Christie (to take three of the all-too-few examples) rather than Trump, Giuliani and the Pillow Guy (to take three of the all-too-numerous), who are willing to defy the strongman who, even as we speak, is continuing his attempted overthrow of democracy.

We are in mid-coup, writes not-to-be-missed Maureen Dowd.

But if this year’s special elections are an indication, more people are beginning to see the importance of voting blue.

That’s reassuring, too.

Jonathan C.: “Would you advise contributing to Biden/Harris, or rather to the DNC?”

→ It’s a joint victory fund, so you don’t have to make a decision. The first $6,600 automatically goes to the Biden Campaign.  Anything beyond that goes to the DNC.