Author: A.T.

Discredit Where Discredit Is Due

Trump gets compared with history’s greatest villain because his rhetoric is really that bad:

. . . At a rally this past weekend in North Carolina, Trump declared that “a vote for Kamala Harris means 40 or 50 million more illegal aliens will invade across our borders, stealing your money, stealing your jobs, stealing your life.” Chillingly, he added that migrants were already “attacking villages and cities all throughout the Midwest.”

This followed earlier remarks in Arizona, in which he alleged that “young American girls” are “being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens.”

Vance has likewise baselessly accused Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of not only butchering and eating people’s pets, but also of killing people. “Murders are up by 81 percent because of what Kamala Harris has allowed to happen in this small community,” Vance said on CNN.

The Clark County, Ohio, district attorney, a Republican, unequivocally refuted Vance’s claim, noting that local murder rates were higher under Trump. What’s more, across his 21 years in the prosecutor’s office, Daniel Driscoll said, “we have not had ANY murders involving the Haitian community — as either the victims or as the perpetrators of those murders.”

. . . I’m not saying [Vance] and Trump actually WANT to start a modern-day pogrom, but if they did, I’m not sure what they’d be doing differently.

This piece is so worth reading in full.

And perhaps sharing with any good people you know who’ve fallen under Trump’s spell, as so many good Germans were once entranced by similar rhetoric.

BONUS RACES:

> We need just three red-to-blue flips to break the Republican super-majority in the 120-seat Florida House.  The Sun Sentinel endorses my friend Jim Brenner to be one of them.  Chip in a few bucks?

> Running as an Independent, Dan Osborn aims to turn a red Senate seat purple — in Nebraska.  I’m co-hosting this zoom Monday at 6pm Eastern time.  Consider “buying” a free ticket — and ponying up only if you like what you hear.

 

Tom Lehrer Should Write Another Song

I’ll tell you why, but first . . .

The Anti-Semitic Revolution on the American Right

. . . the more conspiratorial thinking becomes commonplace on the right, the more inevitable that its partisans will land on one of the oldest conspiracies of them all . . .

Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk are not inconsequential voices.  Neither is Trump, who dines with Holocaust deniers.

. . . Trump has made foundational what was once marginal. Beginning with birtherism and culminating in election denialism, he turned anti-establishment conspiracism into a litmus test for attaining political power, compelling Republicans to either sign on to his claims of 2020 fraud or be exiled to irrelevance.

The fundamental fault line in the conservative coalition became whether someone was willing to buy into ever more elaborate fantasies. The result was to elevate those with flexible approaches to facts, such as Carlson and Owens, who were predisposed to say and do anything — no matter how hypocritical or absurd — to obtain influence. Once opened, this conspiratorial box could not be closed. After all, a movement that legitimizes crackpot schemes about rigged voting machines and microchipped vaccines cannot simply turn around and draw the line at the Jews.

For mercenary opportunists like Carlson, this moment holds incredible promise. But for Republicans with principles — those who know who won the 2020 election, or who was the bad guy in World War II, and can’t bring themselves to say otherwise — it’s a time of profound peril. And for Jews, the targets of one of the world’s deadliest conspiracy theories, such developments are even more foreboding. . . .

If you’re Jewish, or have Jewish friends, or think America was on the right side in World War II, this piece is worth reading in full.

It made me think of Tom Lehrer‘s, “National Brotherhood Week” (“oh the black folks, hate the white folks, and the white folks hate the black folks, and the rich folks hate the poor folks . . . and everybody hates the Jews”).  He should write another song.  Except he won’t because (a) he once said, “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize” and (b) this has passed the point of being funny.

 

It’s Not Just Taylor Swift!

You’ve likely seen this by now?

More than 700 current and former national security leaders, as well as former military officials, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a letter released on Sunday . . .

The letter is too powerful and important not to share in full:

We are former public servants who swore an oath to the Constitution. Many of us risked our lives for it. We are retired generals, admirals, senior noncommissioned officers, ambassadors, and senior civilian national security leaders. We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We are loyal to the ideals of our nation—like freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—not to any one individual or party.

We do not agree on everything, but we all adhere to two fundamental principles. First, we believe America’s national security requires a serious and capable Commander-in-Chief. Second, we believe American democracy is invaluable. Each generation has a responsibility to defend it. That is why we, the undersigned, proudly endorse Kamala Harris to be the next President of the United States.

This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.

We do not make such an assessment lightly. We are trained to make sober, rational decisions. That is how we know Vice President Harris would make an excellent Commander-in-Chief, while Mr. Trump has proven he is not up to the job. As leaders, we know effective leadership requires in-depth knowledge, careful deliberation, understanding of your adversaries, and empathy for those you lead. It requires listening to those with expertise and not firing them when they disagree with you.

Vice President Harris has proven she is an effective leader able to advance American national security interests. Her relentless diplomacy with allies around the globe preserved a united front in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. She grasps the reality of American military deterrence, promising to preserve the American military’s status as the most “lethal” force in the world.

The contrast with Mr. Trump is clear: where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, he is impulsive and ill-informed. He has heaped praise on adversarial dictators like China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as well as the terrorist leaders of Hezbollah. Conversely, he has publicly and privately excoriated the leaders of our most steadfast allies, including the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, Canada, and Germany. He abandoned our Kurdish allies while ceding influence in the Middle East to Russia, Iran, and China.

Further, Mr. Trump denigrates our great country and does not believe in the American ideal that our leaders should reflect the will of the people. While Vice President Harris follows the democratic norms we expect of any political leader—including promising to abide by the outcome of the pending election and respecting the rule of law—Mr. Trump is the first president in American history to actively undermine the peaceful transfer of power, the bedrock of American democracy.

Mr. Trump threatens our democratic system; he has said so himself. He has called for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution. He said he wants to be a “dictator,” and his clarification that he would only be a dictator for a day is not reassuring. He has undermined faith in our elections by repeating lies, without evidence, of “millions” of fraudulent votes.

He has shown no remorse for trying to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th, promises to pardon the convicted perpetrators, and has made clear he will not respect the results of the 2024 election should he lose again.

That alone proves Mr. Trump is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.

We believe, as President Ronald Reagan said, that “America is a shining city on a hill.” Yet in this election, one of President Reagan’s more ominous warnings is equally relevant. “Freedom,” he said, “is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Our endorsement of Vice President Harris is an endorsement of freedom and an act of patriotism. It is an endorsement of democratic ideals, of competence, and of relentless optimism in America’s future. We hope you will join us in voting for her.

Sincerely,

[more than 700 signatories]

I forwarded that to Carl, who responded with something about Hunter Biden and Nancy Pelosi being corrupt.  He is impenetrable.

Yesterday afternoon (in case you missed it), I posted a link to FROM RUSSIA WITH LEV — a must-watch documentary — along with a way to profit from DJT’s likely worthless stock.

Terry has since shared this postscript:

It may not be too late for gains with DJT.  If you believe that it is destined to move even lower than $14 over the next two weeks (I do, because of the short window between now and the election when the two big insiders will likely be dumping their shares like crazy), you could sell the DJT Oct 4 14 calls and simultaneously buy the DJT Oct4 19 calls for a credit of $132 which would result in a risk of $368 per contract.  In order for you to lose the entire $368, the stock would have to close above $19 on October 4 (highly unlikely, in my view).  Under $14 (most likely), you would make $132 per contract, or 35% in 2 weeks.  The breakeven is $15.32 with this spread.

In after-hours trading, DJT is trading about 30 cents above the closing price, so the options spread might be greater than $1.32 shortly after Monday’s open.  I suspect that the insiders are pushing the price up in after-hours trading which they can easily do by placing a market order to buy a few shares.  That makes the MAGA patsies think it’s possible that it might indeed move up instead of down.  They did the same thing in after-hours trading on Thursday, but it quickly fell back down when the market opened.

→ Obviously, this is not for everybody; and only for money you can truly afford to lose.

 

He “Doesn’t Know The Gentlemen”

UNDECIDED?

These 2 minutes with Bill Maher pretty much say it all.

HEAR NO EVIL, SEE NO EVIL

Russia was a “hoax” so long as you don’t read Volume One of the 381-page Mueller report . . . or the equally thorough Volume Two detailing at least 10 instances of criminally indictable obstructions of justice Trump committed to keep Volume One from being even more damning.  (Take these 2 minutes to watch that).

To those with eyes and ears open, this is all old news.

Something NEW no Trump fan will allow himself to be exposed to is FROM RUSSIA WITH LEV. 

Trump, of course, doesn’t know Lev.  Or Igor.  Might have had a photo with them — he has photos with thousands of people!  But he “doesn’t know the gentlemen.”  

Ha!

Watch!

So fun — except for the fact that it really happened yet Trump could still be elected; and millions of his followers will only accept the results if he is.

BONUS: PROFITING FROM DJT

Why didn’t I think of this????

It’s basically too late now — but interesting, I think.

My old pal Terry writes:

Here’s how I use options to capitalize on the huge difference between the market cap and the fundamental value of the enterprise.  You can’t sell DJT short because even if you can find a broker who will accept the order, you pay a huge monthly interest charge which goes to whoever loans stock to cover the short sale.

Normally, if you believe a stock is headed lower, you’d buy a put on the shares, but DJT is so universally recognized as trading well above its fundamental value that the puts are extremely expensive and pretty much not worth the risk.

For example, a two-week at-the-money put on DJT would cost $2.67 as I write this.  The stock would have to fall 11% in those two weeks before you started making a profit, but if it remained flat or moved any higher, you would lose 100%.  Not a bet that appeals to me.

Instead, I have been selling what are called vertical call credit spreads.  I have been selling these every month since DJT was about $40 and every trade has been profitable (about a 50% average gain on the maximum risk for a one-month time period).  I made only small investments, however, because it was with money that I could not afford to lose.  Even though the stock was ridiculously over-priced, you never knew when a MAGA millionaire or Russian oligarch might buy shares in hopes of getting an invite to Mar-A-Lago.

I believed that the risk-reward basis would change on September 19 or 26 when the six-month lock-up restriction would expire for insiders who received shares in DJT.  Two individuals who own about 10% each could then sell their shares (Donald publicly stated that he would not be selling his, a statement that caused them to soar by 20% for one day only).  These other insiders probably don’t like Donald that much because they both are suing him for something related to the issuance of their shares.  So I figured that they will unload their shares before the election when Donald may change his tune and start dumping his shares.

On September 10, with the stock trading about $18, I sold call options on DJT expiring on October 4 at the $18 strike as part of a vertical call credit spread, buying October 4 calls at the $23 strike.  These calls would all expire at least one week after the lock-up period had ended, giving the insiders ample time to unload some of their shares and presumably push the selling price down (or at least not cause it to move higher). I received $167 for each spread I sold.  A $500 maintenance fee was required (like a margin loan but no interest is charged). I just had to post $333 per contract to maintain the position. This meant that my maximum risk would be $333 per spread and that is how much I would lose if the stock rose to above $23 on October 4, a highly-unlikely event in my mind.  If the stock remained flat at $18 on October 4 or traded any lower, both call options (my long and short positions) would expire worthless and I would gain 50% on my maximum risk.  I figured the odds were strongly in my favor, and I committed considerably more than my earlier similar spreads.  In fact, I’ve subsequently sold similar spreads almost every day since then at several lower strike prices as the stock fell to below $14.  I’m finished for now, and have to wait out two weeks to cash in.  I am a little concerned that the stock must stay below $14 to make a gain on some of my spreads.  There is always the possibility that Elon Musk or Putin will buy a few hundred million shares to gain political favors. If they do that, I hope they will wait a couple of weeks to do it.

If I wanted to cash in on my September 10 spread sale, I could buy them back for $37 at today’s prices for a $130 gain on the $167 I collected per spread, but I am willing to wait out the two weeks to collect the full amount that will come my way if DJT stays below $18.

I know you have personally bought both puts and calls along the way, but I was not sure you knew all about the opportunities to be a bit more creative with option spreads.

PS — I am totally obsessed by Kamala’s arrival on the scene and am doing whatever I can, including personally contacting three Republican old Vermont friends now retired to Florida about voting for her in a state which really counts (yes, I think Florida is a swing state).  Two of them (and their wives) have agreed to vote blue for the first time ever.

→ Note to readers: when you have a brilliant idea like this, please share it with me before it’s too late for me to get rich!

 

A Bargain At $13.55 A Share?

But first . . .

SUCCESS!

Their latest annual report: 53 schools serving more than 20,000 scholars, mostly from low-income families of color, selected by lottery.  First in New York State in math; middle schoolers acing exams typically taken by 10th and 11th graders; 172 points above the national SAT average — and more.

(To those who believe charter schools are a bad idea, draining resources from public schools, please see this longer post.)

And also . . .

FAILURE!

Or at least that’s what one would predict for North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.

Per Heather Cox Richardson:

Republican North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson frequented porn sites, where between 2008 and 2012 he wrote that he enjoyed watching transgender pornography; referred to himself as a “black NAZI!”; called for reinstating human enslavement and wrote, “I would certainly buy a few”; called the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a “f*cking commie bastard”; wrote that he preferred Adolf Hitler to former president Barack Obama; referred to Black, Jewish, Muslim, and gay people with slurs; [and] said he doesn’t care about abortions (“I don’t care. I just wanna see the sex tape!” he wrote). Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck of CNN, who broke the story, noted that “CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.”

After the first story broke, Natalie Allison of Politico broke another: that Robinson was registered on the Ashley Madison website, which caters to married people seeking affairs.

Robinson is running for governor of North Carolina. He has attacked transgender rights, called for a six-week abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest, mocked survivors of school shootings, and—after identifying a wide range of those he saw as enemies to America and to “conservatives”—told a church audience that “some folks need killing.”

Robinson has Trump’s backing (60 seconds).

But even with that, I think Josh Stein will be the next governor of the great state of North Carolina — and that Kamala Harris may just win the state’s 16 Electoral College votes.

You know who also has Trump’s backing?  Laura Loomer.  Treat yourself to Jon Stewart’s take.

And now . . .

DJT

With the stock now down to $13.55 from its $79.38 March 26 high, bargain-hunters have to ask themselves: is a company with no meaningful and enormous losses worth $2.7 billion?  Should they invest in a company whose success rests with this man?  Will he bankrupt this company as he has bankrupted so many others?

Who’s buying here, even at $13.55?

Heather Cox Richardson goes on to show just how far DJT has taken the G.O.P.  from the mainstream and offers this stark assessment:

When a political party has so thoroughly walled itself off from the majority, there are two options. One is to become full-on authoritarian and suppress the majority, often with violence. Such a plan is in Project 2025, which calls for a strong executive to take control of the military and the judicial system and to use that power to impose his will.

The other . . .

We really need to win.  And by such a wide margin that even this Supreme Court wouldn’t dare throw it into the House of Representatives.

Pitch in!  Volunteer! 

 

Lev! Stench! And A Question

LEV!

Treat yourself to this 2-minute trailer and you may cancel Friday’s dinner to stay home and watch From Russia With Lev at 9pm on MSNBC.

STENCH!

First He Went After Anita Hill. Now He’s Coming for Clarence Thomas.

As a young conservative, David Brock smeared Hill, who accused the Supreme Court justice of sexual harassment. Now, in a new book, Brock is denouncing Thomas and the court’s rightward tilt — and contending with his own complicated past.

Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America.

A compelling weekend read or listen.

AND NOW, THE QUESTION

Harris endorsed by over 100 former Republican former national security officials.

Where are the former Democratic national security officials endorsing TRUMP?

Where, for that matter, is KAMALA’s niece writing a book subtitled, “the world’s most dangerous WOMAN?“

This is not normal, people.  Presidential nominees are not widely attacked — with patriotic urgency — from within their own party.  By their own former appointees.

Trump calls those of us who oppose him “radical Marxist communists.”

Seriously?

Dick Cheney?  Mike Pence?

Does Trump even know what a Marxist is?

I doubt it, but you can be sure his cult members don’t — they just know it’s bad, he’s good — and that’s enough.

The key plank in the Marxist platform is abolishing the right to private property.  Everything — like homes — should be communally owned.  A key plank of Kamala Harris’s platform are $25,000 grants* to help young families achieve homeownership.  See the difference?

Marxists want to do away with capitalism.  Harris’s Entrepreneurs & Innovators Policy Plan sets a goal of 25 million new business applications in her first term.  See the difference?

The whole thing is nuts — watch From Russia With Lev! — but it’s happening.  And Team Trump are deadly serious about making sure it does.  Putin, too.

To keep from losing our democracy we all need — urgently — to pitch in and volunteer.  And win by such a wide margin that even this shameless Supreme Court — read Stench — wouldn’t dare overturn the result.

 

A Big Tent

Are Jewish Republicans willing to stand for Holocaust denial?

Tucker Carlson called Cooper “maybe the best and most honest popular historian working in the United States today.” Cooper proceeded to explain that the Holocaust was not a deliberate campaign to exterminate Jews . . .

And J.D. Vance was okay with that.

Meanwhile . . .

Trump’s Bedminster club hosted an alleged Nazi sympathizer who stormed the Capitol.

You’ve heard from Taylor Swift.  Billie Eilish and FINNEAS now step up.

From Billie Eilish to Dick Cheney.  Ours is a big tent.  Come on in!

THREE OF THE MANY ADS YOU’VE PAID FOR . . .

. . . but not seen unless you live in a swing state:

Control (60 seconds).

Blood clot (60 seconds).

Economic Plans (15 seconds).

“You’re rich as hell — we’re gonna give you tax cuts” (not an ad, but 12 seconds worth watching).

BONUS

Pete Buttigieg on FOX four years ago.

CORRECTION

Bob:  “Yesterday you linked to an October 2023 article entitled ‘Great News About American Wealth.’  You said it was ‘nearly a year old but’ but suggested things have ‘likely only gotten better in the meantime.’  While the article is about a year old, the data is from 2022, so it is closer to two years old. And, yes, the stock market has soared in that time, adding to people’s 401(k)s, etc.  But it is my understanding that household savings have decreased significantly over those two years. Equally concerning, the credit card delinquency rate has hit a nearly 12-year high.  The article you linked to said ‘debt is ‘much less of a problem.’  With credit card delinquencies so high, I’d say that’s misleading at best.”

 

What Are You Doing Sunday?

ARE WE REALLY TALKING ABOUT GEESE?

Watch J.D. Vance make his case, then be fact-checked.

LET’S TALK, INSTEAD, ABOUT THE ECONOMY

Trump says it’s terrible.

He hopes to fix it for everyday Americans by cutting taxes on the rich . . . by raising the prices of everything they, and American manufacturers, import . . . by pulling millions of needed workers off the job and putting them into camps awaiting deportation . . . by repealing Obamacare . . . by rooting out the “vermin” among us . . . by forcing families to have unwanted children they can’t afford . . . and by setting a general tone of vengeance and retribution.  Not to mention his team’s Project 2025 which he claims to know nothing about, just as knew nothing about Stormy Daniels or the checks he himself signed to pay her off.

Things are terrible if you bought Trump Media at its $79.38 high six months ago and now see it, as Trump sees his shares, at $17.97.

But employment remains robust, wages are rising faster than prices, interest rates have begun falling, we’ve begin finally revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure, and the stock market, albeit not DJT, is at an all-time high.

For all the difficulties average Americans face — which Kamala Harris and Tim Walz see and are working to assuage — our economy is pretty much the envy of the world.

What’s more, there is Great News About American Wealth.

It’s nearly a year old, but has likely only gotten better in the meantime:

Americans’ wealth is way up since before the pandemic.

The increase is very even across the board, with people at the bottom of the distribution gaining proportionally more than people at the top.

Inequality is down, including racial inequality, educational inequality, urban-rural inequality, overall wealth inequality.

Debt is much less of a problem.

There’s even some surprising good news about income as well as wealth.

In other words, a rising tide is lifting all boats. I know it can be tough to believe that, with all the doom and gloom you see in the media, but the numbers speak for themselves. And just so you know, all the numbers I give in this post are adjusted for inflation, so don’t worry about that.

Let’s keep moving forward.

ARE YOU IN NEW YORK SUNDAY?

Come cheer Kamala and add fuel to our fire.

 

Fool Me Thrice

Here’s Why Trump Was Forced to Say That He Only Has ‘Concepts of a Plan’

Executive summary:  It’s because in the 9 years he’s been by saying he would provide “everyone” better health care at a “tiny fraction of the cost,” he was just lying.  Has no plan. He never did.

Dare we hope this makes his 2016 and 2020 voters angry?

As George W. Bush might have said, “Fool me twice, shame on you; fool me three times . . . I’m done.”

Though this two-time Trump voter offers a different reason:

Harris Can Win on the Economy, but She Needs a Stronger Message

If only she could get him to debate again!

This time, I’d love to see her turn to him with an incredulous smile and say:

Now wait. You were president for four years and you actually think that foreign governments pay the tariffs we levy?  You actually think that?  No one told you that it’s the importers who pay, not the exporters?  That it’s our American companies that pay your tariffs, not foreign governments?  And that they then pass that extra cost on to American consumers? That’s why your tariff plan is like a giant sales tax.  It’s scary to me you don’t know something as basic as that. You may be the only Wharton graduate who doesn’t.  But now you do.

Wouldn’t that be fun?

What would he say in return?  That he did know it?  That she’s wrong?  Every fact-checker in the world, every newspaper editor, every economist, and every business, big or small, that ever imported something subject to tariffs would say she’s right.

To pile on, click here.  Or here, to volunteer.