Author: A.T.

It’s too late to add this to the section on NFT’s you’ll find in the edition of my book released today.

But it sure fits:

Guy Buys NFT For $2.9 Million, Asks for $48 Million, Is Offered $3600

Take 60 seconds to meet Max. Share with your friends on the other side of the aisle?  It might open their hearts.  He’s really not all that menacing.

Scarier than Max, I think, is Mary Trump’s uncle.  She and Norm Ornstein discuss how to fight back.

Scarier still: how most elected Republicans have fallen into line.  The GOP’s Remarkable Transformation into Party of Political Posers.

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It’s no longer what you know or who you know, but the cravenness you’re willing to show.

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After a man backed his truck through the gates of the Russian Embassy on Orwell Road in Dublin (no one was injured; the man was arrested), the embassy issued a statement:

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The incident is cause of extreme concern. We believe that no people of sound mind could support such senseless and barbaric actions . . .

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Eliciting this tart response on Irish TV.

Right?

Russia is appalled by barbarism.

I love that the Russian Embassy is located on Orwell Road.

“War is peace,” and all that.

Bears repeating:

Meanwhile, to protect children — no party cares more about children until they’re born and less about them once they are — Florida Republicans have banned 41% of all the math text books for teaching critical race theory and touching on other banned topics.  This has all been done in a completely transparent manner (except for disclosing the titles of the books or citing any of the offending passages).

Have a great week.

The first is fake.

Ish.

It’s Jimmy Kimmel running Sean Hannity’s devastating criticism of Joe Biden — but with clips of Trump.

Devastating, indeed.

The second — 100% real — starts (after a brief ad) about a minute in, where Hannity asks Trump whether Putin’s actions in Ukraine are evil.

The next three minutes are Trump’s unedited answer.

Wow.

BONUS

House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.

How did I miss this at the time?

SNIDE REMARK

Before amazing Charles there was amazing Scot.  (How did I ever get so lucky?)  And when Scot got frustrated, he would sometimes say, “Just because you can argue better doesn’t mean you’re right.”

Well, to my Trump-supporting friends I say . . .

Just because you haven’t read the Mueller Report doesn’t mean it’s findings aren’t shocking.

The Russia connections were ever so real, as were the multiple indictable obstructions of justice.

A lot of us think justice is a good thing, better served when not obstructed.

SHAMELESS PLUG

Guess whose new edition will arrive at your door Tuesday if you click here?

Or two cities.

Both in Palm Beach.

(Farm workers demonstrating for an extra penny a pound; Wendy’s chair, refusing to pay it, throwing a spectacular wedding.)

I last wrote about Nelson Peltz 21 years ago, in TIME.

Have a great weekend.

Your taxes are due Monday, April 18.

Putin says he is liberating the Ukrainian people from Nazis and that the atrocities are either staged (as some believe the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was) . . . or else “false flag” operations: Ukrainians bombing themselves.

Trump says his January 6 speech was perfect (as were his phone calls pressuring Zelensky to find dirt on Biden, and to Georgia’s secretary of state, pressuring him to find 11,780 votes) . . . and that those violently storming the Capitol were antifa and Black Lives Matters agitators.

A lot of Russians believe Putin — that Russia is the good actor in this war.

A lot of Americans believe Trump — that Trump is the victim of a coup.

How much of what they say does either man himself believe?

As to Trump, we can get a sense of that from Julian Zelizer: What I Learned When Trump Tried to Correct the Record.

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. . . When Congress met to certify the Electoral College results, Trump told us, there had been a “peaceful rally,” more than a “million people” who were full of “tremendous love” and believed the election was “rigged” and “robbed” and “stolen.” He made a “very modest” and “very peaceful” speech, a “presidential speech.” The throng at the Capitol was a “massive” and “tremendous” group of people. The day was marred by a small group of left-wing antifa and Black Lives Matter activists who “infiltrated” them and who were not stopped, because of poor decisions by the U.S. Capitol Police when some “bad things happened.” . . .

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I had the same problem when Trump was in Helsinki taking Putin’s word over the assessment of America’s 17 intelligence agencies.  Whom to believe???

Jonathan C.:  “I have been wondering for years why your columns keep providing links to publications that I cannot access.  My kid brother, who is also a subscriber, tells me that is able to access these various sites without having to shell out money to see just the indicated links.  Am I missing something here, or am I supposed to subscribe to the Post, the Times, the Guardian, the Atlantic, and who knows  else to see what you are getting at?”

→ Great question.  I’d start by asking your kid brother.  I’m pretty sure some of those publications give you at least some free visits (or else show you ads).  But my real answer is, look: where would we be without those publications?  “Democracy Dies In Darkness,” as one of them regularly reminds us.  So to the extent finances permit, I’d say these digital subscriptions are one place not to be frugal.

(For dozens of places it might make sense to save money — a few of them new in this edition, out Tuesday — click here.)

1. Conservative Max Boot on different styles of warfare and governing.

2. Before Giving Billions to Jared Kushner, Saudi Investment Fund Had Big Doubts.

3. Matt Ball:  “Most people have heard of [the taxpayer money lost betting on] Solyndra. How many know this story?”

Not only did the government give us GPS and the Internet — it may have saved your life in the last couple of year, or the life of someone you love.

BONUS (following on from yesterday) . . .

Rob B.: “I used to know Viktor Orban in his 20s.  He seemed to be a much different person then, or maybe the same person but well-cloaked?  Hard to know.  There is likely no hope at this point. The urban / rural divide as it relates to political inclination is similar to the US.  However, whereas the urban / rural population mix in the US is 80/20, it’s 20/80 in Hungary.  So very hard for the pendulum to swing back in Hungary, the way that it does in the US.”

Last week . . . the estimable Dana Dlott on geoengineering.

Today . . .

George Mokray: “Research geoengineering by all means but please, please, please stop ignoring the possibility of geotherapy — helping existing ecosystems to recover from the abuse our species has inflicted upon them. It is the process of restoring the earth’s health by strengthening natural biogeochemical and physiological mechanisms that regulate her planetary life support systems and control global temperature, sea level, atmospheric composition, soil fertility, food, and fresh water supplies.”

“Geotherapy,” he argues, “is cheaper, more effective, less dangerous, and has more ancillary advantages than geoengineering with less or none of the unintended consequences.

“We know that protecting (and perhaps expanding) existing forests is more effective than planting new land in trees.  We also know that remediation of degraded lands can happen much more quickly than we’ve previously imagined if done correctly.  We also know that Mama Gaia has put in billions of years into perfecting such systems so that IF we work with those systems, we can repair a lot of the damage our own stupidly silly species has done.  Incidentally, seagrasses seem to be able to sequester up to 35 times more CO2 than terrestrial plants according to everything I’ve seen.”

→ Tikkun olam (“repair the world”) quite literally.

And hang in there, world — I just watched Moderna’s chief science officer describe mRNA, “the language of life,” in her TED talk last night.  It is astonishing how far we’ve come in figuring it all out.  Did you know that each of us is composed of about 30 trillion cells, each with 100,000+ RNA molecules, and that somehow Moderna and others have got such a clear handle on this that when the COVID genetic code was posted on the web, it took their scientists just two days to agree with the NIH where to attack it, and then just one hour to design the vaccine that is currently in tens of millions of arms, and another 45 days to get it sent for trials and approval.  (I think I heard all that right.  I remember that with each of us has as many RNA molecules in us as there are stars in the known universe.)  We are not far from the day we will get individualized vaccines.

Not to mention hopeful signs on other fronts, like batteries:  Solid  state, not lithium-ion. Much faster-charging. Much smaller.

So much exciting stuff is going on.

Of course, none of it will save us if evil prevails.

A famous pianist writes: “Could you please tell me on what page and in which book you talk about needing more time to get everything done and propose having ‘Andyday’ as an eighth day of the week (with everyone frozen in time so that they can’t add more to the to-do pile)? I LOVED THAT the first time I read it and it has stuck with me ever since.  I’ve quoted your saying (writing) it a million times to various friends and family members. Obviously I have a reason for asking about where it is located in which book, but it’s not important to explain why.”

→ I’m flattered!  It’s not in a book.  You are thinking of this, which I haven’t seen in ages.  Truer now than ever (except perhaps the final line).

Yesterday, I posted about the climate crisis, suggesting people eat less meat and so on.

Dana Dlott: “It’s time for everybody to agree we are not going to convert our economy to one that produces so little greenhouse gas that a disaster can be avoided.  Telling people to eat less meat or ride their bikes more is a ludicrous joke, it’s like going to the hardware store to buy a bucket as the flood waters rise.  As Pizzo said, ‘the world will not react in time.’  It’s time to move the conversation to geoengineering.  We need a sustained geoengineering effort to save our planet and the human species.  This is a multifaceted approach involving planting more trees, seeding the oceans, and critically, shielding the Earth from a part of the incoming solar flux.  Stratospheric sulfur dioxide seems like the best bet in the near term, giving us enough time to erect a sunshield at the Earth-Sun L1 point.  Now, to the legions of readers who will recoil at the ‘horrors’ of geoengineering note that our impending climate catastrophe is DUE to geoengineering: a concerted effort worldwide of humans burning fossil fuels.  That is the bad kind of geoengineering.  I am talking about the remediative kind. Please do not fill up the email waves with letters about all the perceived horrible things about geoengineering.  Instead, if you are against these humankind-saving efforts, please take a little time to explain why the geoengineering aspects you don’t like are worse than what is already happening.”

→ While stipulating that Professor Dlott knows more about this than I ever will, may I make bold to suggest that we do both?   Or at least not discourage efforts that can’t hurt?  It can’t hurt to eat less meat, and is likely to be good for our health at the same time as it reduces climate strain.  Likewise, walking and biking.  Maybe it’s silly to pay attention to how much water we boil for our coffee; but boiling no more than needed saves time!  saves water!  saves energy!  Where’s the harm in that?  Or in turning off the lights (and TV) when leaving the room?

Trump’s latest — taking a page from the success of his steaks and his airline and his university and his casinos and his magazines and his mortgage company.

Lincoln’s latest — “it’s not genius, it’s genocide.”

PRKR has now received a definitive, seemingly devastating ruling from U.S. District Judge Paul Byron. I say “seemingly” because there are well regarded patent attorneys, gobsmacked by his ruling, who believe it will be overturned on appeal.  That eventually a jury will be allowed to hear the case.  (The one and only prior time that happened, ParkerVision was awarded a ton of dough.)

But that could be years, and in the meantime the company will presumably need to raise more money to stay alive, which would mean selling more shares, making each existing share less valuable.

So what to do?

If you bought back when PRKR shares were a dollar or a dime but hung on as they approached $2 . . . you’re in the same boat I am.

For the shares in my tax-sheltered account, I’m just hanging on.

But with shares in a taxable account, it seems to me the decision one should consider is whether to sell them now, for a tax loss, planning to buy them back cheaper 31 days from now . . .

. . . or double down now, wait the same 31 days (that being the waiting period to avoid the “wash sale” rule that would otherwise prevent your taking the tax loss), and then sell the original shares for the loss.

In real life, I’ve found, whatever I decide in such situations turns out to be wrong.

If I sell first, then before the 31 days are up something drives the price up before I can buy it back.  But if I double up first, the stock just keeps falling.

I lead a charmed life, to be sure; but somehow it never seems to extend navigation of the wash-sale rule.

Ordinarily, my fear of missing out trumps my fear of even greater loss, so I usually double up, wait the 31 days, and then . . . seeing whatever the stock is plunge further, sometimes follow even further down the rabbit hole, buying more, planning to wait another 31 days, and . . . you get the idea.

Have I ever mentioned that you must only get yourself into these situations with money you can truly afford to lose?

GASOLINE PRICE PERSPECTIVE

At $4.20, gas currently sells for a dime more than it did 14 years ago.  Not that June 2008 was typical — or that today’s $4.20 isn’t truly a hardship to millions.  But in comparing Biden’s $4.20 to Bush’s $4.10 one should note, first, that fuel efficiency has meaningfully improved in those 14 years, so the cost of driving a mile is lower; second, $4.10 in 2008 was the equivalent of $5.30 today.

(Of course, in some places gas costs way more than average.  Especially the premium grade you likely don’t need.  But that was true in 2008 as well.)

We all want the cost-per-mile to fall.  In the very short term, some of that may have to flow from temporary increases in fossil fuel production.  But mainly, it will come from greater fuel efficiency and an accelerating switch to renewables.  (Sick as we all are of Zooms, one way to save hours in traffic and gallons of gas — and not even have to put on pants — is to not leave home in the first place.)

Whatever it costs to drive a mile, I think we can take some pride in standing with the Ukrainians against this century’s Stalin.

HUNTER BIDEN PERSPECTIVE

If he crossed the line in profiting from the family name, he should be held to account like anyone else.  (Including Jared, Donald, Jr., Eric, and Ivanka.)

Those who think this should have been a focus of the 2020 election — the Trump children versus the Biden child — are just wrong.

The focus needed to be on the two candidates and the kind of administrations and policies they promised.

Going forward, we need to keep our eye on the ball as well.

It’s hard.

Being human, we are easily distracted.

The Oscars slap took up a week of the news cycle.  The Benghazi tragedy took up eight (!) Republican-led House and Senate investigations (none ultimately finding any fault with Secretary Clinton).

Yet neither the slap nor Benghazi — nor Hunter — even minutely rises to the level of issues like democracy versus autocracy (freedom hangs in the balance), climate change (that threatens the habitability of our planet), or the 40-year pendulum shift away from the middle class in favor of the rich (that is at the root of so much hardship and legitimate voter frustration).

These are the issues for November, not Hunter Biden (who, unlike Jared et al, plays no role in the Administration).

RUSSIA PERSPECTIVE

Stephen Pizzo: “The problem runs much deeper than Russia’s leadership. It extends throughout the Russian genome. Russians, like fundamentalist Christians, seem to feed off a sense of being perennially oppressed and looked down upon. It’s a self-defeating condition that’s held Russia back for a thousand years. An old Russian joke sums this trait up perfectly. The one about the two Russian peasant ladies who lived across the road from each other. One had a cow, sold milk and was therefore (by local standards) rich. The other old lady had no cow and was poorer. A genie appeared and offered the poor lady one wish. Thinking for a moment she answered: ‘Kill my neighbor’s cow.’  That’s a microcosm of how Russians view the West. The EU has cows and is rich and Russia feels humiliated by that. So, rather than adopting the more successful Western systems and standards and laws, they fortify against the West and do anything they can to kill the EUs cow.  This is hardly new. It’s a self-defeating paranoia and resentment Russian history (and Russians) have long marinated in. If (when) Putin departs the scene, we will see a replay of what happened in Russia when the Wall came down; a scramble for state assets followed by a scramble for power, followed by a fresh paranoid narrative that the whole mess was caused by ‘outsiders’ out to cancel Russia.”