HOW ABOUT ANOTHER TRIAL??!

The trial of Donald John Trump’s family business opens today, with prosecutors set to accuse the company of running a 15-year scheme to help its executives evade taxes by compensating them with lavish “off-the-books” perks.

I wish someone would put forth an estimated running total of Boy Orange‘s legal fees…at the end of each week.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office are prepared to tell a jury that two of the many corporations that comprise Trump’s real estate business – the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation – engaged in the scheme since at least 2005.

They will say that one executive, the company’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, received $1.76 million in perks, including the rent on an Upper West Side apartment, leased Mercedes-Benzes and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

The criminal tax fraud trial is certain to provide a view into the operations of the Trump Organization, a privately held firm comprising more than 500 entities.

The trial is beginning just as the Orange Despot is expected to announce another presidential campaign in the coming days…probably after the Midterms.

Ain’t this a great country??!!!?

WILL THE NUMBERS WORK?

Is Elon Musk really a business man, or just the self-proclaimed “smartest guy in the room”?

Planet Earth is going to get an answer.

His $44 billion acquisition of Twitter was the largest leveraged buyout of a technology company in history; and, the numbers are ALREADY daunting. 

From what we think we know, Musk, the world’s richest man, to get this deal done, loaded about $13 billion in debt on the company, which had NOT turned a profit for eight of the past 10 years. 

That said, Musk is also looking at a world-wide economy heading into a possible recession, with interest rates going higher each quarter.

Last year, Twitter’s interest expense was about $50 million.

With the new debt taken on in the deal, that will now balloon to about $1 billion a year. Yet the company’s operations last year generated about $630 million in cash flow to meet its financial obligations.

That means that Twitter is generating less money per year than what it owes its lenders. 

h/t: Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. 

APPALLING, BUT PREDICTABLE

The test results have been seized as political fodder – just before the Midterms – to re-litigate the debate over how long schools should have stayed closed, an issue that galvanized many parents and teachers during the most intense periods of the pandemic.

My reference is to an authoritative national exam released last Monday, offering the most definitive indictment yet of the pandemic’s impact on millions of schoolchildren.

US students in most states and across almost ALL demographic groups have experienced troubling setbacks in BOTH math and reading; in math, the results were especially devastating, representing the steepest declines ever recorded on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, which tests a broad sampling of fourth and eighth graders and dates to the early 1990s.

In the test’s first results since the pandemic began, math scores for eighth graders fell in nearly every state. A meager 26% of eighth graders were proficient, down from 34% in 2019.

Fourth graders fared only slightly better, with declines in 41 states; just 36% of fourth graders were proficient in math, down from 41%.

The curriculum has been dumbed down, many districts are overwhelmed with students who speak little English and the only people held ‘accountable’ are teachers – NEVER students or their often over-bearing and clueless parents.

Cellphones are allowed in far too many classes.

The profession of teaching has been so de-valued that it’s increasingly difficult to attract anyone to the field, let alone the ‘best and brightest.’

Sadly, every little is expected of public-school students – like just showing up to school.

For more than a generation, America has been content in raising multitudes of intellectual lightweights.

Reading scores also declined in more than half the states, continuing a downward spiral that had begun even before the pandemic.

NO state showed sizable improvement in reading; and only about one in three students met proficiency standards.

When there’s an interest in education by the parents, there’s an interest within the heart and soul of their offspring!

NO rigor, NO discipline and the constant “dumbing down of standards” based upon a ‘cancel culture’ plus, a race-driven curriculum…don’t act surprised!!!!!!!!!!

REPLACE BATTERIES in your REMOTES

How many of you are prepared for Tuesday, November 8th??!

Food; snacks; beverages of choice; decisions over to invite neighbors/friends; well, you know the drill.

Midterms will take on a whole new dimension this time around…

How many of us will believe the results as they’re being reported??!

Will there be any violence in certain sections of the country??!

With rampant distrust in the news media and a rash of candidates who have telegraphed that they may claim election fraud if they lose, news anchors and executives are seeking new ways to tackle the attacks on the democratic process that have infected politics since the last election night broadcast in ’20.

Steve Kornacki can be expected to do only so much!

An election night that ends without a clear indication of which party will control the House and Senate – a likely possibility, given the dozens of tight races – could present an extended period of uncertainty, allowing rumors and disinformation to run unchecked across the fruited plains.

It will be interesting to see how the networks deal with what politicians, and their supporters, are going to say, if they choose to call an election result into question.

Even as Americans consume information from an increasingly kaleidoscopic set of news sources: social media, hyper-partisan blogs, streaming services and family Facebook posts – the big TV and cable networks still play a major role in setting the narrative of an election night, for better and worse.

The old Lobsterman loves this world of pretentious demons and water-colors!!!

GET OUT the WET BLANKETS!

You, simply, can NOT make this up…

GAME 1…a Fall classic

Entering Game 1 of this best-of-seven World Series, the Houston Astros were undefeated this postseason, chewing through opponents much like they had during the regular season.

The matchup between the Astros, the top seed in the American League, and the Philadelphia Phillies, who secured the sixth and final playoff spot in the National League, seemed like a mismatch.

After falling behind, 5-0, last night, it certainly seemed that way.

But…

The Phillies, like they have ALL postseason, came charging back.

They tied the game in the fifth inning on a two-run double by their star catcher J.T. Realmuto.

And in the top of the 10th, Realmuto slammed a 98-mile-per-hour fastball from Astros pitcher Luis Garcia 346 feet to right field for a home run that was the difference in a 6-5 victory…

It’s great to be a ‘little boy’ on such occasions!!!

ANOTHER MISLEAD, MISFED MISFIT

The country seems haunted by random violence and casual cruelty on an hourly basis.

You and I are witness to a daily litany of often-vicious taunts, factual contortions and outright falsehoods on social media and behind any available lectern.

Public/elected officials across the country are facing kidnapping plots, armed visits to their homes, assaults and death threats.

NO place seems safe…from parks, subways, restaurants to schools to the supposedly impregnable, guarded Capitol and homes of the wealthy and well known.

Now comes news of a maniac breaking into a house in the middle of the night, bludgeoning an 82-year-old man in the head with a hammer while demanding to know where his famous wife was, yelling, “Where is Nancy?”

Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, was thousands of miles away in DC, protected by her security detail, but her husband, 82-year-old Paul Pelosi, was home.

By the time police officers arrived after being dispatched at 2:27 am, they found the assailant and Mr. Pelosi wrestling for control of a hammer; the intruder then pulled the hammer away and “violently attacked” Mr. Pelosi with it in front of the officers.

According to Speaker Pelosi’s office, Mr. Pelosi underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and other injuries. He remained in a San Francisco hospital yesterday afternoon and was expected to make a full recovery.

The police said they were still investigating the motive and were questioning the suspect they had in custody, but the incident heightened fears of political violence less than two weeks before the Midterms.

The assault came as threats and violence against political figures have surged in America, especially after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which brought the Democratic speaker, other lawmakers and the Re’Trump’lican vice president within feet of rioters threatening their lives.

The police said the intruder was a 42-year-old from Berkeley, California; earlier this morning, CNN reported that the relatives of the alleged intruder confirmed that a Facebook account spewing Trumpian conspiracies on topics ranging from climate change to COVID was, in fact, his.

In his posts, the intruder cast doubt on the validity of the ’20 election – sharing pillow pusher and Trump lickspittle Mike Lindell’s absurd videos.

And, he defended the Trump insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol.

As I type, Boy Orange has yet to issue any formal condolence/concern to the Pelosi family.

But…

He did put out a message of sympathy to the family of Jerry Lee Lewis, “the Killer” of Rock ’n’ Roll, who died yesterday.

A FUTURE WITHOUT IT

For more than four decades, American colleges have had the Supreme Court’s blessing to factor race into their admissions processes.

Affirmative action in higher education has endured by relying on moderate justices like Sandra Day O’Connor, only to see the court remade recently by Boy Orange and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY). 

The need for negotiation is over on an issue that sharply divides Chief Justice John Roberts from the liberal justices, particularly Sonia Sotomayor. 

In fact, it’s open warfare.

And, to state the obvious, striking the policies down could also open up broader legal attacks !!! on the use of affirmative action in employment.

It’s a move education and civil rights groups fear will exacerbate inequality for years to come; a race-blind admissions standard, they say, fails to take into account discrimination and other barriers Black and brown students often face. 

Of note, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have NOT yet ruled on a case involving race in admissions; also, they didn’t rule on any affirmative action cases as appellate judges.

But, [and you can make book]…

They are/will be central figures in its future.

h/t: National Constitution Center and Brennan Center for Justice.

GOT OFF EASY…

It was a light sentence!

For the premeditated havoc and destruction, he and his cronies instigated at the Capitol, on 1/6, based on a lie…a longer sentence was necessary!!!

Albuquerque Cosper Head, pleaded guilty in March to assaulting the officer, Michael Fanone, who has emerged as an outspoken advocate for the officers who were subjected to the mob violence on January 6, 2021.

This Tennessee piece of crap was sentenced yesterday to seven and a half years in prison for dragging a police officer protecting the Capitol, into an angry pro-Trump crowd that brutally assaulted the officer.

NOT nearly enough time for attempted murder!!!!!!

As part of his plea, Head, a 43-year-old construction worker, admitted that during the violence outside the Capitol, he grabbed Fanone around the neck and told the crowd around him, “I got one!”

Head then forcibly hauled Fanone down the Capitol steps and into the mob, where he was beaten, kicked and attacked with a stun gun.

Some in the crowd tried to strip Fanone of his service weapon as one rioter threatened to kill him with his own gun.

You can be certain that their remorse is a complete fraud.

This brand of cult will do it again in a heartbeat, and what’s most scary is, depending on the state they’re in they may still be eligible to vote once they serve, or, God forbid, run for Congress.

Duped into being messenger/slaves for the elites…the cult mentality.

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lies became the truth.” ~ George Orwell, 1984.

UNLEASHED

Verbal pollution has won outright!!!

Last night, Elon Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter…finally…reports most news outlets.

Musk wasted little time as he began cleaning house, with at least four top Twitter executives – including the chief executive and chief financial officer – getting their ‘pink slips.’ 

The endless drama, the bots, the abrupt reversals, the spectacle, the alleged risk to the Republic and ALL we hold dear is, unofficially, leaving the launch pad.

As the old Lobsterman has a want to do on such occasion, in an attempt to simplify issues, it now comes down to this: Does anyone really need a Twitter account or a Tesla for that matter??!

It is an individual buying something for himself that 240 million people around the world use regularly.

While he has other investors, Musk will have absolute control over the fate of the short-message social media platform.

Even for the wallet of Musk, $44 billion is quite a chunk of change.

Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has said, repeatedly, over the last 36 hours, that he wants to make the social media platform a more freewheeling place for ALL types of commentary, AND, AND – ARE YOU READY FOR IT? – that he would consider reversing the permanent ban on the Orange Despot from the service.

Simply put, Twitter could exacerbate long simmering issues of toxic content and misinformation, affecting political debates around the world.

You want to talk about “influence” being overstated…STAND-BY!!!