Predicting 15 of the Past 4 Stock Market Crashes

I am referring, of course, to the current hand wringing over the price/equity (PE) ratio.

While the number is concerning, using this statistic as a a hard limit is on its face financially absurd.

Usually when numbers shoot higher on Wall Street, it is a reason for celebration.

That is not how Jonas Goltermann, the chief markets economist at Capital Economics, feels when he looks at one of the most feared charts on the stock market: the Shiller price-to-earnings (PE) ratio.

“That’s obviously a bit worrying,” he says after seeing the metric on track to end the month at its highest level since August 2000.

The Shiller PE ratio, a closely watched fear gauge on Wall Street, may sound esoteric, but it has become one of the most important numbers in the world – and one you should care about.

For all intents and purposes, it is the canary in the coal mine for global financial crashes.

To be clear, I do believe that we are headed to a crash, and that this crash is coming because the entire facade of our current financial market is a fraud. (The AI bubble)

What I do not believe is that this obsession with PE ratios is a useful diagnostic tool.

Lying to the Court Again

One of the arguments given by the Trump administration to allow the construction of the White House Ballroom is that there will be a nuclear proof bunker underneath that is required by current threats.

The problem here is that there is already such a bunker under the White House, and the Trump Administration has not informed the courts of this.

President Donald Trump has claimed that the White House needs a massive new ballroom because it would provide him and future presidents with a secure, hardened facility. But former officials say the argument fails to acknowledge that the presidential complex already has one.

More than a decade ago, federal officials built a highly protected bunker, embedded deep underground, that can shelter the president and his top aides in a national security emergency, according to three former officials.

The facility, which was secretly completed during the Obama administration, can house dozens of people for up to multiple weeks, two former officials said. It’s buried more than 60 feet underneath the White House complex and built to withstand a nuclear blast, two of the officials said, ensuring the president and his team have a secure command center to run the country in times of extreme duress.

The bunker’s existence, the former officials said, undercuts the Trump administration’s emerging legal argument in the ongoing lawsuit over the $600 million ballroom complex’s construction: that the facility must be completed due to its significance for U.S. national security.

They are lying again.  This is why the presumption of regularity has been going out of the window. 

More History Rhyming

It looks like we are headed for a crackup in the private credit market. (archive link)

Strain is spreading across private credit portfolios, with some of the largest funds taking writedowns and warning about problem loans as the industry faces its biggest challenge in almost a decade.

The value of troubled loans held by some of the biggest private debt investors has reached levels last seen in 2017, when the industry was dealing with a hangover from an oil price crash, an FT analysis of figures from fixed-income data provider Solve has found.

Loans placed on non-accrual status by the 20 largest publicly traded business development companies (BDCs) — listed funds that invest in private credit loans — climbed to a median 2.8 per cent of their cost in the second quarter, up from 2 per cent at the end of March.

The non-accrual demarcation is one signal of stress in the private credit industry, indicating borrowers have either stopped making payments on their loans or that a fund believes a borrower may soon default on its obligations.

………

Listed vehicles managed by KKR and Blue Owl, as well as one run by Apollo Global known as MidCap Financial, were among the funds in which repayments outstripped new lending in the quarter, with executives at KKR pointing to limited dealmaking and its push to exit certain loans.

The firm’s listed fund, FS KKR Capital Corp, reported that 7.1 per cent of its loan book was troubled in the second quarter, a slight improvement from the prior quarter but still far above the industry average.

The figures underscore the challenge facing the private investment industry, which wagered heavily on private credit as a major source of growth as it looked to invest money for insurers, retirees and wealthy individuals.

………

But many executives across the $2tn asset class believe that the alarmism surrounding private credit’s troubles is overblown, with several blaming the media — including the FT — for the outflows weighing on the asset class.

They would say that it is just alarmism, their paychecks depend on their saying this. 

………

Much of the pain already seen has been centred on investments the funds helped finance between 2020 and 2021, when interest rates were near zero and private equity groups went on a buying binge while valuations were elevated.

Many of those companies are now struggling to service their debt as interest rates have climbed, with executives on earnings calls repeatedly pointing to that cohort as the source of trouble.

Yeah, this is econ f%$#ing 101.  When interest rates go up, loan payments go up. 

………

Mitchel Penn, an analyst at Oppenheimer, noted that the sell-off in BDC share prices meant funds were “priced for death”. His own research showed that on average over the past five years, funds in the bottom quartile were generating returns on equity below the yield on a 10-year Treasury.

“Underwriting wasn’t as good as it should have been,” he said. “They weren’t as picky.”

Gee, apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? 

Professionals Talk Logistics

At Exercises Southern Cross and Pitch Black in Australia the USAF was only able to deploy ½ of the F-35s that they planned, and those jets were delayed by a week.

Once more we have a, "It was a viciously sharp slice of mango, wasn't it, sir," moment for the Pentagon.

The U.S. Air Force’s latest fighter deployment to Australia has revealed an uncomfortable reality: If it wants to get into the fight quickly, it needs support from allies.

The service spent months this year gearing up for a nearly monthlong deployment of 12 Lockheed Martin F-35As from Alaska to Australia to support Exercises Southern Cross and Pitch Black. In the end, only six aircraft arrived and were more than a week behind schedule.

This deployment was planned over a year in advance, and still, it fell apart.

Vote Blue No Matter Who My Ass

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has decided to abandon the very competitive race in Michigan, because the wrong sort of candidate won.

The people who gave us Senators like Krysten Sinema have decided that having a real progressive in the Senate with an Arab name is a bridge too far.

Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary has complicated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plans to help Democrats retake the Senate in November, tying his party’s fortunes to a candidate some Democrats in Michigan say they cannot support — even if it means costing Democrats the Senate majority. 

Michigan is crucial for Democrats. The party’s path to a Senate majority relies on holding the state and all of its other current seats, as well as flipping four Republican-held seats — including at least two seats in states that Donald Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024. If El-Sayed loses in Michigan, which Trump carried by less than two points in 2024, Democrats would need to flip a fifth Republican seat in deep-red territory. 

Schumer backed Rep. Haley Stevens over El-Sayed in the primary, saying he thought she had a better chance of winning in November. The New York Democrat endorsed El-Sayed after the primary, and the two men have spoken about working together to hold the seat — but they have pronounced differences about Israel.

………

El-Sayed’s challenges run deep enough that three Democratic donors in Michigan are hosting a fundraiser for his Republican opponent, former congressman Mike Rogers, on Tuesday evening, according to an invitation obtained by The Washington Post. One of them, Brian Hermelin, wrote in an email to potential donors last week that El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel and toward Jews meant he could not support him.

………

The race has put Schumer in a tough position. On one hand, he has called out those on the left who are “too complacent or forgiving about those who exhibit antisemitism within their ranks.” On the other, he often describes Democrats as having a big-tent party, capacious enough to include Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) — an ardent defender of Israel — as well as the country’s critics. 

El-Sayed’s public criticism of Schumer — whom he suggested during the primary that he did not want to see remain as the Democratic leader in the Senate — has not made it easier. “If you’re Chuck Schumer, I’m pretty damn dangerous,” El-Sayed said last month.

That fundraising?  It would not have happened without the tacit approval of Schumer.

The whole, "Vote Blue no matter who," thing?  F%$# that.

I'm not suggesting voting Republican if you have another Synema or her ilk running, I voted Republican once and felt dirty afterword, ⃰  but you can always go with the couch, aka JD Vance's girlfriend, instead of the ballot booth. 

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) needs to be aggressively educated about the importance of actually listening to the base.

^*I voted for Bill Weld as Massachusetts Governor in 1990, because his Democratic opponent John Silber was literally insane.

Funny, Innit?

After getting outed for having large investments in AI companies, Michigan Republican US Senate candidate Mike Rogers has changed his views on a data center moratorium.

I wonder why that would be? 

Days after The Lever revealed that Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers held millions of dollars in stock that could benefit from his support for artificial intelligence-related development, he reversed his position and backed a statewide moratorium on new data center construction.

Rogers, a former FBI agent, congressman, and adviser to a venture capital firm, now supports a one-year moratorium on new data center developments, declaring in a statement on Thursday that “Michigan needs stronger guardrails to protect community control, prevent utility price hikes, protect our water, and stop pay-to-play schemes.”

Rogers added that he does not support a full federal ban on data centers, as some lawmakers have called for. Instead, he noted that a pause should be instituted “until we establish a fair, transparent approval process” for the projects. He told The Detroit News at a press conference Thursday that the policy would help “make sure that we’re answering all of the questions that people have.”

Rogers’ new position comes just days after The Lever that he and his wife, former lobbyist Kristi Clemens Rogers, hold between $1.7 million and $2.6 million in companies that could benefit from AI-friendly policies and streamlined permitting for AI-related infrastructure. 

Will wonders never cease.

I Don't Care About Natalie Harp

I am amused about the Republican meltdown about the Trump aide, but beyond schadenfreude, I cannot bring myself to care.

I don't care if Trump is f%$#ing here.  I care that Trump is f%$#ing the entire world.

Until now, Natalie Harp was known only to Washington insiders and people weird enough to read insidery books about the administration. But Harp has officially escaped containment.

She is about to be a full-fledged character in the dramedy of the Trump White House, discussed in the news and recognized by ordinary people. And while the White House and its allies are pretending to be outraged about that fact, it’s completely appropriate and long overdue. There is literally no single person who spends as much time at the side of the president of the United States as her; the idea that it should somehow be off-limits to discuss her role is bonkers. So let’s review what got us here.

Thank Jon Ossoff for putting a spotlight on her

At a campaign speech on Sunday, Sen. Jon Ossoff mentioned Harp in a single sentence, as part of a criticism of the president for being distracted by unimportant things. “He doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff said. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace, gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

And then their heads exploded. Heh.

Gee, Ya Think?

A former safety engineer at Facebook, Arturo Béjar, has testified that Mark Zuckerberg does not give a f%$# about protecting children.

Gee, you think?

A massive trial is underway in California, where state attorneys general are holding Meta’s feet to the fire for its role in fueling a children’s mental health crisis.

According to the testimony of former Meta safety engineer Arturo Béjar, the company has purposefully adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to keeping children safe on its platforms, the Guardian reported.

Throughout his time on the witness stand, Béjar asserted that Meta has known its platform is actively harming children, pushing things like violent and predatory sexual content onto their feeds.

Béjar, whose role in the company reportedly involved briefing CEO Mark Zuckerberg on safety issues, said that executives were well aware of the issues, but weren’t in any hurry to solve them, despite repeated assurances that Meta and its platforms Instagram and Facebook “don’t prioritize profit over safety,” per the Guardian.

Why are they not looking at criminal prosecutions? 

Fuck John Roberts

The modern day incarnation of Roger B. Taney decided to allow the construction of Trump's White House Ballroom to continue while the case proceeds.

This is clearly an attempt to allow facts on the ground to take precedence over the the facts and the law.

The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon allowed construction on a new 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom to continue – at least for now. Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had issued an order, slated to go into effect at the end of the day, that would have stopped above-ground work on the project. But Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order, known as an administrative stay, that kept Leon’s order on hold to give the justices more time to consider the Trump administration’s request to pause it.

The brief, one-sentence stay did not indicate when the justices might act on the government’s request. Leon’s order has never gone into effect, permitting the Trump administration to move forward with construction while the case made its way toward the Supreme Court. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court last week that there was “a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to keep the Project ahead of schedule and under budget”; as a result, he wrote, as of last week, the project was “65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion.”

Another nakedly corrupt and partisan act by a naked and partisan justice.

This is not a court of law, this is the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation.

I Have No Son!

Remember when I noted that my son had an idea to sell a T-Shirt that said, "Vore is biblically canon?"

You Maniac, You Blew it All Up!  You Maniac! Ah, damn you! God damn you to hell!

OK, maybe it's not that bad, but daym, it ain't good.

In any case, here is a picture of his abomination, and you can get it at the link above either black on white or white on black in various forms of shirts, buttons, stickers, and magnets.

 

In case you are wondering, this is a reference to the Book of Jonah, not the Catholic ritual of communion.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I am not sure what to make of the most recent unemployment figures.

Initial claims fell by 6,000 to 206,000 and continuing claims rose by 18,000 to 1,8 million.

Applications for US unemployment benefits edged lower last week, staying near historically low levels and suggesting few layoffs across the labor market.

Initial claims decreased by 6,000 to 206,000 in the week ended Aug. 15, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 210,000.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.80 million in the previous week.

Not a clue what this all means.

To the Last I Grapple with Thee; From Hell’s Heart I Stab at Thee; For Hate’s Sake I Spit My Last Breath at Thee.

The cover


Table of contents









So, I got this book in the mail today.

It turns out that it is a belated birthday gift from my little brother.

That's a fine thank you after I went and sent him a taxidermied armadillo all those years ago. 

I will have my revenge. 

To be fair, this is biblically accurate. 

Best Military in the World

General Dynamics got over $½ billion to manage a new factory producing 155mm howitzer shells. It has yet to deliver a single round.

The Pentagon ain't asking for its money back either.

A robot was on fire. Again.

It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week.

Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”

Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair. Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell. “We really didn’t have any standardized practice,” said Quantel White, a former employee. “It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night.” To workers, even the factory buildings themselves came to feel doomed, with acrid smoke hanging in 100-degree heat over foundations seemingly sinking into the earth.

The situation never improved. The U.S. Army, which funded the factory, ordered work halted on two of its three production lines in August 2025. By then, General Dynamics had blown eight deadlines. Work on the third production line continued, but the facility never produced a single usable shell, according to a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general in July.

The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back.

 To quote Samuel L. Jackson, "Motherf%$#er!"

Skeet of the Day

Lord Vader is right:

"The Emperor is a fan of Flock, and we must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground... They are following children in parks and gymnasiums, and we need this. I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend."

[image or embed]

— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) August 20, 2026 at 1:21 PM

Ever Wondered About Democratic Party Fundraising Spam?

It turns out that there are organized for-profit operations doing this and taking delivering barely more than 5% to the candidates. (Not referring to Act Blue)

We need to lead with the preface, which shows just how eager these rat-f%$s are to suppress this information:

This investigation was originally developed for The New York Times, where it underwent eight months of editing, multiple rounds of fact-checking, and independent replication of the underlying methodology. The piece had a scheduled publication date when requests for comment were sent. It was only after the Times reached out to the subjects of the investigation for routine comment that the Elias Law Group, representing the DCCC and DSCC, sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding the paper not publish. Although the paper’s fact-checkers and legal department later cleared the piece before sending out a second round of requests for comment, the Times ultimately decided to kill the piece.

The piece was subsequently slated for publication at The Bulwark, where it underwent additional fact-checking, data verification, and legal review. When requests for comment were sent to the subjects of the investigation, lawyers representing the Progressive Turnout Project and Mothership Strategies likewise responded with legal letters demanding that the article not run. From there, publication was repeatedly delayed. The piece cleared successive rounds of legal review. When I asked for a committed publication date after months of delay, The Bulwark conditioned publication on my accepting an extensive rewrite prepared by its editors that, in my assessment, removed key empirical findings without explanation, introduced claims contradicted by the data and fact-checking record, and presented the subjects' legal defenses as my own conclusions. When I declined to publish under those terms, the piece was released back to me.

What follows is the complete investigation that emerged from this year-long process. 

To quote P.C. Hodgell, "That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be."

If you’ve ever donated to a Democratic campaign, you know the messages never stop: “All hope is lost.” “We’re BEGGING.” “Quadruple-match EXPIRES in 180 MINUTES!” They arrive at all hours, claiming to be “close to tears” because you haven’t sent $15.

Most of us dismiss them as annoying spam. But federal election records reveal a hidden population of seniors for whom these messages prove surprisingly effective. What reads as parody to one recipient may be psychologically triggering for another.

To understand how this system works, I combined contribution data from the Federal Election Commission with age data from voter registration lists, covering more than 300 million donations. The donors who send money in response to Democratic fundraising spam are overwhelmingly elderly, and a surprisingly concentrated group of them accounts for the bulk of the money raised.

Looking closely at the donation data can be heartbreaking. An 85-year-old retiree in Oxford, Ohio made more than 7,800 donations totaling over $648,000 to Democratic causes, more than double the estimated value of his home. A 91-year-old woman residing in a senior living facility in Indianapolis donated over 25,000 times, totaling over $250,000, burning through money she may need for care.

………

Who is behind this flood? A thriving industry of digital-fundraising consultants who specialize in offering spam as a service, and the political action committees and candidates who adopt their methods. Together, they form a broader network of fundraising that deploys these methods at scale.

The most visible players in this ecosystem are what I call “spam PACs” — organizations that use high-volume digital fundraising firms to raise small-dollar contributions, only to sink a disproportionate share of those funds right back into fundraising. They are built on a common financial model: outsized spending on aggressive digital messaging that repeatedly extracts donations from a disproportionately elderly group of donors. But these tactics have spread throughout the party. Even the party’s own congressional campaign committees and some of its most senior leaders have embraced the spam.

………

Spam PACs rarely operate in isolation. My analysis of FEC data shows that they cluster into networks linked by a small number of treasurers who oversee multiple committees at once. The largest I found is a group of PACs connected to the Progressive Turnout Project. Harry Pascal, a longtime accountant turned Democratic fundraiser, is treasurer for the Progressive Turnout Project PAC and seven additional PACs whose affiliated status allows them to operate as a single network.

Through 2025, Pascal’s network of PACs raised more than $390 million from individual donors. According to my analysis of FEC filings, roughly $20 million of that went directly to Democratic candidates, or funded independent expenditures supporting them. Another $100 million or so covered field and get-out-the-vote programs and the payroll to staff them, and roughly $20 million more went to administrative costs. The rest — an estimated $249 million, or 64 cents of every dollar raised — went to fundraising itself. 

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is little more than a pale echo of Mel Brooks' character Max Bialystock from his first film, The Producers.

Not Gonna Happen

There are very few things that I am certain about. 

One thing that I an certain of is that when a largely unknown aircraft manufacturer claims that it will build a transport that dwarfs the AN-124, it ain't gonna happen.

As rarities in aerospace go, the outsize cargo aircraft—or purpose-designed large airlifter—is among the most unique. Limited in number yet indispensable for key commercial and military roles, the outsize freighter fleet is rarely augmented or refreshed. Debuts of new options with tail or nose loading ramps are separated by decades, and relatively low flight hour accumulations mean that aging aircraft remain in service for years.

………

Under the Next-Generation Airlift (NGAL) program, the U.S. Air Force is poised to begin an analysis of alternatives for a single future airlifter to replace the C-17 and C-5. In parallel, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Propulsion Directorate is working with engine-makers on studies of propulsion systems for a future aircraft.

………

Another startup targeting military airlift is Colorado-based Radia, which is developing the enormous WindRunner. The 356-ft.-long, 261-ft.-wingspan aircraft is designed to carry payloads up to 160,000 lb. and 344 ft. long. With the capability to operate from a runway length of 6,000 ft., the WindRunner is planned to fly 1,200 nm at Mach 0.6 powered by four commercially available turbofans in the 55,000-lb.-thrust range.

Despite the emergence of an active Air Force RFI, Radia is proposing a nearer-term military WindRunner variant dubbed the C-242, founder and CEO Mark Lundstrom says. “The Pentagon is starting to turn the gears for the Next-Generation Airlift, and it is a process which would create a new capability sometime probably in the early 2040s,” he says. “Radia’s intent is to provide service in the early 2030s.”

The manufacture of large air-lifters is not a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movie.

You can't just go and say, "My dad has a barn, let's assemble an 800 ton aircraft!"

Well, you can go and say that, if you are smoking the right stuff. 

Forget it Jake, It's Texas

In response to Texas' refusal to extradite an indicted ICE agent, Minnesota has sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott. 

While I know that this won't result in Abbot being wheeled into a prison cell, the image makes me smile.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, alleging the governor is refusing to extradite a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent charged with shooting an immigrant during Operation Metro Surge.

Christian Castro, 52, is facing four counts of assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime related to a Jan. 14 incident in which prosecutors allege he fired through the front door of a Minneapolis home he knew was occupied.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Ellison have sent letters to Abbott urging him to sign off on the officer’s extradition after Castro was charged in May. Last week, Ellison warned Abbott he would sue if he did not authorize Castro’s extradition by the end of the day Monday.

“This is not some accidental thing,” Ellison said in a Tuesday news conference announcing the lawsuit. “This is a choice.”

At a news conference Tuesday, Abbott said he would not respond to Minnesota prosecutors until they “acknowledge their fault in the fraud that took place” and repay the government for it. He was referring to the Trump administration’s accusations of fraud in Minnesota.

Governor Abbot?  You do not get to ignore a lawful request for extradition because you want Minnesota to do racism.

………

In addition to the extradition demand, Ellison’s lawsuit also requests a temporary restraining order to bar the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office, where Castro is in jail, from releasing him. According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District Court of Texas, Castro could be released under Texas law as soon as Aug. 26 if he is not extradited. 

If Castro is released, he will most likely flee to Mexico.  

Irony, neh? 

Meanwhile in Argentina

It appears that many Argentines are unimpressed with Peter Thiel decamping to the Pampas.

Some of them are protesting, and they have done some research, and know that the literal vampire is a big fan of the works of JRR Tolkien, so they protested while dressed as Gandalf the Gray.

I approve. 

One does not simply walk into Argentina. Despite his significant influence over the Trump administration, tech billionaire and Antichrist enthusiast Peter Thiel has been putting down roots in Javier Milei’s far-right, anarcho-capitalist Argentina, apparently worried that things might go sideways in the States. At least some Argentinians would prefer he go back home, and they decided to send him a message by protesting outside of Thiel’s residence while dressed as Gandalf the Grey.

According to Argentinian newspaper Clarín, the demonstration took place on Monday and featured a dozen or so people draped in long cloaks, wizard hats, and faux beards who made their way to Thiel’s neighborhood with signs bearing slogans like “You shall not pass, you son of a bitch.” Per Clarín, the group also jumped up and down while chanting, “Whoever doesn’t jump owns Palantir and won’t be able to live in Argentina.”

The group’s inclination that Thiel take a hike comes as the billionaire continues to dig his claws into Argentina. Per the New York Times, the scariest member of the PayPal mafia has already met with Milei and his ministers, who were apparently thrilled to have him. Milei described their meeting as “wonderful,” according to the Buenos Aires Times.

Gondor Calls For Aid! 

Linkage

• British journal retracts study on excess mortality after COVID-19 pandemic (Anadolu) The BMJ have finally called out antivax bullsh%$ as antivax bullsh%$.
• East Tennessee commissioner suggests Flock CEO be publicly hanged (WATE 6 On Your Side) I do not approve of calls to violence, but if I were to sit on a jury, I would be hard pressed to vote to convict anyone who took this politicians advice. 
• Cougars Lower the Risks of Car Crashes by Hunting Deer (WIRED) Also wolves.  We need cougars and wolves back in Maryland.
• Paleontology rocked by organic molecules found in 66-million-year-old dinosaur bones (ScienceDaily) They found Collagen. Mind blown.
• Greenland Meltwater Is Bending Europe's Jet Stream Into Record Heatwaves (Tech Times) We are f%$#ed.
• The ultimate horse (Works in Progress Magazine) The genetics of race horses has apparently become so brittle that future improvements through breeding are nearly impossible.
• SpaceX’s Earnings Show Elon Wiped Out Two-Thirds Of Twitter’s Ad Business (Techdirt) Going public increases transparency, and we not get a front seat to Elon's incompetence and corruption.
• The Economy Has Spoken: Stuff That's AI-Generated Has Almost Zero Value (Futurism) There is no, "There," there.
• Meta Exec Rages Against Employees Asking for More Time Off Because AI Made Them More Efficient (Futurism) They really are horrible people.
• Theban tomb reveals how Egyptian burial trends evolved in time (Ars Technica) The evolution of funerary rituals is fascinating.

It turns out the extreme corseting of the Victorian era was far less extreme than we had previously though:

Primaries Tonight

First, Angie Nixon defeated Alexander Vindman in the Florida Senate primary.

This is despite the fact that Vindman outraised and outspent her by almost 17:1.

In an upset for the Democratic establishment, progressive Angie Nixon won the party’s US Senate primary in Florida, beating former army intelligence officer Alexander Vindman.

Nixon, a state representative and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had significantly less funding going into the primary – with $975,000 to Vindman’s $16.3m at the end of July, according to Florida Politics.

Vindman served on the national security council in Donald Trump’s first term and became a well-known whistleblower and witness in the president’s first impeachment, centered on Trump pressuring Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, to investigate Joe Biden.

………

Nixon, who was born in Jacksonville, has aggressively opposed DeSantis’s policies, including with a sit-in at the governor’s office this spring to protest Republican redistricting, the Miami Herald reported. That demonstration resulted in her facing misdemeanor charges of trespassing and resisting, which she is fighting in court.

Vindman’s campaign had been focused on Moody, not his primary opponent, and he did not agree to debate Nixon, despite her public calls for him to take the stage with her.

Also in Florida, the state's most reprehensible Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, succeeded in her effort to Bigfoot her way into a predominantly black district, because competitive elections are for suckers.

But establishment Democrats prevailed in other Florida races this week, in the first election in the state after redistricting. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an 11-term congresswoman and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, defeated Elijah Manley, a 27-year-old substitute teacher who was endorsed by a progressive group. Wasserman Schultz had faced criticisms for running in a district that has a plurality of Black voters and has long been represented by a Black Democrat.

Wasserman Schultz’s previous district was broken up by Republicans’ gerrymandered congressional maps, and she chose not to run in the district where she lives, but in a newly drawn one that was solidly blue.

Nothing else of particular note so far.

Election Live Updates: Florida Chooses Donalds and Jolly as Nominees to Replace DeSantis as Governor - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/08/18/us/elections/results-florida-us-senate-special-primary-august-18.html 

Speaking of Political Malpractice………

Trump's disastrous and incompetent Iran adventure is deeply unpopular, and it's getting less popular by the day, but the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) refuses to come out against the war.

To quote (not) Tallyrand, "This is worse than a crime, this is a mistake." 

There’s definitely something uncanny about this: We’re five months and 10 days into Donald Trump’s war of choice with Iran, and it’s been about five months and five days since he lost it. Trump won’t end the war because he can’t accept terms that make clear how badly he fucked this up, and we’re all captive to his narcissism. The result is that U.S. credibility is in tatters. Everyone’s mad at us for creating a global energy crisis, and rightly so. Nobody trusts Trump to honor his word, because he’s a liar. Nobody trusts him to make good on his threats, because he makes them endlessly but never follows through. He’s depleted U.S. munitions stockpiles badly enough to leave service members, and allies that rely on our preparedness, vulnerable to adversaries.

It’s a cockup of world historic proportions. And yet… it’s often not among Trump’s biggest day-to-day political liabilities. The war is slow-bleeding support from the GOP. But there are no sustained calls for Trump to resign in disgrace, or face impeachment, or any consequences that match the scale of the failure. And yet we know, because we weren’t born yesterday, that presidents and cabinet officials have been mired in damaging controversy for much smaller military blunders. Remember Barack Obama’s redline in Syria? Or Benghazi?

………

What do you think would happen to Democratic Party approval ratings if Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries wrote up an agenda like the one I proposed here, including a promise that if Democrats win the election, they’ll defund Trump’s war against Iran? Would they go up or down?

What if they were able to communicate, unabashedly, that Trump had humiliated America. That through his own foolishness, megalomania, and dishonesty, he had made the United States seem weak and feckless to the world. That this is, for the pendency of his regime, a disaster for U.S. strategic power—but also that it’s fundamentally aberrant. Something Democrats will set right once Trump is gone.

What if Democrats told the electorate, but also the world, that American renewal could begin early, but only if voters gave Democrats enough power to dog walk Trump to the end of his term. No more threats to invade or occupy enemies or allies on a lark. No more denial about the failure of his foreign policy. He might serve his last two years in full—Republicans could still ensure his acquittal on impeachment—but he’d be muzzled and on a tight leash?

People are disinclined to vote for careerist coward hypocrites.

Useless as Tits on a Bull

I am referring, of course, to the dead eyed leader of the House Democratic Caucus Hakeem Jeffries.

He decided that it would somehow be a good thing to come out in opposition of Medicare for All, because lobbyists gotta write those checks.

If the Dems take over the House and Senate this November, it will be in spite of mooks like Jeffries, not because of them.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) announced his opposition to Medicare for All on the same day a CBS News poll found 90 percent of Democratic voters support the idea — and 72 hours after a Yale University study showed the program would save 114,000 American lives and $1 trillion every single year.

Here’s some important context: Jeffries has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign cash from healthcare PACs in the 2026 election cycle and didn’t face any primary challenge holding him accountable to Democratic voters’ desires, despite him representing a deep New York City blue district.

If you think what I’ve just described is so cartoonish that it must be an overstatement, think again — it’s all too real and all too emblematic of Democratic politics.

But the good news is that other prominent Democrats are starting to speak out more forcefully against their party’s direction and this kind of betrayal.

The very epitome of everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

Of Course It's Amazon

You've hears about the AI groups that are shredding old rare books in order to train AI without having copyright issues.

We now have at least one of the culprits. 

A book seller put Airtags in a bulk book order, and it's Amazon that is shredding the books.

On an emotional level, this is the single most offensive thing that Jeff Bezos' monster has ever done. (Intellectual level, the mistreatment of workers is worse)

For the past year or so, booksellers have suspected that AI firms are buying up huge lots of rare books, then destroying them after scanning them to train AI. But this was hard to prove until now, as 404 Media reports that an Airtag hidden in a rare book shows that at least one tech giant, in the race to advance its frontier models, is behind some of the bulk orders: Amazon.

On Monday, 404 Media revealed that it had connected with a bookseller who agreed to plant an Airtag in a rare book that was part of a bulk order. That Airtag was then tracked to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas that housed a team focused on tearing books from their spines and scanning pages, 404 Media reported. Apparently tone-deaf to the escalating backlash over destructive book scanning, a logo on the door of that team’s warehouse, VGT3, showed a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book, 404 Media documented.

I have advocated breaking up Amazon on a few occasions.

Screw that, send the whole C-Suite to Gitmo. 

No Disciplinary Actions

After prosecutors in Queens, New York were discovered to have concealed exculpatory evidence, The disciplinary committee decided to take no action against them.

These guys should have been fired ……… Out of a cannon ……… Into the sun.

Five years ago, one of the state’s top judges found Queens prosecutors had deliberately hidden evidence that could have spared three men decades in prison. Not long afterward, an attorney asked a disciplinary committee to investigate the incident.

The committee has finally returned its own finding. There is “insufficient evidence” the prosecutors had violated any of the “rules and laws governing attorney conduct,” according to a letter from the committee that was obtained by Gothamist.

The letter states the committee has closed the complaints against seven prosecutors filed in connection with the wrongful murder conviction of George Bell.

The five-sentence letter offers no information about the committee’s investigation or reasoning. Gothamist’s reporting on the matter is the first public confirmation of how the disciplinary process ended, and may be the only accounting the public ever gets.

This is why secret proceedings done by secret committees staffed by fellow members of the same profession rarely if ever deliver meaningful accountability.

Our Dumb Polity

It appears that Trump has another issue with the New Ford Class aircraft carriers, he thinks that the the location of the island toward the stern is ugly, and wants it changed.

This is even stupider than his order to remove the electronic catapults on the new class.  (The electronic catapults, arresting gear, and lifts have all been a bit of a cluster f%$#, but we're well past the limits of the sunk cost fallacy there)

The U.S. Navy is considering a major redesign of its new aircraft carriers to better match President Donald Trump’s preferred aesthetic for the warships, according to seven current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. 

The service is evaluating the feasibility of moving the multistory tower that acts as the carrier’s command center farther forward, toward the middle of the ship, to resemble older vessels, the officials said. The review, which has not been previously reported, is in response to Trump’s concerns about the “look” of the new Ford-class ships, where the tower is near the rear, these people said.

The timing and extent of the Navy’s evaluation is unclear, with current and former officials cautioning that the service was concerned that such a change would require significant time and money. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

Moving that command center, known as the “island,” would be the second major design change prompted by the president, who on Thursday issued a national security memorandum directing the Navy to develop a plan to revert to older steam-powered catapults on future carriers. The systems help launch jets off the ships’ flight decks.

Trump’s preference, current and former officials said, is for the new aircraft carriers to look more like those that were in service during World War II.

The Navy also examined the issue during his first term as president, said a former senior U.S. official. A study found that moving the island could cost billions of dollars in redesign costs and significantly delay the program, this person said. 

 The stupid, it burns.

Nostalgia

Somali pirates are back.

It’s Groundhog Day in the Gulf. I use an American reference as it’s an American-made calamity. After weeks of stop-start progress, 14,000 of the estimated 20,000 seafarers who had been stuck in the Strait of Hormuz since Donald Trump began bombing Iran have made their escape. Having heard that good news, you could be forgiven for thinking that things had been on the up, at least as far as shipping is concerned.

……… 

In Hormuz, ships have no protection either. They are easy prey. With the Western navies preoccupied, the Somalis have opportunistically reappeared in the Arabian Sea and western Indian Ocean and now hold hostage four ships and 67 seafarers. The pirates have issued a £3 million demand for the release of MT Honour 25 and released a chilling photo of the crew sitting on the floor of the bridge, with masked pirates and AK-47s as a backdrop.


When Honour 25 was first taken hostage, one of its crew managed to send a voice note to his family in Karachi, Pakistan. His son Muzammil Ahmed Ansari told Al Jazeera what his father, 53-year-old Mehmood, had managed to say. “He said, ‘We are hijacked, reach out to the company, to people, to the government.’ He said there were pirates on the ship, all armed. He panicked, but he said, ‘Don’t worry, ask the government to deal with it.’”

More blowback from Trump's disasterous Iran war. 

When You Are Too Corrupt for JP Morgan………

JPMorgan has terminated their relationship with the online gambling site Polymarket.

JPMorgan Chase terminated its banking relationship with Polymarket last year over regulatory concerns, underscoring escalating worries in the industry over fast-growing prediction platforms.

JPMorgan notified Polymarket that it needed to find a new bank in October, according to people familiar with the matter. Polymarket is now working with a new lender, the identity of which could not be confirmed. 

At the time, Polymarket was banned from allowing US customers to use its platform following a 2022 enforcement action by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for operating an unregistered derivatives trading platform. 

The CFTC under the Trump administration allowed New York-based Polymarket to re-enter the US last year, though the agency has an ongoing investigation into the company, the FT reported in June.

Gambling is a great way to launder money, and has been shown with both Polymarket and Kalshi, it is an even better way to engage in insider trading. 

Whatever JPMorgan saw, it's worse than what is publicly known.

That ain't good. 

Lesson From Barack's Folly

When a group of crooks masquerading as bankers and investors crashes out, do not bail them out like Barack Obama did.

It is bad politics and worse policy. 

This applies even more to the Artificial Intelligence charlatans than it did to the 2008 banksters.

After Barack Obama surged to the White House in 2008, his administration was hobbled by the perception that it had rescued the bankers who had crashed the global economy, held nobody accountable for the destruction that was unleashed, and left ordinary people to fend for themselves. Current events may soon rhyme with that fateful episode.

Just like before, there is an overleveraged, underregulated sector at the heart of our economy that could cause devastating consequences should it hit a liquidity crunch. Perhaps the biggest difference is that this time, the executives and billionaires have learned from 2007, and are already looking to justify golden parachutes in advance. Progressives can learn from 2007, too.

A Tale of Two Bailouts

In 2008, the Republican Party was dead in the water. Weighed down by the Iraq War and the unfolding Great Recession, the party suffered what is to date its worst defeat of this century. The view that a new period of long-term dominance was dawning for Democrats became commonly accepted. Memories of 1933 and an enduring Democratic majority were plausibly relevant, as George “Katrina + Iraq + subprime” Bush could make a long-term electoral punching bag comparable to Herbert Hoover.

Obama’s winning coalition was handed a gift-wrapped opportunity to champion working people in their clash with Wall Street. Instead, influenced by neoliberals like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, the Obama White House chose to arbitrarily constrain the size of the stimulus package and prioritize stabilizing Wall Street as the “responsible” path forward, with accountability for the crisis dismissed as “Old Testament” justice. There was only a single prosecution for triggering the greatest economic downturn of the century.

………

In short, the 2008 bailout was a political albatross around the establishment’s neck, seen as a rescue of the very rich and connected people who caused mass unemployment and foreclosures. Whoever was in power as this anger built would get singed by it.

The AI folks are incredibly unpopular now.  If the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) forces the party to bail them out when (it is when, not if) the bubble pops, this could destroy the party on a level that makes the 2010 "Shellacking" look like a high tea.

 

Another Economic Data Point

US consumers are are cutting back on retail purchases in anticipation of increasing interest rates.

Given that consumer spending is over ⅔ of our economy, this ain't good.

American consumers have powered the economy forward this year. In July, they took a breather.

Why it matters: While the underlying trend in consumer demand appears solid, retail sales hit an air pocket last month, suggesting a bumpier path ahead for overall growth.

• Combined with a weak jobs report last week and two subdued inflation readings this week, it points to the Federal Reserve having room to be patient on potential interest rate increases this fall.

Driving the news: Retail sales fell 0.6% in July, the weakest performance in more than a year and well below the 0.1% gain analysts expected.

• Excluding gas stations and auto dealers, there was still a 0.3% decline in sales, meaning that the weakness was evident even apart from those volatile categories.
• Auto dealers' sales were down 2%, gasoline stations' sales fell 0.9%, and electronic and appliance store sales declined 0.5%.

This is not looking good. 

 

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) in a Nutshell

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has proposed a law preventing companies like Amazon from using of sub-contractors to evade liability for mistreating delivery drivers.

Given that Amazon dictates the schedules of the drivers, the routes that they take, and watches them through cameras in the truck, this law is an unalloyed good.

Leading the charge against the law is one Jessica Schumer.

If that last name sounds familiar, it is probably because her dad is New York US Senator Chuck Schumer.

Amazon’s chief lobbyist fighting a delivery worker protection bill in New York City recently endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani is Jessica Schumer, the daughter of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), according to public lobbying records and three sources with knowledge of the situation.

The bill, the Delivery Protection Act, would establish safety, training, and labor standards for delivery drivers in New York. All delivery facilities and service providers would need to be licensed with the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, and companies that operate warehouses could not contract out deliveries to third parties.

That means Amazon, which subcontracts last-mile package distribution to a network of delivery service providers (DSPs), would instead have to directly employ those workers in New York City, forcing the company to take responsibility for traffic accidents, mandatory quotas that deny workers rest or bathroom breaks, and any other violations of the new standards.

………

Mayor Mamdani endorsed the Delivery Protection Act, known as NYC Council Introduction 518 and sponsored by Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, on Monday with a splashy video. But the bill was first introduced in 2023, and reintroduced in subsequent council sessions. The 2026 version has 35 co-sponsors among the 51 members of the council, though council Speaker Julie Menin is not among them. (The 2025 version was up to 41 co-sponsors, and included Menin, who was an original co-sponsor.)

………

Schumer, a former policy director for Tim Kaine when he served as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, has worked at Amazon since 2020, initially as a senior policy director. In January, she became the head of New York policy and community engagement, a euphemism for an in-house lobbyist.

In New York state lobbying disclosures (which also covers municipal lobbying), Schumer is listed as one of four lobbyists working for Amazon at the city council. The Delivery Protection Act is named as one of the bills that Schumer and her fellow lobbyists are working on.

………

For nearly a decade, Amazon has deployed its DSP model around the country. Delivery workers must wear Amazon uniforms, drive vans with Amazon logos, use Amazon equipment, are assigned routes and package deliveries by Amazon, and work out of Amazon facilities—but they are not classified as Amazon employees. This deprives DSP workers of Amazon’s benefits and wage structures, and makes it harder to seek union rights. The National Labor Relations Board this year determined that Amazon was not a joint employer with DSPs, and could not be held accountable for any safety violations or union avoidance at those contractors.

 The unholy mix of nepotism, hypocrisy, and corruption seems to be a defining trait of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

Today in Nepo-Babies

Phoebe Gates, Bill Gates' daughter appears to have been directing a sales referral fraud network in her shopper referral app.

Here's hoping that she sees some jail time.  Not Elizabeth Holmes time, but maybe Martha Stewart time.

Phia co-founders Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni pushed for features in the e-commerce startup’s software that took credit for sales it didn’t drive, according to internal communications and people with knowledge of the matter.

The founders were aware of the practice for at least seven months going back to December, according to the people and messages posted on the company’s internal Slack channels that were shared with Bloomberg News. The people asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to discuss the issue.

That timetable runs counter to public remarks by the company, which said on July 8 that it had only become aware of the situation “within the last 24 hours.”

Phia bills itself as a “personal shopping assistant” that helps users find the lowest prices on a broad range of clothes and fashion accessories. It operates a browser extension that, when used as part of the online checkout process, can quickly find discount codes for products and save shoppers money. When a shopper uses Phia’s product to help make a purchase, the company earns a commission from the retailer for helping drive the sale.

But Phia’s browser extension was also designed to report that the startup drove a sale even when its product was never used – a practice that resulted in increased commissions, Bloomberg reported in July. The company said at the time that the problem stemmed from a software bug that had only been discovered on the day it was contacted by Bloomberg.

………

These techniques, known as “cookie stuffing,” were responsible for a significant portion of Phia’s sales, according to an internal revenue chart seen by Bloomberg. After Phia disabled the features in early July, average daily revenue at the company dropped from about $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000, the chart shows. A Slack message posted by a Phia data scientist on July 7 and reviewed by Bloomberg estimated that cookie stuffing accounted for about 51% of the merchandise value Phia claimed credit for selling in June. 

Yeah, and Phia has been through a series of fundraising stages that have the company valued at $180 million.

Nope, no fraud here. 

Interesting Supreme Court Corruption Data Point

Fix the Court has documented all of the various gifts that Supreme Court Justices have received.

Since 2004, the total received from the current justices has come to $3.62 million.  Of that, Clarence Thomas has gotten $3.04 million, or about 84 percent of the bribes gifts.

Gee, corruption much?

A watchdog group called Fix the Court keeps a running tally of every gift and free perk handed to the people who sit on the Supreme Court, and the newest version of that tally counts 515 gifts and complimentary benefits worth an estimated $3.62 million from 2004 forward, pieced together from the justices’ own financial disclosure forms, investigative reporting, public records requests and a Senate investigation. Stretch the count across every year the database touches, including older records that are patchy and incomplete, and the total climbs to 735 gifts worth roughly $4.69 million.1

That figure covers 17 people. Nine of them are the justices deciding cases right now. Eight are recent former justices who have left the bench. That distinction is the single most important thing on this page, and I will show you why in about sixty seconds.

Now get this. One justice accounts for almost all of it

Clarence Thomas alone accounts for roughly $3.064 million of the $3.616 million total. Do the division. That comes to 84.7 percent of everything the group tallied for all seventeen justices across more than twenty years.

Narrow the lens to the nine justices on the bench today and the picture gets sharper still. Their tally since 2004 is 307 gifts worth about $3.231 million, and Thomas accounts for roughly 94.8 percent of that dollar figure, which means that if you set one man aside, the entire gift controversy at the current Supreme Court shrinks down to something around $166,412 spread across his eight colleagues over two decades.

Every other justice in the database, sitting and retired, adds up to about $551,425 combined.

I want to see Thomas frog marched out of his office in handcuffs.

More History Rhyming

Home Sales

Home SupplyWhile much of the focus has been on the slow decline of commercial real estate, we are also seeing significant declines in single family home sales.

We need to remember that the 2008-2009 housing crash was not the result of home prices falling.  Instead it came from home price increases falling from 10-15% to just 5%, which prevented over-leveraged buyers from refinancing.

Sales of existing single-family homes fell by 1.9% in July from June, seasonally adjusted, the second month in a row of declines, to an annual rate of 3.69 million sales, sinking deeper into the mud at the bottom that sales have been in for four years, according to data by the National Association of Realtors today.

………

Supply of single-family homes rose to 4.6 months in July, the highest since the summer of 2016.

Supply is a function of inventory and sales – how much inventory there was at month-end in relationship to sales during the month. Sales sank deeper into the mud at the bottom, while inventories rose to 1.4 million single-family homes for sale.

While "regular" interest rates are high, real interest rates (regular interest rates - inflation) have actually remained quite low.

My prediction is that we are going to see a reckoning in the real estate markets sooner rather than later. 

Pass the Popcorn

The BBC is now pursuing subpoenas to depose Trump's children and Jared Kushner.

Good.

Hopefully, the questions will involve the Trump Org's business practices as well as his statements on January 6.

The BBC is trying to subpoena Donald Trump’s children as it builds its defense against the president’s defamation lawsuit centered on a documentary on the January 6 insurrection.

In a motion filed on Friday, the BBC sought authorization to serve Trump’s two eldest children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, with subpoenas for testimony and their records on the events of 6 January 2021.

The BBC, its lawyers wrote in court documents, is entitled to discover Trump’s “intention behind the speech and anything that bears on the impression his audience could have reasonably obtained in listening to the speech”, which includes whether Trump “gave it intentionally or otherwise; the breadth of the audience of the message and impression; and the extent of any resulting injury or harm”.

This is how a real news organization responds to bogus defamation claims.

Frog March Them Out of Their Offices in Handcuffs

Once again, Flock Safety has continued to operate a camera system after their contract was canceled.

If this ain't illegal, it should be. 

The easiest way to tell that Flock Safety doesn’t really care that its massive network of ALPR (automatic license plate reader) cameras is being abused by cops to stalk their exes and harass residents is to judge it by its actions. When confronted with court case after court case detailing these allegations (and those are just the cops who actually got caught!), the company says two things: first, we’re not personally responsible for the actions of “bad apples” and second, some vague “fixes” are on the way at some indeterminate point in the future.

The other way you can tell Flock doesn’t care about anything but future profitability is this: when cities pull the plug on Flock systems due to local backlash, Flock has — one more than one occasion! — decided to to simply turn the cameras back on.

Dayton, Ohio ended its contract with Flock following public complaints and some apparently forbidden sharing of data with federal immigration officers. But the city had to resort to covering Flock cameras with garbage bags to prevent further recordings since even the PD seemed unsure of whether or not it could actually control this function and Flock itself remained deliberately vague about when (or if!) it would be showing up to remove the recording equipment that contractually still belonged to it.

This has also happened in Menominee, Wisconsin, Evanston, Illinois, Littleton, Massachusetts, and the South Carolina Secretary of Transportation has documented hundreds of unpermitted cameras.

………

Do what now? Flock was told to remove the cameras. Instead, Flock decided this meant it could flip the on/off switch as often as it wanted to until it actually got around to removing the cameras, due to vague concerns about backlash Flock has absolutely earned.

And I can guarantee you whatever things Flock is saying at this point, it’s only saying because it got caught. I have yet to see an incident where Flock has informed cities or PDs of inadvertent activation or illegal access. In every case, it’s always Flock making excuses after the fact for things it could have done more of to prevent (illegal access) or abusive things it did itself (re-activating/re-installing cameras) that contradicted the intent of city residents and their governments. These are not the actions of a trustworthy tech provider. These are the actions of a company that clearly believes it cannot be fucked with because it has managed to corner this market.

Shut it down. 

The Second Most Relieved Man in Britain Tonight

That would be professional bigot Nigel Farage, who defeated parody candidate Count Binface by 63% to 26%.

The most relieved man in Britain tonight is, of course, Count Binface, who would have had to serve as an MP had he won the by-election. (Count Binface is the bloke making the v sign with his finfers).

The fact that Binface lost by only 37% has to be an embarrassment for Farage.

Good. 

Nigel Farage has seen off Count Binface to win the Clacton byelection in a contest boycotted by every other major political party.

The Reform UK leader in July triggered the byelection in an attempt to shake off a deepening scandal over a £5m gift he received from the cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne.

After a campaign in which a record-breaking 34 candidates vied for the coastal seat, Farage held on to Clacton, with 22,239 votes (63.34%) of the vote.

His nearest competitor, Count Binface, a parody candidate dressed as an intergalactic rubbish bin, won 9,455 votes (26.93%). The turnout was 44%.

Farage had been widely expected to win. A poll from Survation on Monday put Farage on 75% of the vote, with Binface on 20%. Farage declared himself the winner while the votes were still being counted.

I did not expect Binface to win, but I was hoping that he would win.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The short version is that initial claims rose and continuing claims fell.

There is some additional context, as last week's numbers were revised up. 

Filings for US unemployment benefits rose last week after hovering near historic lows.

Initial claims increased by 9,000 to 209,000 in the week ended Aug. 8, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 202,000.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, fell to 1.78 million in the previous week.

The increase in filings could reflect typical summertime volatility in a period when seasonal employment patterns and the timing of holidays often affect the data. Economists will look for more than one week’s worth of data before reassessing the recent stability of the labor market.

Meanwhile,  Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation is holding steady, which makes it less likely that the Fed will raise rates at their next meeting.

U.S. producer prices were unchanged in July as goods prices fell and the cost of services increased marginally, bolstering financial market expectations that the Federal Reserve could keep interest rates unchanged next month.

The report from the Labor Department on Thursday followed news on ​Wednesday of mild consumer inflation last month. The data led most economists to also expect moderate readings in the Personal Consumption Expenditures price indexes in July.

Damned if I know what the hell is going on right now.

 

Nope

So it looks like Donald Trump is trying to put his name back on and shut down the Kennedy Center again.

Because his feelings are hurt when the judge told him that putting his name on the facility was unlawful. 

If I were judge Cooper, I'd be throwing the entire board in jail for contempt.

The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted on Thursday to inscribe President Trump’s name on the building beneath the main signage, according to two people with direct knowledge of the proceedings, aggressively testing a federal judge’s order.

According to the resolution approved by the Trump-allied board, the inscription underneath the institution’s name would read: “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.” The board’s decision, which directs officials to act by “all legal means,” came shortly after it voted to move forward with Mr. Trump’s plan to shutter the building for renovations.

Restored and renovated by Trump? 

Is he swinging the hammer? Nope.

Is it his money that is being spent on this? Nope. 

F%$# this. 

………

The move appeared to attempt to find a creative workaround to a provision in the federal law governing the Kennedy Center that says “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas.”

………

Both decisions will be subject to the scrutiny of the judge who, in response to a lawsuit from a Democratic lawmaker, found that the board had been “derelict” in considering the closure plan before approving it originally. Mr. Trump announced in February that the center would close for two years, with the objective of transforming what he called a “tired, broken and dilapidated” institution.

The board voted on Thursday to close the Kennedy Center’s main building while keeping a newer addition to the campus, known as the Reach, open for limited programming and to operate as an active memorial to John F. Kennedy. 

………

Outside arts administrators have suggested the financial realities for cultural organizations are far different from what the board is projecting, saying institutions typically do anything possible to avoid closure so they do not lose ticket revenue and donors. Ms. Beatty’s lawsuit questioned the true reasoning for the closure plans, arguing that it may be an effort to mask a financial downturn stemming from the president’s takeover.

Gee, ya think? 

I do hope that the judge goes postal on their flabby white asses.

A Complete Sh%$ Show

Things have gotten so bad on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln that sailors are literally jumping overboard to get off the ship.

Military families and Congress members are sounding the alarm about an intensifying mental health crisis onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, as its 5,000 sailors and marines endure a record-breaking deployment at sea tied to the war with Iran.

Two leading specialist military papers, the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes, are reporting that there have been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard as poor conditions and mental stresses on the Lincoln reach the breaking point. The crew is in its ninth month at sea, and has spent 250 days consecutively without making land – a record for an aircraft carrier in modern times.

Not to worry.  I'm sure that once Hegseth's plan to give testosterone shots to sailors will fix everything.

……… 

The Navy Times gave details of thwarted suicide attempts onboard the aircraft carrier during the current deployment. Annabelle Loma told the outlet that her husband had tried to jump overboard after his spell at sea kept being extended. 

At this rate, we are going to start seeing a return of officers being fragged sooner rather than later.