The Trumps: "We are not done". They're right

Donald Trump and his son rightly characterize what is going on now as a movement "against the elites". And that is why I've been in ever since, oh, around October of 2016 when I decided to take Trump's advice of "what have you got to lose?" and vote for him. Excerpt:

The former president’s son moved on to speak about how fact checkers on social media appear to be biased against conservatives while lenient toward “the other side.” Drawing from his personal experience, he said that his content is fact checked “even if there’s even a little bit” of irregularity.

“When I look at things that I put up on my social media that are totally objective or that are satire, one or the other, that [social media content] gets fact checked so that they can use that to knock my platform, to prevent me from getting any kind of reach,” he said. “I see that stuff on a daily basis, I don’t see that on the other side. I don’t see Joe Biden getting fact checked when he said he’s not going to ban fracking, when he bans fracking.”

He added, “If there’s even a little bit of ambiguity they get the benefit of the doubt, whereas if there’s even a little bit, a modicum, something like I said, subjective, who’s to know what the fact checker’s thinking, but certainly I know what I’m thinking and I can come up with a parameter that makes everything correct but the fact checkers can say that it falls outside of those lines.

“Joe Biden, not one tweet—as many incorrect ones that they’ve put out—has been fact checked. It’s truly sick,” Trump Jr. expressed.

Yep. We're sick of it.

Summary of Gamestonk

Here the best I've found. (Source.)

Hedge funds have been shorting GameStop for years slowing driving the price down. Shorting is selling stock you don't own so you can buy it back later for a lower price. Some people on reddit noticed that the stock was undervalued, and heavily shorted. Heavily as in people sold 140% of the all the stock that exists. They bought, and convinced others to buy. Now we hedge funds are in a squeeze. They shorted at $30, and the stock is now at $350. Further problem is that since they shorted more stock than actually exists, they cannot buy stock at a loss now to cut their losses. Also, if they buy stock to cut losses, then the hedge funds drive the price up even more. That means they owe billions on paper, and it just keeps getting worse. Normally, you ride something like this out, but when you owe more than you have in assets, margins get called. This means the hedge funds are required to buy back the stocks they sold at massive losses.

Now hedge funds are pulling out all the stops. Fake financial reports to scare people into selling. Media is doing the same. Bots are spamming the wallstreetbets subreddit and discord with hate speech which then gets reported. The discord got shut down and the subreddit went dark for a bit to deal with it. Markets are being manipulated with short sells to make it look like a selloff is starting and trading halts to slow the stock gains. All the redditors have to do right now is buy when they can and hold, and they stand to bankrupt billionaires. A lot of them are doing this on principle, and there is blood in the water.

If the hedge funds can ride out the squeeze, they win when price drops back to what it is really worth. If wallstreetbets can keep driving the price up and forcing margin calls, they will suck billions from the hedge funds.

Disclaimer, I have no stock, but find the situation funny as hell.

Edit: As of this morning, several brokers have suspended all buying of GameStop.

I concur; it is funny. But not because it "hurts" anyone. Just because the tables got turned on some big bois. Generally short sellers are seen as being clever—like that guy who wins the office football pool by betting against the home team. Well now some other people are feeling big and clever for the moment.

Here are some cute photos of puppy and kittens! Yayyy!

Aww, ain't this cute?

Here is some other stuff...

Let's Stay Focused

Why should President Trump be impeached?

This should clear things up.



I would add that, like, the economy is really good, but, like, poor people and refugees, so like, impeach or whatever. Pence also, et cetera.

There is a limit to tolerance

This is like the Boston Tea Party for people fed up with silliness. (Here's some context for what happened if you are living in a bubble.)



Well said, Father.

"People Mover"

Absolutely love Sasquatch's guitar.



You're welcome.

Father Longenecker corrects Father Martin's slippery language

Father Martin is a pro-gay, liberal priest, and he has a large following among intellectual liberal Catholics. Some of his messaging I can sign onto 100%, e.g., be kind to everybody, don't judge people solely by their faults, etc. Other people communicate these things better and less jargonistically, but ok.

However by conflating terms that mean different things, Father Martin justifies behavior which the church teaches is sinful. Father Dwight Longenecker deals adeptly with this tendency in this article, especially in dealing with his recent assertion "Being gay isn't a sin," which he uses to scold Franklin Graham. Excerpt:

I should say that this post is not a comment on homosexuality per se. I have no opinion on that matter other than the teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

What I would like to comment on is Fr Martin’s deceitful use of language.

First he says “Being gay is not a sin.” Yes. We all agree that experiencing same sex attraction is not a sin. I’m sure Franklin Graham also agrees with this. Fr Martin knows that we agree with him on this, but without saying so, he conflates “Being gay” with gay sexual activity. How do I know this? Because Fr Martin supports New Ways Ministry and one of their constant refrains is, “You can’t pretend to accept gay people if you do not accept the way they love.”

He knows “being gay” for the vast majority of his readers means “living gay.” He is quite content to use fuzzy language in order to blur the distinctions.

Second, he states the lie that God makes people gay. The genesis of the homosexual condition is, no doubt, complex and clearly many people who are attracted to people of the same sex truly believe they were born that way. While one ought to respect their feelings it is also true that their feelings do not match the facts.

This slipperiness is a major temptation for people who want the church to change 2,000+ years worth of tradition and teach that homosexual acts are not intrinsically wrong and not intrinsically disordered. The word gay is merely a jargonistic way to refer to someone who acts on homosexual desires. So they talk about people being born gay and "let's be loving toward gays" and skirt the issue of what said person does about their tendencies. If we bring up that people need to abstain from illicit sexual relations at this point we lose points in their minds because we brought up something unmentionable. We've taken the discussion into the gutter. We are the judgemental people who cannot be trusted to not be bigoted, so we can hardly teach catechism or religious education because who knows what might come out our mouths.

I have seen this over and over again among the little elites at the parish level who are at this point conditioned to not bring up any hot-button issue if it directly or indirectly touch sexual morality. Abortion, contraception, divorce suffer the same fate as homosexuality among the people dealing with religious formation and education. But anything political is 100% fair game, believe me. With regard to abortion: I remember a presentation about the 10 Commandments given by 8th graders. They were listing examples of sins which are a breach of the Fifth Commandment — "Thou shalt not murder," — and they mentioned bullying, littering and failing to recycle as ways to break this commandment, along with actually committing murder of another human. They did not mention abortion.

The refrain of New Ways which Father L. brings is is particularly problematic. "You can’t pretend to accept gay people if you do not accept the way they love." But the "way they love" is harmful, not just spiritually. I invite everyone to read about the spiritual and psychological dangers of homosexuality. I invite everyone who has a very, very strong stomach to read about the physical dangers — you have been warned. Saying that these acts are loving is neglecting an enormous impact from their behavior, i.e., the destruction of their own bodies, not to mention their souls.

Good for Father Longenecker for not being afraid to give Father Martin the moniker "Slippery Jim". It fits.