Nothing new here: Donald Trump is an idiot

Updates

  1. Originally published, May 11, 9:47 pm.
  2. May 12, 8:40 am:
    • Jim Dennis (@AnswrGuy) responded to the below on Donald Trump. His point is largely correct but I explore it and I think the exploration is important.
  3. May 12, 9:05 am:

The less-awful news is that Lyft didn’t require a background check for moving to Pennsylvania. There were some pesky details, but as of yesterday, I’m driving for Lyft in the Pittsburgh area.

I’m noticing the earnings are not as high as in California, probably mostly because so few of the trips involve freeway miles. Other factors that might be involved are that I’m driving earlier and quitting earlier here than I did in California, it is a different area and I haven’t adjusted to the cultural patterns here yet, I’m presently driving for Lyft rather than Uber (Uber hasn’t completed my background check yet and even in California, I made more with Uber than I did with Lyft), and, of course, Lyft might (and I would expect probably does) pay a little less here than in Marin County, California, where I focused when I was there.

On the other hand, I’m driving fewer miles, at least so far. When I’m ready to go to work, I just go up to my car, go on line, and sit for a few minutes. An order, so far, has always arrived within a few minutes.

In the category of are you fucking kidding me?

But I stopped at home for lunch and a neighbor had a BB gun out with his kids. (Last I saw, the kids had gotten bored and wandered off.) It looks enough like a real gun that maybe—only maybe—the idiot will manage to get himself shot by the police. This is less likely since he and his kids are all white. In the meantime, I’m hoping he doesn’t manage to shoot one of my windows.IMG_20190511_162311No marksmanship here: At left is his target. But he’s so cool, lying prone, shooting a BB gun.


Donald Trump

Those inclined to view Donald Trump as the mastermind of some sort of diabolical threat would do well to read Anna Phillips’ article. The Trump administration is in such a hurry to roll back environmental (and other) regulation that it’s not following the required procedures for doing so. Which invites successful court challenges, notably from California.[1] Which just ain’t terribly bright.

Stupider, my guess is that the Trump administration is counting on being able to appeal these losses to the Supreme Court. My second guess is that the Supreme Court will, at some point, just stop accepting these cases, letting lower court rulings stand.

In a way, that’s bad news: Supreme Court rulings slapping the Trump administration down will have greater impact. But this is really basic shit. We’re talking Regulation 101 level stuff.

Update:

(Re-reading this after the Twitter post, I should have put scare quotes around ‘reformed’ in the above. As I was composing this, I was actually thinking of Traditionalist Conservatives, who in ‘reforming’ (still in scare quotes), have moved towards leaving racism, but not misogyny, behind.)

Anna M. Phillips, “In Trump vs. California, the state is winning nearly all its environmental cases,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-california-trump-environmental-lawsuits-20190507-story.html


Uber

The Uber initial public offering (IPO) is a flop. I suggest reading the article by Faiz Siddiqui and Greg Bensinger anyway. We’re seeing the differences between venture capital, as enamored with anything high tech, and Wall Street, as somewhat less enamored with indefinite losses.[2] But also read the article by Dan Primack: There were other factors involved as well.[3]

Faiz Siddiqui and Greg Bensinger, “Uber’s first day of trading ended deep in the red over gig-economy fears,” Washington Post, May 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/10/uber-ipo/

Dan Primack, “Uber’s IPO got caught in a perfect storm,” Axios, May 11, 2019, https://www.axios.com/ubers-ipo-perfect-storm-2a75a55a-adec-496b-bc23-02d99d02920f.html


  1. [1]Anna M. Phillips, “In Trump vs. California, the state is winning nearly all its environmental cases,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-california-trump-environmental-lawsuits-20190507-story.html
  2. [2]Faiz Siddiqui and Greg Bensinger, “Uber’s first day of trading ended deep in the red over gig-economy fears,” Washington Post, May 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/10/uber-ipo/
  3. [3]Dan Primack, “Uber’s IPO got caught in a perfect storm,” Axios, May 11, 2019, https://www.axios.com/ubers-ipo-perfect-storm-2a75a55a-adec-496b-bc23-02d99d02920f.html

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