What have I been saying about Righties being the equivalent of ten-year-old boys? I think we’re heading toward Peak Prepubescence.
Item One: Trump’s NFT trading cards. They’re cheap looking and cheesy and sold out already. You really can’t underestimate Trump supporters, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out someday that members of the Trump family bought most of Trump’s childish fantasy cards.
Item Two: Elon Musk is showing us who he is. Yesterday Musk pulled one of his dumbest moves yet and banned some journalists who had reported on him. His excuse was that the journalists had revealed his location, putting him in danger, but there is no evidence that is true. One banned Twitter member who doesn’t seem to be a journalist, exactly, had been using public flight data to share the location of Musk’s private plane, and a lot of other famous people’s private planes, but anyone else could have found the same data. It’s, like, public.
Do read Josh Marshall’s post In the Den of the Dark Lord Elon Thinskinnious.
You’ve likely seen a lot of write-ups about Elon Musk having a temper tantrum last night and banning a group of journalists. It’s gotten a lot of attention in part because he banned ones that were in some sense covering him and his acquisition of Twitter, and because he banned reporters from some of the most prominent news organizations in the country, including CNN, the Times and the Post. In most cases (it’s hard to know because there’s been no clear explanation of why any of this happened) the bans were based on tortured readings of a new rule Twitter put in place the night before based on a different temper tantrum on Wednesday.
So much for free speech. The whole post provides more details of this whole sorry episode. And now the prominent news organizations are “reevaluating” their relationship with Twitter, and I don’t know why they’re still on it already. See also Newsrooms are scrambling to counter Elon Musk’s bans at Semafor.
But, basically, Musk is dumping quality content while opening the door to junk content, and then he wonders why he’s losing advertising revenue. Josh Marshall:
As it happens, I think it all ends badly for Twitter. Its vitality and centrality rest heavily on the presence of journalists and other information influencers. Chase them off and you have what’s become of Facebook, still until recently at least a highly profitable company but no longer central to the flow or news and information. Journalists and other information influencers left and the charge left as well. Facebook at least was highly profitable and continued to be based on your parents and grandparents spending time there until Apple changed its privacy rules. Twitter has never been a profitable company.
It may be that free (to users) social media platforms will disappear someday unless someone with big money is willing to underwrite them.
Trump Digital Trading Cards…
How do you run out of anything digital?
On the lighter side: tRump Cards are only $99. If you check the box next to "I am a true believer", you can buy them 12 for $1499.
Just read a "read the small print" article elsewhere that if you resell your Trump Digital Trading Cards, 10% of that sale goes to Trump.
Even Trump's grifts have grifts…
011001010010100101010010101000101010111010010100100100
1001001
010100101010010010010010101001010010010010010010010010
100000101110101010010101010100101010101001001010101010
1010101010101010100110101010100000000100101001001001010
101010010010011011101010010010010010010010010010010010
10101010010101010010101001010010010100101010010010100
101001010101001001010010010010010010010101010100100100
1001010010010010111111010010101001
There. That will be $99 please.
Gulag's holiday gift idea for people you despise:
Give them a tRUMP NFT!
You have dozens of these things to choose from. All with Dr. Selflove's ugly puss Photoshopped in, trying to show that he's a dreamy, buff, manly-man's manly-man (and versatile "jackass-of-all-trades," or "jackoff-all-trades!" You pick.).
If you don't want to give money to His HighnASS, go to his website, and cut-and-paste the images onto your computer.
Then, you can give the giftee his/her NFT certificate for the "real" NFT. or create a fake certificate yourself for the one you stol… liberated from the ex-presiDUNCE's griftsite!
Or print it up on cardboard like basball card, and tell the giftee that you didn't think the extra 100 bucks was too much to spend for someone as… "dear" to you as they are!
Who knows. "And one never knows, do one?" Next year, this person you despise might spend $99 on a holiday gift for you! Or a $199 gift if you fooled them with your fake!
PS: A young child could do a better job of Photoshopping than the off-sized photo's of Orange Droolious's empty head pasted into his many different costumes in his ludicrous NFT's.
Trump's stunt is partially to grift the rubes for a few bucks, but I think Trump is trying to gin up some worship. He's reminding the rubes how much this comic-strip adulation "owns the libs." Stay with me.
The evil "libs" are about to do their hero a grave injustice and injury – they are going to charge him with a crime. Perish the thought. Where are my smelling salts? I may faint. IMO, Trump does not think he will go to jail. (I agree) But in a gesture of mercy, the judge at sentencing might restrict Trump for years to an ivory tower with no Internet or cell phones and a view of the golf course he will never visit again. He won't be allowed interviews or visit with the other criminals of the insurrection.
I don't think Trump trusts his lawyers to save him. (Neither would I – Trump has admitted to his crime re the documents. He won't follow the advice of his lawyers and they don't care if Trump goes to jail or not.) Trump does trust his own "genius." He can do what no mortal lawyer can – Trump can conjure a mob to threaten the judge(s) at the various courts, federal and state. His mob is willing to deliver lethal force and vandalism worthy of a Putin "special operation."
That's the psychology behind the trading cards – to remind the faithful of the relationship they share. They worship Trump and Trump is willing to accept their adulation and he expects them to be willing to die or go to jail to right the injustice of…. justice.
Well, yes, I liked baseball cards, too, but for the stats on the back. OG fantasy baseball. We played multiple seasons in a weekend with a mish-mash of card types and years.
Oh, but I say that because as #45 his stats were totally sh@tty and he would not want that displayed for posterity. Its like having 12 '82 carl yastremskis. (BTW sorry, carl, you just have a good name to say).
"Peak Prepubescence"
One thing they both can't take is to be ignored!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaLwyf8QVp8
re. the trading cards, I'm just shaking my head. I clicked the link for "sold out already" and discovered some site of youngish people celebrating the whole scam. And I'm thinking "what the hell is the matter with these people???" They're all enamored of "digital collectibles" which are nothing other than a scam and ponzi scheme. But the younger generation is so full of itself with it's tech/internet/social media savvy that they can't see how ridiculously unethical the whole thing is??? The human race is doomed. Smart young people (these are not dumb folks) enjoy the "joke"; they enjoy the joke of un-savvy people getting on the web and getting fleeced. hahaha. I guess I can only hope that these individuals don't represent the majority. But maybe the younger generations are so fed up with the corruption of the top 1% that they revel in this nonsense out of total frustration with the plutocratic world they've been given. So if they can make some money by tricking some people that they have no real social connection with, they might be saying "Why not? This is the only way I can survive in this economy." I don't think that's an accurate statement, but it might look that way given the way the top 1% suck all of the money out of the economy.
I read somewhere that an Asian billionaire, who owns a big chunk of Tesla stock, is petitioning Tesla's board of directors to replace Musk with a professional manager, someone on the order of Tim Cook, who supplanted Steve Jobs at Apple. Gotta believe there's a lot of people who bought into Tesla, who are mighty tired of Musk playing games with their investment.
It was news to me that someone was suggesting that Musk cede control of Tesla. There has been discussion that he cedes control of Twitter on CNBC as his skill set might not be up to that sort of a task. No doubt he has too much juggling to do and a propensity to micromanage. Both he and Trump have problems delegating. Neither seemed to have figured out how to act their age and seem to be moving in the wrong direction. No heroes here to see, just Macbeth makeovers.
What's interesting to me is how many idiots out there still believe in Trump as superhero, vs the rest of us who can see how ridiculous a 70-something man looks in superhero garb, nevermind his country-wrecking and illegal antics.
If you want a souvenir from an era that's on it's way out, a $15 red MAGA hat will be worth a lot more than some obscure NFT that people will soon forget.
Okay, here's my other thing, about the trading cards. Imagine a fictional story here. I've inherited $300,000. I learn that for $100 I can get someone on the internet to teach me how to hire an internet company for $5000 to create an NFT for me, which I can then use to create a "digital collectible". I do this. And I create a ridiculous digital collectible that is a limited edition series of my own paintings of dog turds that I have seen in various places. Interesting settings, some of them fictional. Paintings of the turds are based on photos that I have taken with my phone. Coincidentally, my son, who is over 21 years of age, met a guy in college who knew a guy who knew a guy involved in a foreign nations sovereign wealth fund. Lots of money there. LOTS of money there. Turns out $5 million is NOTHING to this fund and the guy who knows the guy played a round of golf with the foreign fund guy, and they got along really well. So the deal was this: My son creates a corporation. Declares it a hedge fund. The foreign fund guy "invests" $5 million in the hedge fund. The hedge fund buys every single digital collectible. That means, as the issuer of the digital collectible, I get $5 million for my investment of $5100. Not a bad ROI. I give my son $2 million (under the table … bitcoin) and keep the other $3 million for myself. My son give the foreign guy $1 million (in crypto) which he can use to buy arms on the black market. Foreign govt fund still owns it's "shares" in the hedge fund. My son, in the meantime has been scamming other people to get them to invest, so it's a ponzi scheme that could take decades to unravel.
hmmmm.
Wash, rinse, repeat. Money smells laundry-fresh.
If you want to better understand the scam checkout these links Especially the second link that describes the terms and conditions. He's offering leases only on 45,000 trading cards and calling them purchases (purchasing a lease). It seems it is his attempt to transition into the digital currency world to avoid accountability from any government interference. What better way to pay for top secret documents than to 'purchase" some digital art.
Before purchasing this Trump Digital Trading Card, please read carefully CollectTrumpCards.com’s Terms Of Service (bit.ly/3VZXY3g) and the Terms & Conditions specific to this NFT (bit.ly/3hfdIAQ). This explains all your rights and any restrictions.
The 2nd link includes the 10% Royalty Clause for reselling the 'lease'. If the someone who is offering a 'resale' for $24,000 the royalty is $2,400. Anyone want to venture a guess that the tRump family 'bought' 90% of the 'Trading Cards'?
As for selling the lease, tRump did make a half million plus profit ‘selling’ the lease on tRump International in D.C.
If those two keep it up I'm afraid everybody will just kinda forget about Hunter's laptop.
"America is a laughing stock", tRump, repeatedly.
Book of Trump (9:11)
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where governments break through and tax: But lay up for yourselves treasures in your crypto wallet, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where governments do not break through nor steal nor tax: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Not to quibble, but I find them more like 2 year olds that need a potty break.
And the road goes on forever
and the grifting never ends.
The image I would think of spending money on would be one of an emaciated Uncle Sam with an engorged leech photoshopped to the head of TFG sucking the blood out of our dear uncle's ass. None of the money would be allowed to benefit TFG or his ilk of course.
I would argue our real problem has been overestimating them.
That's like several million dollars. They don't have that kind of money.
As always anyone who does business with lil-donnie is left holding the bag!
https://decrypt.co/117663/trump-nfts-tanking-sales-prices-fall-sharply