IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

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Dual Dustin Diamond Departures

One day after we learn of the all-too-early death of Dustin Diamond, whom you know as Screech from Saved By The Bell, Boston Red Sox 2nd baseman Dustin Pedroia announces his retirement.

So, yes, that is dual Dustin diamond departures. Diamond was only 44 and went from spindly pre-pubescent to hulking adult. But he never really ever landed, or particularly needed, future acting gigs.

Pedroia, 35, is an intriguing case. Only 5’9″, he carved out a career where for more than a decade he was the toughest out on a Red Sox team that won two World Series (2007, 2013). Pedroia received a third ring for Boston’s 2018 World Series title but only appeared in three games that season.

Is Pedroia a Hall of Famer? He retires as a Rookie of the year, one-time MVP, with four All-Star appearances. Only 1,805 hits, but 394 doubles. Intriguingly, at least to me, he retires a .299 hitter, but if not for 31 total plate appearances in 2018 and 2019, when still trying to recover from knee surgery, in which he went 3 for 31, he’d technically be a .300 hitter. For someone as competitive as Pedroia was, and that’s what he was, a complete red ass on the diamond, that has to smart.

It was too bad that Pedroia got injured when still in his prime. His career came to a screeching halt.

Telling quote as he retires: “I wish I enjoyed it a little more at the time.” A quote we should all think about every day on this planet.

Myanmar-A-Lago

In Myanmar, formerly Burma, a military coup in recent days has demonstrated just what might have happened here less than a month ago.

Last November the National League for Democracy, Myanmar’s leading civilian party, won 83 percent of the body’s available seats. Seems like quite a few.

Alas, Myanmar’s military refused to accept the results of the vote, which was widely seen as a referendum on the popularity of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the N.L.D., has been the country’s de facto civilian leader since taking office in 2015.

So the military staged a coup d’etat, complete with canceling all domestic and international flights, seizing the internet and controlling the media. They also might have said something about Jewish space lasers, I’m not sure.

I’m particularly interested in this because one of my closest friends in high school, the wittiest note-passer I have ever known and someone with whom I’ve remained friends all my life, just became the U.S. ambassador to Myanmar. Really. He just arrived there a couple of weeks ago. So I’m hoping for his and his family’s safety and yet I also am confident that he is someone fully able to deal with this situation. He’s always been a prince among men.

Still, it makes you realize how fragile democracy is. Especially when last month our own hastily installed Sec. of Defense was actively plotting, in sycophantic worship of his new boss, to prevent any defense of the U.S. Capitol.

AOC-SPAN

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez found time yesterday to tape an impactful Instagram Live video and also to hyphen shame her shameless House counterpart, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

https://twitter.com/thekjohnston/status/1356334849213165569?s=20

We have not been able to watch AOC’s video in full, but this insight bears repeating:

“The tactics used by people who are telling us all to ‘move on,’ those are the same tactics used by abusers. The folks who are saying we should move on, we shouldn’t have accountability, etc., are saying: ‘Can you just forget about this so that we can do it again?’…I’m not going t

o let it happen to me again … and I’m not going to let it happen to our country.”

GOP Schism

Speaking of Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose first two initials connote “empty,” she’s even managed to alienate Top GOP Mitch McConnell. Though he did not mention her directly, the Senate minority leader said this yesterday:

“Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country,” Mr. McConnell said. “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.”

I’m so old I can remember when the GOP was admonishing Democrats for not being fostering a sense of unity. Now they can’t even find unity amongst themselves.

MTG and others are clearly courting the fringe McVeigh-style Republicans who think that fair play is a sucker’s game. Here was her reply, which was extremely Trumpian:

MTG is an ugly stain not only on Georgia, but on America. You can see the hate and the mean in her face.

Mitch, as sinister as he has been dating back to the very night that Barack Obama was elected in 2008, at least saw fit to distance himself from MTG and also to defend Liz Cheney, a GOP who voted for impeachment (and is the daughter of our de facto 43rd president).

You should read this opinion column in The Washington Post, “Trumpism Is American Fascism,” by a Republican operative. Key passage:

What type of citizen has Trump — and his supportive partisan media — produced? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) still holds her job in Congress because she is representative of ascendant MAGA radicalism. Those who reflect her overt racism, her unhinged conspiracy thinking and her endorsement of violence against public figures are now treated as a serious political constituency within the Republican Party.

Hands-Free Device

Nike’s new Go FlyEase ($120) hits the market.. You won’t have your hands full figuring out how to put them on or take them off…

https://twitter.com/GoodNewsCorres1/status/1356455146373414915?s=20

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

Wizards Of Ahs

So I arrive home last night to see this footage of Washington guard Bradley Beal—the NBA’s leading scorer at 34.9 ppg—not particularly seeming to care about his team’s outing against the Brooklyn Nets… the East’s most loaded team. You’d think that he might.

And then, 90 minutes or so later, I check the score. The Wizards, who had trailed by as much as 18 in the first half (when Beal was effecting his Pouting Kobe act), outscored Brooklyn 8-0 in the final nine seconds to win 149-146.

And Bradley Beal? He finished with 37 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists (teammate Russell Westbrook scored a game-high 41) as the Wizards scored 48 fourth-quarter points.

Washington (4-12) remains in last place in the East. Perhaps this turns them around?

Winter Is Here

There was something magical and surreal about attending college not far from this Great Lake. I truly loved winter in northern Indiana (until the end of February). It’s the best studying weather, first of all, and the world is a harsh but beautiful place. Don’t forget your gloves, though.

Roaring Kitty Has Claws

If you want to put a face on the Reddit Revolution, here it is: Keith Gill, better known on Reddit message boards as “Roaring Kitty.” A 34 year-old from Massachusetts who in college booked a 4:03 mile (that alone is a lifetime achievement), Gill announced on a message board in 2019 that he’d put a $53,000 stake in GameStop stock.

At the time, it seemed silly.

Last Tuesday, Gill’s $53,000 wager had morphed into $48 million. And his own proselytizing about GME—on message boards, via YouTube and TikTok videos—played a major role in shares of the stock soaring like a rocket.

How long will Roaring Kitty consider his GME’s shares the cat’s meow? Will he at some point short them? Stay tuned.

Detour

If you’ve driven the Pacific Coast Highway near Big Sur, you know that it is among the most scenic drives in the USA (if not the most scenic). It’s also quite treacherous after the Golden State receives a good rinsing from the heavens. No vehicles were damaged in this erosion. Will they build another scenic bridge? How long will the PCH be closed and will snowy owls return as it’s down?

White Lies

Remember when the term “white lie” connoted a fib that was relatively harmless? No more. Let’s use the term to connote prevarications told by Donald Trump and his followers that are helping to divide the nation. Let’s begin with the biggest: with the serially debunked duplicity that somehow the election was stolen from Trump.

Here’s The New York Times with a deep dig on it.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

Robinhoodlums

Let’s nutshell it here, eh? The “retail investors” (read: millennials and middle class) are in steerage and the hedge funds are smoking cigars with Billy Zane. The stock market hits the iceberg and our pals in steerage are the first ones to notice.

Robinhood is the officials at the White Star Line, and they decided to lock the gates to steerage (not allow retail investors to buy GameStop stock) while allowing Billy Zane to creep into a lifeboat while cradling someone else’s baby.

The nutshell inside the nutshell: by prohibiting BUYING of a particular stock (but not the SELLING of it), Robinhood, which is supposed to act like nothing more than a referee or facilitator, is taking a side. And—SURPRISE!—it’s taking the side of Billy Zane.

What’s heartening to see this morning is that Robinhood (and others) has somewhat relented and that GME is up 95% in pre-market trading. Does that mean GME is “worth” its stock price? No, of course not, not by the fundamentals. But this is guerrilla war, Wall Street-style. And the rebels have figured out how to topple the regime. Love to see it.

Knife Of Brian

As written here before, we absolutely love MSNBC’s Brian Williams. Last night he took it to another level in excoriating craven Republicans. Although he could just have easily, and aptly, played the “Help me help you!” clip from Jerry Maguire.

The New McCarthyism

God help the GOP Congressperson who actually stands up in support of the Constitution right now. There’s a now coterie of cult leaders led by House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who personally flew down to Mar A Largo (a name that makes little sense, by the way, since it’s nowhere near Key Largo) this week to bend the knee (or both of them) to deposed leader Donald Trump.

But he’s just the oldest member of the cult. Distaff rookies Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are practically begging a MAGA cult member to assassinate someone. Butthead wannabe Matt Gaetz flew all the way to Wyoming to pillory that state’s congresswoman, Liz Cheney, for having the temerity to call the insurrection what it was: treason. Cheney, a Republican, voted to impeach Donald Trump and now they’re staging “Off with her head!” rallies in Cheyenne.Yes, the Republican party has turned against Dick Cheney’s daughter. We actually have seen it all.

From Russia With Rebellion

One thing worth mentioning as tens of thousands of Russians across the nation’s ELEVEN time zones have taken to the streets to protest the arrest and imprisonment of Alexander Navalny, and that is this…

…It’s January. In Russia.

It’s below freezing temperatures in most of the country today (and the past fortnight) but still thousands upon thousands of Russians are risking arrest (in a country without due process or habeas corpus) to protest. I guess some of my high school friends would refer to this as “populist rage” (yes, that’s an inside shot). I think it’s beautiful. Keep going, Russians. The world is cheering you on. And they cannot imprison all of you… unless Florida governor Rick Scott takes his privatization of prisons policy abroad…which, let’s face it, he just might.

Farewell, Miss Tyson

Yesterday, Cloris Leachman and today, Cicely Tyson. Two careers, two lives that are remarkable parallels.

Both died within the past 72 hours in their mid-Nineties. Both started out as nobodies whose startling beauty was their initial in (Leachman, from Des Moines, competed in the Miss America pageant; Tyson, from Harlem by way of the Caribbean island of Nevis, was discovered on the street and became a fashion model). Both were huge presences on TV (both won Emmys) and in film in the early and mid-Seventies. Both were stunningly beautiful every day of their lives.

Three pieces of work that I remember from Tyson, all from when I was a boy. The first and most important was Sounder, a fantastic film about a poor sharecropping southern family and their titular dog. Tyson plays the mom. The next was The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the story of a black woman who is 110 years old in 1970ish and all she has lived through. Tyson won an Emmy for that. The third is Roots which, if you were black in 1976 and didn’t get cast in that TV miniseries, you fired your agent immediately. Tyson played Kizzy, mother of Kunta Kinte, one of the central characters (along with Chicken George).

For some of us Roots was the miniseries that made us hate the dad from The Brady Bunch… but that’s a different story.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

Cloris Leachman

I discovered Cloris Leachman, who died yesterday at the age of 94, the way most from my generation did: backwards. I first became aware of her as Phyllis, Mary Richards’ hot-to-trot neighbor with the forever unseen husband Lars on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Phyllis was almost entirely unlike the only other Phyllis I knew (my mom): vapid, self-absorbed, annoying, a little too progressive.

Gavin McLeod, Ed Asner, Mary Tyler Moore, Ted Knight, Betty White, Georgia Engel, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman

I did not realize, at the time, that she was part of the greatest sitcom cast ever assembled. I also did not realize that this part hardly showed off the Iowa native’s and former Miss America contestant’s real gifts as an actress.

At about the same time I was being weaned on the likes of MTM, M*A*S*H and All In The Family, Leachman was appearing in two Mel Brooks comedies: first, the classic Young Frankenstein as Frau Blucher (insert whinny) and later in High Anxiety as Nurse Diesel. For such a beautiful actress to portray twisted, sado-masochist characters and to be made up as nearly hideous in doing so, well, that defies type-casting.

Leachman, a Northwestern grad, excelled in these comic roles. Look at how her body swings as if on hinges here. And how she shuts her eyes as soon as Gene Wilder snaps, “Nothing!”

But it wasn’t until two or three years ago that I finally came to appreciate just how special Leachman was. It was then that I at last watched The Last Picture Show, courtesy of TCM. In a later viewing, hosted by Ben Mankiewicz with guest Peter Bogdanovich, who directed the 1971 film, Bogdanovich allows that after filming the above scene, the movie’s final scene, he as much informed Leachman that she’d probably win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar on the strength of her performance in this scene (with Timothy Bottoms). And Leachman, who was already 44 when she filmed this scene, did. It’s impossible to argue against.

Not bad for a former beauty queen out of Des Moines.

Trading Places

There’s a moment in the 1983 comedy Trading Places when the two younger fellows, played by Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, decide to stop fighting one another. To pool their talents, and energy, and take it to the old suits at Duke & Duke.

How? By beating them at their own game.

Which brings us to GameStop and the events in the stock market of the past three days. I could type more but I think Will Brinson lays it out pretty simply below:

It was funny yesterday, watching CNBC and texting with rich friends, to see how patronizing and condescending the establishment behaved. Some trading firms even ceased allowing its clients to trade GME or AMC at points.

https://twitter.com/OldPappyThomas/status/1354515051957379076?s=20

Why? Is it that they were really “worried” about investors or market manipulation or is it simply that the house was being beaten at its own game?

https://twitter.com/PJ_Matlock/status/1354589057746087936?s=20

Me, I love ALL of this (and I’ve made no money off it). I love it because young people harnessed one of the weapons they know best (social media) and used it to come together for dual purposes: 1) to make money and 2) to save companies that have been afflicted particularly hard by the pandemic. In the process they found an unsympathetic victim, billionaire hedge funds, which actively have shorted these companies, exploiting their demise.


What’s not to love?

I don’t know where the stock prices of GME, AMC or BBBY will be in two weeks or two months. Nor do I care. What I do know is that the Robinhooders who came together to make this happen, most of them have far more capital at their disposal than they did one week ago. That means the next time they strike they’ll wield an even heftier hammer. It’ll be interesting to see how the lobbyists in Washington try to re-rig the game in their favor.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes


Where do they find talent like this? I don’t know.

Klan-destine Behavior

Three weeks ago an armed mob tried to wrest control of the U.S. government from Congress. They failed, but ever since most Republicans have not condemned them. Given the opportunity to impeach Donald Trump, the man who incited the riot, most Republicans are taking a hard pass. As AOC astutely states, “their silence is acceptance.”

Let’s not be fooled here: it’s not only about Trump. It’s hardly about Trump. He was just the cartoonish instigator. What it’s about is a portion of this country waking up (thanks, Obama) and recognizing that the future of this country, should it remain a democratic nation, may not be the exclusive property of white people. Here comes diversity ready to knock white power on its ass.

And just like those hedge funders above, now that white people realize that they don’t always get to win, they want to change the rules of the game (many of these people are the same as the hedgefunders, as you know). The only way to win the game now, they see, is through violence, intimidation and voter suppression.

Joe Biden seems to me like nobody’s fool. And a decent man. Who brought his German shepherds to the White House. I hope he’s ready for this fight. Because America is on the brink of a civil war, with the confederate capitol a dilapidated resort in a coastal Florida town

Philly, Special

May I have this as a poster, please?

In what might be a preview of the 2021 NBA Finals (or a look back at the 1983 NBA Finals), the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 107-106. Each team entered last night’ game with the best record in its respective conference.

The Sixers were lifted by Ben Simmons’ triple-double (17-11-10…so he’s not an outside shooter, he’s still a contributor) and Joel Embiid’s team-high 28. The Lakers were buoyed by LeBron’s 34, which are easier to come by when the refs never whistle you for palming or traveling (watch the highlights, Susie B.).

Curious note: The Lakers are 8-2 in their last 10 games, with each defeat coming to a team with a Curry brother.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Can’tStop! Won’tStop! GameStop!

Move over, Tesla. There’s a new girl in town.

It’s simply crazy-going-nuts time on Wall Street—or should I say on Reddit?

We mention shares of GameStop (GME), Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY) and AMC theatres (AMC) on Monday. Here’s where they were at the end of last week and here’s where they are this morning:

1/22 1/27

GME $44 $283

BBBY $26 $43

AMC $2.90 $17.25

What’s happening, in a nutshell: Billionaire hedge fund firms announced short positions (betting on these retailers to fail) on these companies. And then Robinhood investors (mostly younger, certainly poorer) got on Reddit and announced that they were investing in these companies. That drives the price up.

The result is that the billionaire hedge funders are losing lots and lots of money, since they need the stock price to go down. In order to offset those losses, they themselves need to invest in the stock (covering their shorts). The Robinhood gang, meanwhile, like William Wallace’s men in that first great battle scene in Braveheart, are encouraging one another to “Hold! Hold!” The longer they go without selling, the greater the chance the stock prices continue to rise, the more the billionaire hedge funders feel the pain.

Hedge funds have already lost a reported $5.2 billion, which is more than the actual market cap of GameStop. Think about that.

What’s funny is now the SEC is investigating. What, exactly? Crowdsourcing? All these younger, not wealthy people used social media to work together as one (to make a profit, sure, but also to stick up a giant middle finger at hedge funds looking to profit off the demise of COVID-vulnerable retailers). This morning trading on some of these names has been halted or, like at my brokerage account, trading has been halted without any specific reason.

I smell a rat.

Earlier this morning a former SEC investigator, a lawyer, excused the SEC’s interference by saying that they just want to make sure that people aren’t going on Reddit giving bad information simply to hype a stock. He then said, with a straight face, “It would be the same if some hedge fund manager came on your show and promoted a company or two and then the stock price jumped after his appearance. If he were to do that specifically to move the stock price, the SEC would be issuing him a subpoena.”

HA!

For those in the back: HA!

This is a Revenge Of The Nerds moment in investing, and I’m finding it a little difficult to believe that some of those hedge fund managers (almost all of whom used to work on trading floors of big banks) haven’t been frantically phoning their influential friends on Wall Street or in the SEC and begging them to get involved.

This is really the greatest episode of Billions ever.

Catch-45

Remember when then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, just days after the attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol, said that he would not reconvene the Senate until after the inauguration? And remember when we said that was his ploy to avoid having to deal with the open-and-shut case of Donald Trump’s impeachment?

Well, here we are. Now he and other Republicans are saying that it’s futile to impeach a president after he has left office (it’s not, of course, for two reasons: 1) A conviction would prevent Donald Trump from ever holding office again and 2) it would also send the sorely needed message that, hey, you can’t incite a coup d’etat as a lame-duck president). Yesterday Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) called for a floor vote on whether this impeachment trial is even necessary. He, his fellow Kentucky senator (Mitch) and 43 other GOP senators said No.

So, needing 67 votes to impeach, we’ve already got 45 out of 100 senators who want to dismiss the case before it begins.

And this is where we find our Catch-45. Seems that their reasoning is that, Hey, nothing actually of lasting consequence transpired (outside of the six deaths and dozens of broken windows, etc.) so why punish the guy? And so you have to ask, What would it have taken for you guys to agree that this was a punishable offense? And their answer might be, Well, if he had succeeded. But of course, had Trump succeeded, there’d be no chance for an impeachment trial, now would there be?

Catch-45.

Now comes news, from @sethabramsson, that there was an actual “war council” at Trump International Hotel on Jan. 5. That a few senators, Rudy, Mike Lindell and others huddled to discuss the following day’s events. This is potential conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. Will even that sway 45 of our elected U.S. senators? Probably not.

Why not? Because they’re no longer working in service to democracy. They’re working in service to white supremacy. And they long ago realized that majority rule will no longer serve their interests. That the only way to maintain white supremacy in this land is through a subtle (for now) dictatorship. They hoped to suppress enough votes or to create enough misinformation with The Big Lie the past few months to keep Donald Trump in power.

They failed. Next move? The insurrection.

That also failed.

Next move? Do not punish any of the conspirators. Live to fight another day. They’re all traitors to this country. Make no mistake about that.