by John Walters
That’s How I Got To Memphis
Simon and Garfunkel sang about a bridge over troubled water, but what about a troubled bridge over water.
That there’s a fissure on the Hernando de Soto Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River on Interstate 40. There may be one or two bridges in all of the USA more vital to commercial trucking. Or this may be it.
So that’s going to take a few months to fix. Is infrastructure week here yet?
More than 50,000 vehicles cross the bridge, which opened in 1973, daily.
Chancel Cheney
In the aftermath of Liz Cheney’s ouster from her No. 3 position in the House GOP by “voice vote” (hence, no names will be attached to the votes to avoid accountability, though as one tweep suggested, why doesn’t Cheney just claim voter fraud here?), a number of GOP “leaders” spoke out about the election and January 6. Some merely gaslit, while House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy pulled a new feat by gas lighting the gas lighting.
Hunh? McCarthy, who led the charge to oust Cheney for her failure to publicly buy into the lie that the election was stolen, stood on the White House South Lawn and said, and we quote here, “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election.”
Then why did McCarthy lead the movement to chancel Cheney?
Of course, there was also the run-of-the-lamp gas lighting we’ve come to expect from Retrumplicans. Here’s congressman Andrew Clyde of Georgia:
It was Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, who aptly stated, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Of course, Goebbels was able to fib more easily in an era before Twitter and mobile phone videos. The fact that so many MAGAmaniacs continue to buy into such a lie is less about Hitler and more about Orwell: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
January 21, 2025
I sought out The Kid yesterday and asked him to place odds on the following four scenarios for where Donald Trump will be on the above date: the White House, prison, dead, none of the above. Here’s what he returned with:
President 7-1: I despise people who say it can’t happen
Dead 15-1: Convinced Keith Richards and Donald Trump are the only two people with indestructible immune systems
Prison 25-1: This should be more like 40-1 but I’m going to get plenty of action regardless because this is like betting on your favorite team
None Of The Above 3-1: Reading Dr. Seuss tomes and eating hamburders to his heart’s content at MAGA-Largo
Battery Baron Batters Bitcoin
Yesterday Elon Musk, citing environmental concerns, tweeted that Tesla will not be accepting Bitcoin as payment until further notice.
Now, if you study the charts, Bitcoin is a giant drain on the environment in terms of emissions.
However, what we do find funny is that Tesla has never had a problem accepting 100s of millions of dollars in federal government subsidies in order to do business, and the federal government is worse in terms of emissions than Bitcoin. Pick your battles, eh, Elon?
Now, just in case you think I’m stubbornly, implacably defending Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general, I strongly urge you to watch Bill Maher eviscerate all of it below. BM makes plenty of sense (cents) and something tells me Elon Musk watched this some time soon after hosting SNL:
I’ll only add that Warren Buffett’s warning that crypto’s value is entirely based on the belief that someone will buy it off you for more than you paid for it, and then it’s their problem… well, that’s how our entire stock market works these days. Valuation? Schmaluation. Ask anyone who bought Tesla more than a year ago and held.
The Kid
He won last night (the Avs beat the Kings, 6-0).
So if you’re scoring, he’s now 2-0 and the bank that started at $1,000 is now up to $1,200.
Today:
Bet $410 to win $100 on AVALANCHE vs Kings
This is not a typo. The Avs are hosting the Kings for a second consecutive night and The Kid is letting it ride.
“The Avs have been through two Covid pauses and a stretch of 14 of 17 on the road and have come too far to get tripped up at the ninth hurdle. I am going to gamble that they are not Lolo Jones and that they are going to cross the finish line. Certainly not as confident as I was yesterday just because it feels as if I’m tempting fate.”