The other day I saw this amusing item in my Axios newsletter. I’d normally link to the story, but can’t find it with a casual Google, so accept this screenshot:
God, Barry, we all miss you so much. The other day someone posted the video of Aretha Franklin singing “Natural Woman” to Carole King at the Kennedy Center Honors. The cutaway to Obama wiping away a tear almost made me cry, too, but not because the music was beautiful. It’s because I didn’t get up every day of the Obama presidency and thank God for him. I had no idea that his successor would be a pig who can barely string a sentence together, with a sex-worker third wife and a nightmare family, all of whom would end up supported by American taxpayers, one way or another. I didn’t — none of us didn’t — know how bad it would get.
Sigh. How about some levity?
Ha ha ha ha ha. The proper answer to that question is: I would choose to live somewhere else. Because, if you read the story, you find that their budget is, no shit…
…around $850,000, but even with $450,000 saved, high mortgage rates meant that most single-family homes were out of reach. So they began to seriously consider a manufactured-home park about seven miles west of the city. “There were no good options,” Mr. Zero said. “Except for this place.”
I gotta say, though, those are some pretty sweet looking trailers. They look like double-wides, and once you get into double-wide territory, they don’t feel so much like trailers. Santa Barbara doesn’t get hurricanes or tornadoes to speak of; I could probably live there. But not for most of a million dollars.
God, the real estate market is a ticking time bomb. How is any normal person supposed to afford these prices? It’s insane.
What else happened today? I had an insane one, that’s what. I missed my morning swim because I overslept, then got buried in an avalanche of work. I didn’t brush my teeth until 11 a.m., but yes, I still found time to post on Twitter, because that’s how life today is.
One more funny screen cap? OK. Here’s Kim Guilfoyle, raising money on the hustings:
If you want, you can tuck a check for $2,500 into her cleavage.
OK, then! Happy Friday, happy weekend, happy life.
Mark P said on March 21, 2024 at 10:06 pm
I was wondering where I left those two cantaloupes.
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Jason T. said on March 21, 2024 at 10:47 pm
It reminds me of a sequence in the late, lamented “Bloom County” in which one of the young kids, Michael Binkley, is reading a story in “People” magazine about Mariel Hemingway getting breast implants for her role in the movie “Star 80.”
“What did they plant in that poor woman’s chest?” he says, then turns the page. “Great Scot,” he says, “they must have planted cantaloupes.”
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brian stouder said on March 21, 2024 at 11:18 pm
Barack Obama positively made a Democrat out of me. Way back in the day, William F Buckley (mostly via Nancy’s Fort Wayne News-Sentinal, but also his show on PBS) was my first gateway to ‘conservatism’ and helped make a Republican out of me. Sure, there’s plenty of other ‘inputs’, and hindsight (and distance) introduces its own perspective…..but, wow. I guess this is what becoming an old guy is all about; your perspective changes, and your views evolve, and forward you go. (insert two paragraphs regarding the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle here, followed by something pithy, along the lines of ‘that’s the way of the world’)
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Dexter Friend said on March 22, 2024 at 12:05 am
Somebody gotta ‘splain this to me: Trump is going to get $4 billion tomorrow for some sleazy shareholder deal with Truth Social. Caveat: he can’t touch it for 6 months. This info came from some author who has written 3 books on Trump’s financial life. I did not catch the author’s name.
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Mark P said on March 22, 2024 at 3:32 am
The deal for Trump’s social media platform to be acquired by another company is a typical Trump scam. The stock is currently valued far above any reasonable amount. If Trump can sell right away, he may well get billions. The board of the company may be able to eliminate the stock lockdown that would otherwise prevent an immediate sale. And guess who’s on the board. Hint: one of them has a last name of Trump. If Trump is allowed to sell immediately, he will reap great rewards, and the suckers who buy will lose their shirts when the stock settles to a reasonable level, which will be far below its current level. I suspect this scam will work.
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alex said on March 22, 2024 at 7:34 am
In the Mar-a-Lago clown photos from last week, Guilfoyle’s boobies were notably less pert and bulbous than those on the other women, and here again they seem sort of flat and pendulous yet still unnaturally large. What is it with these wide-open neck lines? There were a bunch like that on the red carpet recently. How do women keep themselves from falling out of those costumes?
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Santa Barbara doesn’t get tornadoes or hurricanes, but it’s prone to other natural disasters, particularly wildfires. I’d bet the homeowner’s insurance, even on a mobile home, is outrageously expensive and that’s a cost factor that wasn’t even mentioned in the story. It’s quite impressive, though, that the couple has $450K in cash to put down. If I were in their position, I’d have relocated to the midwest with that nest egg and started over.
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Jeff Gill said on March 22, 2024 at 7:56 am
Two-sided tape has many, many uses.
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LAMary said on March 22, 2024 at 9:16 am
Santa Barbara has wildfires, landslides and earthquakes. Remember that mudslide in Montecito that hit Oprah’s house? Montecito is next to Santa Barbara. Homeowners insurance is insanely high here if you can get it. None of the big companies are covering my neighborhood anymore. I’ve been dropped by Allstate and Travelers.The good neighbor guy, Farmers, Progressive? All gone from this part of CA.
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ROGirl said on March 22, 2024 at 9:45 am
It feels like the past is being erased, it’s getting harder and harder to remember what it was like before the fat, hateful orange execrescence came down that fucking escalator and started his destructive crusade.
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Jeff Borden said on March 22, 2024 at 10:10 am
What Barack Obama gave me was eight years of not being embarrassed by our president. He wasn’t a great president by any measure, though passage of the ACA was impressive, yet I never cringed when I heard or read his comments. His intelligence and wit were on daily display.
Sandwiched between a “failson” Bush, who’s inarticulate blather was infuriatin, and the Orange King, the most aggressivly ignorant knob ever elected, he now looks like a colossus.
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Julie Robinson said on March 22, 2024 at 10:58 am
How I long for the golden, halcyon days, before the golden showers era. And the show your wares era–is Guilfoyle in a church?
Sherri, thank you for unpacking the baseball story. I don’t follow sports but it’s deeply troubling.
Our little neighborhood is also ridiculousy overpriced, for tiny homes built in the 50’s for naval base workers (base is long gone now). The house next door was priced at 775K, and since it went under contract five hours later, I’d guess it went for more. It’s 1500 sf and has been updated, with a teeny-weeny kitchen, a nice pool and very nice view of the lake. We saw several neighbors at the open house but none that could afford it, especially with mortgages so high. We certainly couldn’t buy in this neighborhood today. I feel like we’re overdue for another crash.
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nancy said on March 22, 2024 at 11:13 am
Jeff speaks the truth about breast positioning — tape is the thing, although I have no idea how that pair is being tamed. That is such a tacky-ass dress, however. I can’t believe she wore it to a congressional fundraiser, but she is one tacky-ass woman..
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Dorothy said on March 22, 2024 at 12:20 pm
She’s tacky and I also cannot understand the puss on her. I’ve seen pictures of what she used to look like. She was pretty! Now she’s got a permanent scowl and looks like she’s trying to get away from the smell of her own farts.
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Suzanne said on March 22, 2024 at 12:46 pm
“… trying to get away from the smell of her own farts.”
Thread win for Dorothy!
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Jakash said on March 22, 2024 at 2:02 pm
Brian,
“I guess this is what becoming an old guy is all about; your perspective changes, and your views evolve, and forward you go.”
Except that, to your immense credit, and unlike so many, you actually evolved rather than devolving or becoming set in your ways. You steered in the right direction. (So to speak, since you actually steered left.) Choosing to move forward, when the nation has been utterly crippled by the misguided, yet large minority of folks who yearn to look backward to the imagined glory days of a more racist, more sexist, more homophobic past, should be applauded. So, I applaud you, good sir!
It was such a pleasure to vote for Obama and, in what seems like a significant rarity in this benighted nation, not feel like I was “settling” for him, primarily because he was somewhat better than the other guy. I’ll never get over the fact that a segment of the voting populace looked at his 2 successful, scandal-free terms and thought that the appropriate response to them would be to elect an incompetent, completely inexperienced, incurious, libertine criminal and carnival barker.
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Sherri said on March 22, 2024 at 2:13 pm
Julie, there’s still much we don’t know about Ohtani and the degree, if any, he was involved with a bookie. But it’s not going to go away, and MLB will have to investigate.
As I said, it is inevitable that we will see a Black Sox level gambling scandal in sports, I would guess within the next five years, at least. Gambling is too pervasive with Draft Kings and Fan Duel. If you watch sports, gambling has become absolutely infused into everything. Players are allowed to gamble, as long as it not with illegal bookies and not on their sport, but that line gets hard to hold when you start losing.
There have already been a few minor scandals. The Alabama baseball coach was giving inside information to a buddy who was betting on that info. A few players have been suspended for betting, not on their games. But we’re not even that far removed from an NBA ref fixing games to support his gambling habit, and that was before legal gambling was everywhere.
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Julie Robinson said on March 22, 2024 at 3:41 pm
Princess Catherine has cancer.
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nancy said on March 22, 2024 at 4:12 pm
Sherri, I was listening to a local radio station the other day, and the references to casual gambling between the two DJs were eye-opening. People bet the way they check social media — usually small amounts, but it adds up. You’re absolutely right, we’re going to see some big-time sports scandal soon enough.
And yeah, once again, an undeserving person has a serious disease, while Trump rumbles on. I hope, when he goes, it’s in public and captured on a million cameras.
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Suzanne said on March 22, 2024 at 5:56 pm
It won’t matter if the Orange Menace meets his demise in public, shot by one of his kids or someone else in his inner circle; he will be a martyr to the MAGA crowd. They’re so far gone from reality that even seeing it for themselves won’t change what they think.
I feel bad for Princess Kate, although the palace really miscalculated by keeping it so secret. I get that the royals want privacy, especially William & Kate with 3 young children, but when you are that much of a public figure, privacy isn’t going to happen so might as well get out in front of it to keep wild rumors to a minimum.
But good grief, she and Charles both with cancer?? That’s a lot to deal with.
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David C said on March 22, 2024 at 6:05 pm
The announcement that Kate has cancer will do nothing to tamp down the conspiracy theories. The Palace PR department has bought itself years of misery and nobody deserves it more.
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Jeff Gill said on March 22, 2024 at 7:39 pm
We had an advisory board meeting last night for the group I’m going to link here, and while I’m very proud of the work the students & others are doing (think a ProPublica for one county, sponsored by a private college & a foundation grant for now), it’s simply encouraging to work with so many undergrads who have a passion to tell stories and connect people. We’re also blessed to have Connie Schultz part of our team, along with some semi-retired Columbus Dispatch folk, and wandering storytellers like me. Journalism is alive and well; the stories the students are writing are getting picked up and ending up on front pages around the region. It’s encouraging is what I’m trying to say. There is hope.
Feel free to sign up for our weekly email newsletter, which also happens to be free. Link for that is on the nav bar to the right.
https://www.thereportingproject.org/
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Sherri said on March 22, 2024 at 8:06 pm
Sports betting is legal now in 38 states, I believe, and Draft Kings and Fan Duel make it very easy. They have teaser deals to get you started (first $100 free!), and tons of prop bets and things to bet on, not just games vs. the spread. They started out as daily fantasy sites; you picked a fantasy football team, or whatever, and won or lost based on those players.
Now, several universities even have partnerships with gambling companies, like Michigan State and Louisiana State with Caesar’s (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/sports/sports-betting-universities-pointsbet-caesars.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ek0.IKNW.z8xs06ErYCai&smid=url-share)
Sports at both college and pro levels are absolutely saturated in gambling. The pregame shows are full of gambling, sports writing is full of gambling, advertising is full of gambling. ESPN has launched its own sports book.
The legal gambling doesn’t let you bet on credit, but your friendly bookie does, so when you start losing and need to dig out of the hole, you turn from those online apps to the bookie, and then you’ve got big problems. Some college kid, some pro player is going to get in big to a bookie, and is going to shave points, throw a game, dump a play, to affect the outcome and make his/her bookie happy.
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Deborah said on March 22, 2024 at 8:25 pm
Not surprised to hear that gambling is huge and getting out of hand in sports, it was inevitable it seems to me.
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Jeff Gill said on March 23, 2024 at 8:45 am
Hey, let’s have lots more of these stories!
https://www.10tv.com/article/news/local/art-schlichter-arrested-columbus-drug-charges/530-62b06157-1772-43dc-874e-2723a4182430
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Dexter Friend said on March 23, 2024 at 8:46 am
My fantasy league betting is simply The Ohio Lottery. I grew up reading about the Black Sox during the Cincinnati 1919 World Series. I remember every stadium having gambling warnings painted on walls beside NO PEPPER signs. Time passes; I realized football gambling in Europe and the UK has always been rampant and legal. Now it has snake-coiled around all USA sports leagues. I hate it. I also was against state lotteries for 7 years after it came to Michigan until finally I placed a $1 bet and won $166…I was hooked. When Ohio , my state of residence, went online, I began buying tickets for co-worker pools…at one point I was gathering $320 weekly for our group betting pool. We played for years and only one “big win”, like $800 split 32 ways. Big deal.
I can control my lottery betting, just a few dollars a day usually, but knowing myself in another problem area, I know damn-surely if I drink one shot of booze I am a goner, no doubt. If I start up sports betting, I’ll lose every cent and my house within weeks…days even. Some people think I am playing with fire since I play a ticket on a billion dollar lotto-chance, but I have isolated that and compartmentalized that, believe it or not. I see people in cars lined up at the drive through awaiting their $6 daily lattes…I spend just half that on lotto tickets. I am a champion rationalizer, yep. And I drink home-brewed java from Mister Coffee drippers. I have been a Mister Coffee advocate since 1977. I have gone through seemingly a dozen, maybe 20 of those machines. My friends say “Get a Bunn!” I say , nah….
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FDChief said on March 23, 2024 at 10:29 am
I’ve heard state lotteries described as a “tax on stupidity”. Seems valid.
What Dexter said. The problem with sports betting is that if it’s big enough it starts running the sport itself. The gamblers, not the teams or players or leagues, determine the outcomes. The Black Sox wasn’t an outlier; baseball in the Ragtime Era was soaked in gambling. Hal Chase had been throwing games for years; it was an open secret. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to fix the Series.
There’s a huge betting scandal waiting to happen somewhere in pro sport. Just a question of when and where.
Meanwhile, the SCOTUS has decided that John C. Calhoun was right and states get their own foreign policy. Can’t see how that could end badly, right?
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Deborah said on March 23, 2024 at 10:44 am
I don’t usually read Christianity Today, was led to this on Threads, I found it interesting https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/march-web-only/ned-flanders-douglas-wilson-russell-moore-character.html
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Jeff Borden said on March 23, 2024 at 12:18 pm
The slaughter in Moscow certainly demonstrates ISIS fucking hates EVERYONE. Thank dog ISIS claimed credit or Putin could use the massacre to whip up more hatred against Ukraine.
I read this morning U.S. intelligence agencies warned the Kremlin of an impending terrorist attack. Putin slouched it off as an attempt to destabilize Russia and took zero action. The same story noted the U.S. also warned the mullahs of Iran in advance of an ISIS attack, but they ignored the “Great Satan,” too.
Turns out America does share intelligence with global foes if it’s likely to result in mass civilian casualties. But they need to act on it.
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alex said on March 23, 2024 at 12:30 pm
Question for Sherri:
Was it you who posted a link a while back to a three-part interview with Rick Perlstein?
The third part hadn’t been published yet and I was looking forward to reading it.
What jogged my memory was my recent visit to Chicago. I had no idea that one of my best friends is also a close friend of Rick Perlstein. She even did a reading at his wedding.
Anyway, I’ve forgotten where the interview was published. It has been a couple of months ago.
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Mark P said on March 23, 2024 at 12:43 pm
Putin is twisting the Moscow attack to blame Ukraine. He says some of those responsible were fleeing to Ukraine.
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Julie Robinson said on March 23, 2024 at 12:54 pm
Since the Hard Rock betting app debuted in Florida, calls to the gambling hotline have doubled. Apparently it’s super easy to keep playing beyond reason, because it just feels like you’re playing any other game on your phone, not with real money.
My one and only gambling situation was a cautionary tale that has kept me far, far away from lotteries, casinos, and betting apps. We were at an indoor circus and flea market, and I saw a kiosk with a maching sweeping across a pile of coins. Any second, the next coin would make the pile too high and the jackpot would be mine, all mine!
After I’d spent all my quarters, I sought out my long-suffering spouse to hurry up and come with more quarters, in case someone else snuck up and got the jackpot from the pile ol’ money I’d been building.
Fortunately, he cooled me down and steered me away and I’ve never been tempted to gamble again.
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Sherri said on March 23, 2024 at 3:15 pm
Alex, I think it was only a two-parter, but all the Rick Perlstein articles, including the ones I linked to, are here at The American Prospect: https://prospect.org/topics/rick-perlstein/
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Sherri said on March 23, 2024 at 3:33 pm
I think Derek asked for an explanation of how Trump was going to realize several billion dollars from Truth Social going public. The short answer is he won’t.
The longer answer is that Truth Social, or rather Trump Media and Technology Group, is going public through a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corporation, a SPAC (special purpose acquisition corp), which is a way of making the IPO process easier. While the IPO was valued such that Trump, who owns a majority of the shares, would have a paper value for those share of several billion, he wouldn’t be able to sell those shares for six months, or use them as collateral for anything. That’s typical for IPOs.
There’s a possibility the board of the new comp could waive his lockout, but the share price of the new company has already dropped considerably from the IPO price, and if Trump’s lockout were waived, the share price would tank. Short sellers would be all over it.
The company has no inherent value except as a meme stock. Truth Social had $3 million in revenue on losses of $49 million, and no story for how that was going to change.
So, on Monday when Letitia James starts slapping liens on his golf courses, this isn’t going to bail him out.
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Sherri said on March 23, 2024 at 4:11 pm
I know a lot about sports. Every now and then, I’m tempted to bet on sports. But then I always remind myself that nothing is deterministic about sports, that no matter how well you play the odds, shit happens. As John Maynard Keynes said about the stock market, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
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Julie Robinson said on March 23, 2024 at 6:26 pm
Our neighbor on the other side just got out of the hospital from a broken knee cap and came home with undiagnosed Covid. Today she was feeling perky and called us for company on a walk. Less than five minutes after she got home, she fell again and is on her way back to the hospital, this time with a probable broken hip. BTW, she had checked herself out of the rehab hospital against medical advice.
In the meantime, guess who will be on cat duty again.
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Dexter Friend said on March 24, 2024 at 2:05 am
I used to watch all these men’s tournament games but I am exhausted from just recording them and highlighting the plays all day long. My long-time hatred (sports hatred isn’t really HATE-it’s just rivalry stuff) for Michigan State was full-on as the Tarheels slaughtered Sparty.
Creighton’s double OT game v. the Ducks of Eugene was killing me with the suspense…The Jays won. As a Michigan fan whose team was awful, I hitched my wagon to the Boilermakers this year and they are still alive. Boiler Up !
Caitlin Clark shot poorly but still scored and rebounded and dished out assists. Final Four tickets for women’s finals were reported as averaging $320 and men’s finals tickets,$242, or something like that. Women’s college basketball has actually overtaken men’s in popularity.
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annie said on March 24, 2024 at 11:12 am
I can’t get over the fact that this mess of a woman, Kim Guilfoyle, was once married to Gavin Newsom!
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