Trump has a lot of wealth on paper, but a lot of it is tied up in real estate, which isn’t the easiest thing to turn into cash when you need it. And a lot is tied up in stock, but since he got caught fixing the books for the Trump Organization, he can’t really use that as his personal piggybank without a lot of scrutiny. And Truth Social is worth over a billion on paper but will crash if he starts to sell any of his stock, which would cause a lot of new problems right now.

Meanwhile, he is burning through money at an insane rate. I mean historically, he’s lost far more money than he’s ever been worth. He’s always had to have new businesses and schemes to cycle through as the old ones crumble. He basically never made a profit until the Apprentice, and that actually caused problems because he’d structured his operations around losing money, leaving other people holding the bag when things go completely south, writing off the loses for tax purposes, and, well, cooking the books.

But with hundreds of millions in judgements against him, on top of the hundred million plus in legal fees, he’s in a bit of a bind. He already had to put a $175 million up for bond to appeal the judgment civil judgment against the Trump Organization. If he loses the appeal, he’s out not just the $175 million, but the full $489 million judgement, plus about $115k a day in interest. Plus he’s got the E Jean Carroll judgments and ongoing cases because he’s a dumb bastard that can’t stop himself from committing defamation every time he leaves a courthouse after losing a defamation case.

While he has been funneling money from his PAC to cover his legal bills that only goes so far, and as I understand it, he can’t use that for actual judgements against him. If he loses the election, he may be fighting legal battles for years to come, that PAC money will likely dry up, and if he doesn’t have the cash when the court demands it, he could see his assets seized and auctioned off. If he wins the election, he can do basically anything and we’re all fucked.

So to simplify this a bit, imagine that he spent almost all his money on a lot of properties without getting a single monopoly, while his opponent has hotels on the dark blue and green properties. He keeps trying to survive the gauntlet and pass go to stay in the game, and maybe he can survive by mortgaging everything, but it’s much easier for him if he has the cash to pay the bill.

The long term effects of authoritarians consolidating their power and eliminating the last remnants of democracy and the rule of law is that it no longer matters if any of us are left or right. I’ll take having a system that can still be changed over being trapped in under dictatorial rule but taking comfort in the fact that I’ve remained ideologically pure.

And no, choosing the best viable candidate doesn’t just lead inevitably to a shift to the right. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be talking about people on the right endorsing someone to their left. The fact that Democrats have chosen electable candidates when Republicans chose Trump loyalists and MAGA nutcases is the main reason why Republicans have underperformed since 2018, and why they keep sabotaging their own efforts fighting with their own party members. Their most recent victories are largely due to courts they packed with right wing judges, something that will only get worse if they win, but which will be gradually undone if they lose.

But this is an argument that’s always raging on this site. That particular dead horse has been reduced to a fine paste. I doubt anyone’s going to be swayed at this point.

I’m not hear to defend Bush v Gore, the Bush administration, Republicans, Democrats, or anything else.

Fuck it, ok, fine, Bush v Gore was worse. So what? Unless you have a time machine, there isn’t anything we can do about that. But Trump poses a threat right now, one which will get much worse if he manages to get back into power. That can still be prevented. If the price that comes at is the knowledge that a few loathsome individuals agreed with millions of people like me on this one narrow choice, that’s a small price to pay.

The Harris campaign has not extended an invitation to the Bush administration to come back and take over the White House if she wins. Nor is there some great wave of enthusiasm on the right for Harris, it’s just them endorsing the only viable alternative to Trump.

And if Bush v Gore was the biggest threat to democracy in your lifetime, you must have been dead for the last four years. Florida in 2000 was a clusterfuck whose outcome was always going to be determined by how the votes were counted because the margin between the candidates was less then the number of disputed ballots. But after it was over, the country went back to business as usual.

Trump spread lies about the election being stolen, plotted a blatant coup attempt, incited a riot that attempted to overthrow the election by force, and after failing to hold onto power. But unlike in 2000, this didn’t stop with one election, Trump and pals have continued to push conspiracy theories and coordinate at the local level to disrupt the entire democratic process. You’ve got armed nut jobs threatening poll workers, and local election rules being written specifically to maximize the disruption they can cause to elections. It’s now the norm for Trump supporters to see elections as inherently invalid if their side loses, with a significant number of those people being willing to support illegal or violent actions if it will give them the win they want. Even if Trump loses, the damage he’s inflicted to American democracy will likely last for decades.

The people who are saying this is a deal breaker weren’t going to vote for Harris anyway.

Trump is a threat to democracy, stands in direct opposition to the rule of law, embraces authoritarianism, undermines national security, alienates allies while emboldening enemies and rivals, enables nutcases and violent extremists, has called for the constitution to be thrown out, has stated he intends to use the government to persecute his political rivals, has declared that members of his own administration should be executed for being more loyal to the country than to him, and managed to get the Supreme Court to declare the president to be above the law. And that’s barely scratching the surface.

Even for conservatives, that list sounds very bad. Bad enough to outweigh major policy disagreements. It really shouldn’t be that hard to understand why some of them might be willing to endorse the only viable alternative.

You wanna fiddle while Rome burns and mock those who choose an imperfect solution over no solution at all? Go right ahead. I was just pointing out that it seems a bit disingenuous to act concerned about a statement that might alienate voters from a candidate that you already oppose.

Not like you were going to vote for her anyway.

There are also some Republicans that will state they don’t like the ruling but are also too afraid of the loss of their seat to actually do anything for the country the swore to protect.

Any Republican that supports impeaching a right wing Supreme Court justice (let alone 6 of them) is going to be committing career suicide. It would be handing vacancies to the Democrats to fill, and potentially locking in a left leaning court for decades.

Now, obviously they should be able to put the good of the country and the rule of law above things like partisan politics and their prospects for re-election. But we’ve already had several rounds of purges on the right that have wiped out anyone with principles or conscience since those things get in the way of being blindly loyal to Trump.

They are generating “reviews” which have absolutely no basis in reality, for products they have had 0 interaction with. They are deceiving consumers in order to gain a financial benefit. This is fraud, they belong in prison.

Imagine how quickly search results would improve if shitheads like this were getting sued and arrested on a regular basis.

The really frustrating part is that cheap generic stuff skyrocketed too. Walmart embraced inflation enthusiastically, and their knockoff mountain dew went from $0.62 to $1.70. Supply chain issues I’m sure…

I used to get that stuff 10 bottles at a time, and it was one of the few things that made it worth going there. Now I just get whatever is on sale at the local employee owned grocery chain. The price difference is negligible, almost everything else is cheaper, and I get to support some place that isn’t evil.

I find it interesting that there is almost no one in the somewhat disapprove camp. More people strongly approve than somewhat approve, but clearly there is some ambivalence and nuance out there among those who approve of the decision. But if you disapprove, it’s all or nothing. Sounds about right.

Well, since you say Christmas or not, my favorite show any time is Babylon 5.

But for Christmas stuff, Hogfather is my favorite tradition. Also Die Hard, and the Christmas episode of Justice League.

Just realized I forgot the time that his wife got turned into a 10 year old. A 10 year old who got mad at him for being uncomfortable with physical affection at a time when she is going through something crazy and wants to feel comforted. Forget the Kobayashi Maru, that right there is the real no-win scenario.

Now if only I could go back to forgetting that episode.

The more mundane, day to day stuff is where there’s a big difference.

(Young) Obi-Wan gets super powers and a highly respected position in society that allows him to operate independently on a day to day basis.

O’Brian gets dragged out of bed in the middle of the night because a hypochondriac feels a tingle, and after extensive diagnostics show nothing is wrong, he’s ordered to take the transporter apart piece by piece and put it back together again.

During a disaster where he is the most experienced person left on the bridge, he has to take orders from Troi (who needs him to explain everything to her)

Has arachnaphobia, gets stationed somewhere that’s overrun by giant spiders, just has to deal with it.

Let’s not forget that Miles fought in a war against the Cardassians, which caused some serious psychological scars that don’t seem to be getting addressed. Those same events broke his commanding officer, and Miles is the only one who really understands why.

Then he goes on to take a quiet post at a space station in the middle of nowhere, only for it to become the frontline of an even bigger war.

Especially crazy since everyone’s already wearing badges that double as communicators and tracking devices.

Let’s not forget that time when primitive 20th century freezer jockeys were thawed out on the Enterprise D and a sleazy 80s business man was able to do pretty much whatever he wanted with the computer. When Picard yells at him, he replies that if there were things he shouldn’t be allowed to do, why didn’t they set the computer to not allow it? And Picard replies that people shouldn’t have to be told they aren’t allowed to do certain things, they should be able behave without the computer forcing it.

So, the reason they have such a huge security issue is that they run everything on the honor system. Though I suppose this was right after Worf took over security, so I guess that makes sense.

Give Tom a break. He got forced into being the nurse because he took biochemistry classes before getting kicked out of the academy.

Plus, he’s juggling nursing duties with his full time job as the pilot. And his side gig as a commando team leader. While moonlighting as a spy. And despite all that he’s still finds the time to develop an encyclopedic knowledge of twentieth century earth. And let’s not forget that he also designed engines with a top speed of infinity. He’s the most competent man in Star Fleet. Not bad for a dropout and ex-con.

Pretty sure if you Tuvixed Paris and O’Brian, combining Paris’s competence with O’Brian’s work ethic, you’d get some sort of god.

Yesterday’s enterprise was the one that got me into TNG as a wee lad. It has action, character, and raises deeper questions with a good scifi premise.

The fish guys? I love those things.

Babylon 5 just has the best crowning moments of awesome. Someone needs to figure out how to distill that shit and bottle it.