Month: August 2024

Big news today! Revenue at Donald Trump's social media company was up $70,000 in the second quarter:

If this growth trend keeps up, Trump Media might have quarterly revenue of $920,000 by the end of the year. That's almost a million dollars!

They also reported a profit of -$16 million. They reported nearly $20 million in operating costs, and God only knows what they spent that on. They also reported cash flows of -$344 million for the first six months of the year, offset by a bunch of gobbledegook I don't understand. What the hell is "Change in fair value of derivative liability"? I'm too lazy to look it up, sorry.

At the start of COVID, Congress passed a law requiring states to maintain enrollment for anyone then on Medicaid. This produced a sharp increase in Medicaid enrollments until early 2023, when the requirement was ended. Since then, Medicaid has been unwinding and returning to normal operation, which means everyone has to qualify anew each year. Here's what that looks like:

From the start of Obamacare through 2017, Medicaid enrollment increased by 13 million. Over the next three years enrollments declined 3 million, partly because the economy was good and partly because the Trump administration reduced funding for outreach.

During the pandemic enrollment increased 23 million. Of that, we've lost 13 million since the unwinding began.

But overall there's good news here. The unwinding is just about finished and we're still at an enrollment of 10 million higher than when we began. All told, we've added 20 million people to Medicaid since Obamacare started up. That's a lot of health care.

NOTE: The total numbers in the chart are for both Medicaid and CHIP. Of that, about 7 million is CHIP, and it hasn't changed much. The increases and decreases are almost all Medicaid.

Yesterday a reporter asked Donald Trump if he thought Kamala Harris's career had been helped by her relationship in the 1990s with powerful California politician Willie Brown. This was a perfect opportunity for Trump to throw out a remark about Harris sleeping her way to the top, or something equally Trumpish and obnoxious, but he didn't.

Instead he gapped out and said that he knew Willie Brown very well. He doesn't. Then he hallucinated a story about almost being in a helicopter crash with Brown, which obviously didn't happen either.

However, it turns out he was once in a helicopter with Jerry Brown, who bears no conceivable resemblance to Willie Brown except for his last name. And it was just a routine helicopter ride. No crash, no emergency, no anything.

Everybody's initial response to this was: Huh? Their second response was: What a bizarre guy, lying about everything.

But this is almost certainly not a lie. Nor is it likely that he just got the two Browns mixed up since he was responding to a question about a relationship with Kamala Harris. Willie Brown famously had one; Jerry Brown didn't.

It's all very weird. Listen to the video. It doesn't sound like a lie. It sounds like Trump knew exactly who the reporter was asking about and just hallucinated his entire answer: knowing Brown "very well"; going down in a rough helicopter landing with him; and Brown saying nasty things about Harris.

Trump has gotten to the point where he doesn't just forget a thing or two. That happens to all us oldsters. He literally invents entire incidents in his mind and believes they're real. I don't think he even knows he's doing it. Can you imagine what he's going to be like four years from now?

UPDATE: Bizarrely, today Trump insisted to the New York Times that the story was true and he has "flight records" to prove it:

When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them.

I think it's safe to say he will never produce these records.

UPDATE 2: We have an answer! Apparently Trump was once on a rough helicopter ride with Nate Holden, a former LA city councilmember:

“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden said. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles. I guess we all look alike,” Holden told Politico, letting out a loud laugh.

....“He was white as snow,” Holden added. “And he was scared shitless.”

So, uh, there you have it. Trump didn't completely hallucinate, but he absolutely insisted it was Willie Brown, who he knows "very well," and that Brown had said nasty stuff about Kamala Harris. This is obviously invented out of thin air.

This is Hilbert being uncooperative. As soon as he saw the camera he trotted off to the far side of the yard to hide behind the bushes and then just stayed there. He also made it clear that if I tried to follow him he would lead me on a chase around the entire house until he got all the way to the front yard, where he would finally stop and start rolling over. He loves doing this to me.

The Society of Family Planning released its latest abortion estimates a couple of days ago, and they show that the number of abortions continues to increase. Here is the abortion rate in states where abortion is permitted:

However, not all of these abortions are performed in states where abortion is permitted. Check this out:

Shield laws protect doctors who provide telehealth consultations to women in states where abortion is banned. This chart suggests that it accounts for the bulk of the increase in abortions.

These numbers aren't exact, and things might change over time. But in the same way that banning a book just draws more attention to it, Dobbs seems to have drawn more attention to abortion. It's a little inexplicable, but banning abortions seems to have energized the pro-choice side so much that (slightly) more women are now aware of their options and are choosing to have abortions. This is certainly not what anyone expected.

This is so stupid I can hardly bring myself to write about it, but just for the record:

No, Tim Walz did not sign a law that requires schools to stock free tampons in boys' restrooms. The law leaves implementation up to individual school districts, and they're free to do as they want. Most districts supply menstrual products only in girls' and gender-neutral restrooms (and the nurse's office).

Now, can we please put this idiocy to rest?

Donald Trump doesn't know what mifepristone is:

It's hard to believe, but Trump is getting more ignorant over time. Or maybe his memory is getting worse.

This came during the same press conference where he refused to say how he planned to vote on Florida's initiative to overturn its 6-week abortion ban. What a coward. My guess is that he'll stay silent on the initiative all the way to Election Day, at which point he'll announce that he voted against it. That will be too late to do him any harm with moderates and will assure evangelicals that he's still on their side.

We will have at least one presidential debate:

Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have agreed to a Sept. 10 debate on ABC, the network said Thursday.

Yesterday I was telling a friend that after a bunch of hemming and hawing and blustering, Harris and Trump would negotiate a debate as usual. They both want one, so eventually they'd come to terms. I just didn't expect it would only take a day.

This is the last of my photos of the Eastern Sierra from 2021. I'm not sure why I've never put it up before this, but it's finally getting its day in the sun.

All done! My prostate has been fully fried and now it gets to rest and heal up.

Follow-up testing will tell us how well the radiation treatment worked, but the excellent interim PSA results make me pretty confident that everything went well.