The Gormogons

Live from NBC – The First Night of the Democrat Debates

GorT really didn’t watch the Democrat Debate last night. Around 10pm, Mrs. G and I decided to flip over to it on NBC and we weren’t disappointed.

My simple summary is these debates are the BEST thing for the GOP and Donald Trump. As stated before, I’m not a big fan of Trump and I didn’t vote for him. But I don’t think Republican strategists could have orchestrated a better way to showcase the train wreck that is the Democrat party than this debate.

Think about this recipe: 10 political candidates on stage with open mics, told that they were limited to 30 or 60 second rebuttals/answers, moderated by Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, and audience-roving Lester Holt. It was utter chaos. Candidates talking over each other, sticking their hands up or pointing to try to get called on, blowing right through any time limit, failing to even answer the softball questions by the liberal moderators. Toss in a technical problem at the beginning of the debate as well…because, well, NBC. It was glorious.

Case in point: Chuck Todd instructed the panel of candidates to respond with one word for what the biggest geopolitical threat is to the United States. Let’s consider the responses:

John Delaney: “The biggest challenge is China. The biggest geopolitical threat remains nuclear weapons.”

12 words. one could infer that the Iran deal wasn’t so great.

Jay Inslee: “The biggest threat is Donald Trump. No question about it.”

10 words. Wow, elevating Donald Trump to geopolitical status. Pandering to the Orange Man Bad crowd.

Tulsi Gabbard: “The greatest threat we face is that we are at greater risk of nuclear war.”

15 words. In the 30-40min portion we watched, I think Gabbard had a hard time stringing together answers on the fly but appeared to be rather reserved and calm. Also raising the question on the Iran deal. During the same time, Gabbard also argued we should be out of the Middle East so I’m not sure how she thinks we’re going to tackle this issue.

Amy Klobuchar: “Economic threat and China, but the major threat is what is going in the Mideast with Iran.”

17 words. She’s right about China, I’ll give her that. Must have had a good salad with utensils beforehand. Also implies a problem with the Iran deal.

Beto O’Rourke: “The existential threat is climate threat. We have to confront it before it’s too late.”

15 words. And doesn’t answer the question. He tells us what he thinks is the “existential threat” but not his top geopolitical threat. Beto looked like he was a 7th grader playing in a JV high school game. He was nervous, hunting for answers, and trying to score points but failing.

Elizabeth Warren: “Climate change.”

2 words. Winner for the candidate who could most closely follow directions but one could argue whether climate change is a geopolitical threat. On one hand, I might agree as the U.S. has taken steps to reduce emissions and be more ecologically aware and countries like India, China, and developing nations are increasing their emissions. But if she thinks that’s the number one threat, she’s not geopolitically aware.

Cory Booker: “Nuclear proliferation and climate change.”

5 words. Pretty short for Booker. Combined with his stance that he wouldn’t reinstate the Iran deal but “wants to keep options open to negotiate a better deal”, he clearly isn’t a fan of the Obama administration Iran deal. No mention of China or Russia….

Julián Castro: “China and climate change.”

4 words. Nails it, in my opinion, on China but then panders to the environmentalists with the latter portion.

Tim Ryan: “China, without a question. They are wiping us economically.”

9 words. Ryan gets it partially right. It’s not only economics but a longer term geopolitical strategy that is in play. Look at what China is doing in the Middle East and the South China Sea. Look at how they are strategically manipulating shipping (creating larger vessels that require larger ports that China is building/owning around the world)

Bill de Blasio: “Russia, because they are trying to undermine our democracy and they are doing a damn good job of it and we need to stop them.”

25 words. Longest answer by the group. He’s not wrong about Russia or their efforts. It is a geopolitical threat. But he is not-so-subtly tying it back to the whole Russia-Trump thing. That’s going to be a losing position.

This next statement is going to make me shudder but I partially agree with Slate in that Chuck Todd’s question was garbage. The “one word” geopolitical threat doesn’t allow for nuance and the threats facing the United States are varied and numerous. However, the “one word” approach does test whether a candidate can prioritize these and be succinct in their responses – especially helpful with the limited attention span that people seem to have these days.

From Slate:

As if to underline the apples-and-oranges problem here, MSNBC subsequently “fact check[ed]” the argument that climate change is a geopolitical threat, saying “it’s difficult to quantify how much of a threat it is relative to adversarial countries or global concerns.”

Fact checked?!?! Whether or not “climate change” is a geopolitical threat doesn’t boil down to a fact. It’s an opinion. Could be a widely held opinion but it isn’t a fact that it is or it isn’t regardless of your position on climate change.

Mrs G and I debated what our ideal debate format would look like. I think we settled largely on the following:

• Each candidate is in a sound-proof box on stage with a mic that is controlled by the booth
• With established ground rules on times for answers, candidates can start answering the question and the microphone cuts off at the end of the time – even if they are still speaking. They will have a countdown timer in the box letting them know how much time is left.
• If they change topic or try addressing a different question during that time, they forfeit the rest of their answer time and their microphone cuts off
• They don’t get to hear the other candidates’ answers

GorT’s prediction on who won’t make it to the later rounds

Easy money:

• Inslee
• Klobuchar
• Delaney
• Ryan (not enough Q factor to differentiate himself)

Riding the bubble:

• O’Rourke (his woke style and appeal might keep him in longer than he deserves)
• Gabbard (needs to step up to answers better, calm style could be appealing)
• Booker (always appears angry and a doomsayer – that’s going to wear on people)

That leaves:

• Warren (she’s has a backing that will keep her in the mix even though she is a disaster and would lose to any competent challenger that wants to seriously debate her on policy and facts)
• deBlasio (also has a backing but some of his NYC policies and stances could really backfire when hitting the national stage – although his interrupting will lose points)
• Castro (Only Hispanic candidate will carry him farther as it is a differentiator but he’ll have to do more – his answers are soundbites and not well thought out policies)

The Twittersphere and Facebook-land is again being peppered with the “OMG! Amazon doesn’t pay enough taxes!!”

This argument is mind-numbing to me and those arguing it, in my opinion, have a very narrow and uneducated view of economics in this country.

First, they should go read the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. A small fraction (some say around 1%) of the code is focused on revenue while the majority of it is focused on reducing taxes through incentives, deductions, and credits. These are important drivers for economic growth, job stimulation, and innovation. If those people are so opposed to a company legally using the current tax laws and regulations in this country then they should move to change those. I suspect a number of economists will dissuade such action.

Second, Amazon does pay taxes in the form of state, local, and payroll income taxes to the tune of $1+ Billion. So when making the argument, the opponents should be clear in saying that they are upset that, int he last two years, Amazon has not paid federal corporate income taxes largely due to the first point and the next point.

Third, Amazon smartly leverages the tax code items mention in the first point. Last year, Amazon put over $22B into R&D, it invests heavily in physical assets and property (over $60B in the last five years), and invests in their employees in a variety of ways. Local economies benefit directly from Amazon’s investments in buildings and the associated jobs created by a physical presence in the community. Amazon has continued to hire at a pace of tens of thousands of employees added globally each year for the last several years (hint: that’s more payroll taxes that they pay while providing employment to local workers).

Fourth, maybe more nuanced and less apparent to a pure economic dissection of Amazon’s taxes – through their web services business unit (AWS), Amazon has lowered the barrier to entry for hundreds, if not thousands of startups by taking on the infrastructure and basic IT services and capabilities. In a matter of minutes, a company can spin up servers, databases, and machine-learning processing that would likely take have cost their company a fair number of employees, a significant capital investment, and a lengthy period of time. This investment in the global economy – to include the U.S. economy – goes unmeasured. And while we’re pointing out this investment, companies are not the only ones to benefit. As I write this, I sit at AWS’ Public Sector Summit where Amazon highlights what they and their partners are doing for the public sector to include federal, state, and local governments, education, and non-profits. The federal government is a direct beneficiary of Amazon’s recurring reinvestments and innovations. Without it, I would shudder to think where some of our agencies would be in their IT solutions.

I’m not an Amazon apologist and I think at some point the country needs to look at a revised “monopoly” approach for companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. but in the case against Amazon over their federal taxes, I clearly think it’s a lame argument.

Pretty sure this is from the movie. Close enough.

Today, the Czar took both boys to the cinema house to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters. True fact: we just had to look that up because the Czar totally forgot the formal name of the movie.

This is a weird situation: the trailer for this movie was a home run: scenes of monstrous destruction set to Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” with astonishing color-matched visuals, so much so that the boys agreed they needed to see that movie the weekend it came out. Folks also raved about the trailer, and months later, the film itself arrived to largely-absent ticket sales. Critics can’t seem to figure this out, and neither can audiences. Preview audiences liked it, but didn’t. Critics recommend you either see it or not. Usually in the same review.

Long-time Godzilla movie fans weren’t sure how to describe it, either. “Well,” the accounts seem to go, “The monsters are great, but the humans in the movie are utter dumbasses, with questionable acting, bad guys who seem to have no real goal or purpose, and an annoying kid who seems to have some bond with the monsters never fully explained.” In other words, just like every single Godzilla movie ever. That’s like saying you might have liked Bohemian Rhapsody if only it didn’t have that Queen music in it.

The annoying kid is played by Millie Bobbie Brown, whom you better know as Eleven from Stranger Things, and she’s a genuinely brilliant actress given a role that could have been played by anyone. Or even written out entirely. Ahem.

Speaking of eleven, guess how many people were in our theater, today? Counting the Czar and the boys? Yup, eleven. Needless to say, we got really perfect seats, centered in the stereo sweet spot. The Czar knows how to pick them, and literally up until the lights dimmed for the 35-minute trailer onslaught, we three were the only ones in the theater at all. By the way, based on the trailer package we saw, we are guessing that the movie industry has no clue what to do now that Avengers: Endgame is wrapped. Sheesh. We happy less-than-few.

Look, you’re probably wondering if you should see this movie. And the answer is probably not.

The movie requires two things of you: you really ought to be a Godzilla fan (to the point that you can spot the “Mo-su-ra….yah!” song embedded in the superb soundtrack, and that you kind-of enjoyed its twp predecessors: 2014’s Godzilla and 2017’s Kong movie, whatever that was called. The Czar liked the first, but totally missed the Kong movie because (a) it was only in theaters for about a day and (b) is currently shown solely on cable television on some channel called FilmPlex Action Plus, which is part of a channel package including the Minor League LaCrosse network, the रूमानी सुखान्तिकी channel, and a mime channel the Czar doesn’t want to pay for.

If neither category describes you, you will probably find this movie an irritating mess. Who are these guys? Why are they fighting? When did that monster develop that power? What the hell is that? If you know your 1960s-1970s Godzilla movie history, you won’t ask these questions because you will either know the answer or won’t care. You want to see the monsters bash each other’s brains in, plus a couple of American cities you already don’t like get wasted in them.

Does this movie matter? Maybe we got spoiled by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (“Hey, see how Wasp put that pencil down on that night stand? I bet that becomes incredibly important eight movies from now!”), but no, this movie doesn’t matter. Adults taking little kids to see this Godzilla movie should feel certain the kids will be entertained, but don’t expect that any of this will make sense to you. Littler kids, say under 9 years old, might find some scenes pretty intense (not scary-scary, but pretty nail-biting), and would do better seeing this movie at home where they can pause, catch a breath, and hide behind mom. And kids 5 and under probably shouldn’t see this one at all, especially in a theater. These monsters are neither cute nor friendly.

But if you like Godzilla movies, including the weird B-plots about bad guys, double agents, precocious kids saving adults from their own stupidity, impossible flying paramilitaries crossing the globe in impossibly short times, then enjoy this one, because it’s a doozy. The music is great, the monsters are excellently realized, the destruction really brutal, and the perils fairly well thought through. And there’s a bunch of clever and easily-spotted Easter eggs for you.

Mo-su-ra….ya!

The stock market closed around 26,500 last Friday afternoon, although at 9:30 that morning, it was at 26,160. That’s a 1% difference. Interestingly, it was at 26,500 on Thursday afternoon, so even if you were one of the very few affected by little drop, you made your money back.

Crazy, huh? Here’s how CNN reported this: Dow Futures Plummet 400 Points After Trump Renews Tariff Threat on China.

Plummet! Yes, like if gas goes down three cents a gallon, we can say its price plummeted.

Or if Joe Biden’s polling numbers go from 39% to 38%, we can say his support has plummeted.

Or if CNN’s ratings drop another 1%, we can say viewership has plummeted.

A 90-degree turn to the left is all it takes!

The Czar would love to link that headline for you, but CNN already revised it to Global Stocks Drop After Trump Risks ‘Full-On’ Trade War with China. You might click on that link later and see if it’s been changed again.

So why the hyperbole? Why would CNN portray an hours-long dip in the Dow as a plummet, which implies a disastrous free-fall?

Probably because the economic news is really good, and Democrats can’t win a presidency unless the economy is rocky. So by using scare words, you create the perception among Americans that, hey, maybe things aren’t so good right now. This way, you can create enough fear, uncertainty, and doubt to encourage Americans to hold off on buying the house, that car, or that new washer/dryer combo with the wireless smart-app feature that texts you when your laundry is done. And, just maybe, you get enough Americans to hold off that you can trigger a slowdown.

Any slowdown is a recession to the news media, regardless of how many quarters of non-growth you see. RECESSION LOOMS, the drumbeat goes, on so many media stories today.

Recessions get Democrats elected, even if they have to cause them themselves.

Consider this headline: Dow Briefly Dips 1% Before Regaining. Know which media outlet carried that one? None of them.

Here’s another thought for you. Summarizing the CNN story, we learn that President Trump threatened new tariffs on Chinese goods. We learned that three global markets saw their indices drop by single-digit percentages, but the Dow and oil futures made up what they lost.

We also learned the Chinese were annoyed, and that a real trade-war between the US and China would cause a reaction. No kidding. But after a week of record-breaking highs, Friday morning’s dip was the biggest dip in weeks, just before recovering.

That doesn’t sound so bad. But you know what the article doesn’t explain? How exactly does Trump’s threat correlate to this small, momentary dip in the global markets? Sure, they happened at the same time, but you know what else happened Friday morning?

Lots of stuff. There’s no direct link—presented in the article—between the Trump statement and the plunge. Could there be? Absolutely, and almost certainly there was some effect; but if so, it was minor.

Here’s a bit of advice: whenever any news outlet “explains” why stocks drop or rise, check to see if most other financial sources generally agree. They won’t. If you Google Friday’s drop, you’ll see that many diverse sources cite the Trump threat as the cause, specifically using the word “plummet,” indicating they’re all using the same source and not doing independent research.

And this requires no explanation: few financial folks will ever cite a specific cause for why the market does anything. Phrases like “on fears of,” “as a result of,” or “in expectation of” are bullshit explanations to pad out the story. The only real story is that prices are trending up or trending down (bulls and bears), and finding a specific explanation for day-to-day shifts are imaginary. It’s like blaming colder temperatures tomorrow on magazine sales or on a sea cruise cancellation.

The political origin of this style of reporting is obvious, as well. If the economy keeps booming every couple of weeks, Republicans are going to coast into an easy victory in 2020. Since this outcome is unacceptable, you will see two counter-strategies employed by Democrats: the first is RECESSION LOOMS, in hopes that consumer confidence is shaken enough to cause a real one, and the second is all sorts of twisting and gyrations to convince voters that the Democrats are actually responsible for the good times.

We’re already seeing a bit of the latter: but because Democrats promised America that Trump’s economic policies would wreak utter devastation on the land, there’s precious little to cite as proof. As a result, we have already seen the claim that the powerhouse economy was the result of President Obama, not Trump. Except, as you know, Obama isn’t running in 2020; this has less effect.

What if President Obama were president today?

That CNN headline would probably look like this: Obama’s Tough Trade Talk Lowers Prices for First-Time Investors. It’s exactly as plausible.

As President Trump’s second term grows increasingly likely by the day, expect to see more RECESSION LOOMS headlines. Who knows? Maybe the Democrats will be lucky enough to genuinely cause one. They certainly have willing helpers in the media.

Tony Stark and Black Widow bring a bit of class to every fight scene.

Anyway, forget about all that: Avengers: Endgame is out in theaters, and the Czar took up nearly his entire weekend watching it once. No doubt, you’ve got questions, so here’s our spoiler-free take on the movie.

Is it as long as they say?

Yes, all told, counting all 22 Marvel Studios movies that play into this, the movie is about 778 hours long.

When should I go to the bathroom during the movie?

Anytime you like! The Czar openly advocates urinating in the theater seats. Everybody else does.

Are there any good ways to ruin the movie for others?

Certainly! Feel free to park your car in the theater and leave the brights on. Or shoot off fireworks during the scary parts. The Czar took a different approach today and hurled a full hornet hive like a football right into the front seats.

How crowded was the theater?

Very, but not as bad as the crowd waiting for the next showing. And we hear the one after that was even longer! Frankly, if you haven’t seen it by this point, the lines will be over six miles long. So don’t bother.

Are there any surprise cameos in the movie?

Lots. Seeing Wayne Gretzky back in full uniform was great, as was Carl Ballantine. If you’re looking for cameos from other Marvel Studios movies, this one is chock-full, including the guy from Iron Man who nods at the press conference at the end, Guard #2 from Thor: the Dark World, and Irate Customer from Age of Ultron. One of the boys swears he saw Confused Kid from Iron Man 3, but that’s doubtful seeing how that actor’s relationship soured with the studio.

Anybody coming back from previous movies?

Yes! The assistant standby painter in Endgame is the same one as Black Panther.

Popcorn any good?

Not bad, although we blew through a medium bucket in the same time we normally go through a small…meaning, about 20 minutes into the movie.

Seriously, couldn’t the have cut anything out of this film to make it shorter?

The directors swear that cutting even two seconds of this movie destroy the entire structural narrative; however, there are definitely a few scenes that warranted some editing down. There’s a scene where Black Widow reads an entire phone book trying to remember the name of a pizza place (“all I remember is it had a vowel in it,”), War Machine takes an online course in college-level trig, and right at the beginning, Hawkeye attends a complete, three-hour, Greek Orthodox mass.

Bring the pets or nah?

Leave the animals at home. The movie is loud, you have to pay attention, and the theater is carpeted.

Is this another one where that guy does that thing?

Yep, he totally does.