The design failure of SE Linux?
Buckle up, folks. Let’s embark on a wild and whimsical journey into the quirky world of SE Linux. Oh yes, we’re diving deep into the mysterious realm of this oh-so-important “security” thingamajig, which may sound a bit dull, but trust us, it’s secretly fascinating. Grab your virtual popcorn and Starbucks, sit back, and let’s unravel this enigmatic Linux subsystem together! Let’s explore.
What is SE Linux?
SE Linux stands for Security Enhanced Linux (SEL); a catch phrase more or less. Developers love giving their add-ons names like SE Linux. In reality, what does SE Linux actually do? The name doesn’t really say. It does say it has something to do with security, but short of digging deep into documentation, you really have no idea what SE Linux really is.
Let me start by saying that SE Linux makes Linux incompatible with standard written applications. Why? Security Enhanced Linux attempts to lock down the internals of Linux, but it does so in a way that breaks nearly every single regular application ever written. In essence, enabling SE Linux is sure to break all of your third party apps.
Why does SE Linux break the apps? Because SE Linux is given complete control to restrict access of components down to the function() call level and down to a content serving level. What that means is that a function call like execve() could receive “access denied” if a program were to attempt to use it with SE Linux enabled… yes, even if the program is operating as “root” user. Even serving up HTTP content over a path that shouldn’t have HTTP content could be denied.
Because the “root” user has always had unbridled access to EVERYTHING in an operating system, allowing SE Linux to constrain the “root” user’s access to no more than a regular user automatically breaks the idea of what Linux is.
SE Linux Modes
Before getting too deep into the weeds, someone is likely to point out that there are two modes to SE Linux when operating: 1) Permissive and 2) Enforcing. Unfortunately, the “Permissive” mode isn’t as permissive as one would hope and it’s a more-or-less useless operating mode intended strictly for testing purposes. Even enabling “Permissive” can still break applications simply because “Permissive” isn’t exactly the same has having SE Linux disabled entirely.
When SE Linux is entirely disabled, this is (and was) the natural state of Linux (and UNIX) since the day UNIX was first introduced. The problem is, SE Linux was designed by the NSA (National Security Agency) as patches to Linux and, more specifically, to Linux’s kernel. The NSA isn’t really a software developer. As such, this agency has shoe-horned into Linux a system that not only fundamentally breaks UNIX, it fundamentally changes Linux and UNIX into something other than UNIX.
UNIX was founded on the principal that it should work in a very specific way, a way that enhances computing. Unfortunately, SE Linux has shoehorned its way into the operating system as a watchdog system that’s sole purpose is to get in the way of computing; to be that crossing guard who throws up a STOP sign and prevents you from crossing… even if you’re a firetruck on the way to a fire.
Linux Security
Linux has always been a relatively secure operating system, so long as you maintain good password quality, close down unnecessary and unneeded services, regularly maintain security patches and utilize best practices when installing new software. Combining all of these proactive management best practices with a solid firewall, it’s relatively unheard of for a Linux system to be broken into, let alone exploited with malicious code. Nearly all deployed malicious code found on Linux servers is due to hackers having gained root access to the server and then manually having installed it.
Yet, the NSA felt that it was necessary to effectively break Linux to introduce a “new” watchdog system that watches every system call being used on the operating system. More than just watching it, it must interfere with some of these calls, preventing them from occurring.
This doesn’t just break Linux, it guts Linux into oblivion. It’s no wonder then why the vast majority of sites (and managers) running Linux, disable SE Linux as first thing before deploying a new server. Who wants to have to deal with broken software?
Third Party Software
You would think third party software manufacturers would have embraced SE Linux due to its alleged extra security. Instead, you’d have thought wrong. Most manufacturers still don’t embrace SE Linux due to its hodge-podge nature. It doesn’t help that most systems administrators and systems managers also don’t understand SE Linux or its internals… but that’s not the real problem.
The real problem is the developers. Developers build their software on laptops and other convenient computers running Linux, but they disable SE Linux so that it doesn’t get in their way when writing code. Writing and testing code is difficult enough without having to debug SE Linux when code failures begin. By disabling SE Linux, developers take that annoyance out of the equation. Rightly so. Why have a subsystem enabled that’s sole purpose is to get in your way?
The problem is, without developing code WITH SE Linux running, that throws the problem onto the systems administrators and/or systems engineers to solve after-the-fact. The developer is all, “Here you go” (handing the system engineer the finished software), leaving the systems engineer the problem of attempting to get the software working with SE Linux enabled. Most times, that ask is impossible. A systems engineer doesn’t have access to the source code. So, they can’t guide the developer to rewrite or redo portions of the code to make it compatible with SE Linux.
What that ultimately means is that SE Linux gets disabled on production servers simply to deploy that developer’s code. Without every developer both enabling and understanding SE Linux on their development servers and, most importantly, using it during software development, there is no way a systems administrator or systems engineer can make it work with SE Linux after-the-fact. Software is either designed to work properly within the constraints of SE Linux or it is not.
This is the fundamental problem with the compatibility level of SE Linux. This is also a primary design failure of SE Linux by the NSA, that and SEL’s failure to actually secure the server. In other words, new subsystems must remain fully backward compatible to what has come before. If it can’t remain backwards compatible, then it ultimately won’t be used… and that’s actually where we are.
DOD and SE Linux
To be certified by the Department of Defense (DOD) per Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) compliance, a UNIX system must enable SE Linux as ‘Enforcing’ (the strongest level offered). For those companies who wish to do business with the government, or more specifically with the Department of Defense, STIG compliance is a must. By extension, STIG compliance does mean enabling SE Linux (in among a whole slew of additional DOD security requirements).
Businesses must then make a choice. Seek to do business with the US Government or not. If you’re running Linux operating systems as part of whatever service you intend to offer to the US Government, you must comply with the requirements defined in the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA’s) STIGs (which, as stated above, includes enabling SE Linux… and all that falls out of that).
Are there ways around SE Linux’s Incompatibility?
Yes, but it’s not always easy or fast. Heads up. This is the dull part. So as not to dive too deep into the sysadmin weeds as to why, here’s a comprehensive RedHat guide of SE Linux’s incompatibility (and how to get around it all). However, we will still need to dive deep enough to get this article’s point across.
For example, customizing an HTTP configuration as so (a normal thing to do for Apache HTTP), yet this customization would yield the following problems when SE Linux is enabled:
The http package is installed and the Apache HTTP server is configured to listen on TCP port 3131 and to use the /var/test_www/ directory instead of the default /var/www directory or the default port of 80. # systemctl start httpd # systemctl status httpd ... httpd[14523]: (13)Permission denied: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:3131 ... systemd[1]: Failed to start The Apache HTTP Server.
With SE Linux disabled on a Linux system, Apache’s HTTP server would happily start up just fine. With SE Linux enabled and set to ‘Enforcing‘, starting httpd with the above modified config, you’ll see “Permission Denied” at the point when httpd attempts to bind to port 3131.
It gets worse. To modify SE Linux to allow httpd to listen on port 3131, you have to execute the following SE Linux permission modification command:
semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp 3131
That’s just the beginning. Even after executing this semanage command… then restarting HTTP, the change in directory yields the following error when attempting to retrieve content:
# wget localhost:3131/index.html
...
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 403 Forbidden
Why 403 Forbidden? Well duh…
# sealert -l "*"
...
SELinux is preventing httpd from getattr access on the
file /var/test_www/html/index.html.
...
SE Linux has prevented access to the getattr() function for /var/test_www/html/index.html. This again requires manually reconfiguring SE Linux to allow this new directory location for httpd. Though, we must understand why SE Linux doesn’t like this path and file.
# matchpathcon /var/www/html /var/test_www/html
/var/www/html system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0
/var/test_www/html system_u:object_r:var_t:s0
The SE Linux command matchpathcon (so intuitively named here) determines that the content type used in /var/www/html (the standard default location) isn’t the same as what’s defined for /var/test_www/html. Thus, SE Linux won’t allow HTML content to be served from that customized directory when HTML content is not defined. Can we say, “minutiae?” I knew that you could.
That means redefining the content type for /var/test_www/html to allow serving httpd_sys_content_t type. To do that, a system admin would need to execute the following:
# semanage fcontext -a -e /var/www /var/test_www
BUT, that command executed just above doesn’t actually do it recursively for all files and dirs within /var/test_www. Oh, no no no. Now you have to run yet another command to force recursion to set all sub-directories and files to allow for httpd_sys_content_t type of data. You do that with…
# restorecon -Rv /var/
...
Relabeled /var/test_www/html from unconfined_u:object_r:var_t:s0 to
unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0
Relabeled /var/test_www/html/index.html from unconfined_u:object_r:var_t:s0 to
unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0
A systems administrator can spend all of the above time to do all of this additional reconfiguration work each and every time a new web directory is needed…. OR, a systems administrator can disable SE Linux and avoid all of this work.
Janitorial Work
Even if you don’t understand a word of what was said just above, it’s easy to see that it’s an absolute mess. Not only does SE Linux require a systems administrator to configure all of this extra junk, it requires a systems administrator to understand all of the above NEW commands needed to manage SE Linux AND have a firm grasp of all of these commands’ nuances and quirks. Even missing one tiny thing can cause the whole application to break or fail to work in unexplained ways.
For example, the 403 Forbidden error could have led an inexperienced systems admin down a rabbit hole simply because they don’t know that SE Linux is enabled as ‘Enforcing’. Such inexperience might not allow putting two-and-two together to understand that SE Linux is actually the culprit.
It’s easy to see why many, many businesses running Linux make it a policy to instantly disable SE Linux. If your company is not doing business with the government, there’s no need to make your systems administrators do all of this extra work when they could be performing other more critical tasks.
On the flip side, if your business is currently negotiating with the DOD for a contract, then you better get your systems administrators trained up quick on SE Linux. More than this, you better run an audit to determine which software your business uses to determine if this software is easily made compatible with SE Linux. Hint: it probably isn’t easy.
DOD Exceptions?
Does the DOD allow for exceptions? Yes, but limited and likely only for a limited time. Meaning, if you can’t enable SE Linux right away due to software limitations, you’ll need to document exactly why. Even then, your team better have a plan to get SE Linux implemented soon or else your contract might dry up. It only takes another vendor to step up that IS fully compliant with DISA STIGS for your company to lose its contract.
Does SE Linux improve security?
This is actually a very good question. The short answer is, no. SE Linux requires a system administrator to drastically increase workload to manage application permissions. However, SE Linux also forces an administrator to explicitly define permissions for each application down to incredible minutia. Once that long-tailed convoluted configuration is complete, the application then works again like it always has (i.e., without SE Linux).
Here’s the key! Because most exploits rely on standard app functionality to work, SE Linux would happily allow an exploit to occur simply via performing that application’s normal functions. The only exception would be is if the systems administrator explicitly disallowed use of specific system function calls. However, if an application uses that function call even once during normal operation, having the system administrator disallow that call could cause the application to fail in very unexpected ways, possibly even leading to an OS cascade failure / core dump.
Further, SE Linux is effectively an enhanced permissions system, but it does nothing to watchdog an application’s behaviors to ensure that the application itself is functioning correctly or normally.
What this further means is that a system administrator would need to become a software developer to read through and understand the entire application’s source code to know when or if an application uses a specific function call that the administrator wishes to deny. While many systems administrators can be programmers, not all of them are. More than this, many systems administrators who can code are barely more than novices. Were a systems administrator actually a software developer in disguise, then why would they remain a systems administrator by trade? Thus, most systems administrators know enough to read some code (i.e., novice), but not enough to actually write complex code.
Let’s take this one step further. Putting a system administrator in the position of unilaterally denying access to specific function calls is not what systems administrators are tasked to do. That’s defining policy. That’s not an SA’s job. Expecting an SA to take on this type of job turns an SA into a security manager or policy manager, not a systems administrator. Systems administration is exactly how those two words sound: administration of systems. Meaning, management of systems, making sure those systems operate fine, occasionally install software and/or operating systems, manage configurations of systems and debug it all when it doesn’t work correctly. Systems administrators are even tasked with winding down old hardware and systems to dispose of them.
Systems administrators don’t make policy, but will enforce policy as defined by managers… so long as that policy makes sense and doesn’t interfere with the operation of the network, server or application. However, not all systems administrators are knowledgeable enough to foresee if any specific policy change might end in bad results.
Policy Implementation
Here’s a situation that can get systems administrators into hot water easily. Managers all congregate and decide to implement a new policy that execve() cannot be called from within any application. The policy is handed to a systems administrator to implement. The SA is relatively new and doesn’t understand either the systems fully or the software operating on those systems. The SA does understand SE Linux enough to implement the change as requested and, thus, does so.
Within an hour (or less), the company’s primary paid application is down, the servers are behaving erratically, memory is spiking and the systems are actually crashing and rebooting. Effectively, the business’s servers are down.
Here’s a situation where the company’s executives made an unwise and untested decision and forced implementation down onto a person with very little experience. The person happily obliged thinking the managers already knew it would work. Why would these managers expect a new SA to jump through many hoops testing all of this? The SA would assume that if the request landed on his/her desk, it must already be tested.
Yet, it wasn’t. Here’s the rub. Because the SA did the actual work to implement the change to the systems, the SA will be held responsible for the outage (possibly up to and including termination). Ideas from managers never get blamed. The people who get blamed are the systems administrators who “should have known better” and, specifically, the person who actually “pulled the trigger” by performing the configuration change.
Enabling SE Linux as ‘Enforcing’ is the same situation. If you ask your SA team to implement this change without performing any testing, then expect your business to go down. Almost no applications are properly configured to handle SE Linux set to ‘Enforcing’ prior to enabling it.
Heading down the SE Linux Road
If a company wishes to implement SE Linux as ‘Enforcing’, then you best test, test, test and then test some more. You can’t just turn SEL on like a light and expect it all to work just as it had. Making this decision means testing. More than this, it means ensuring all systems administrators are not only familiar with SE Linux itself (and its commands), but also are familiar with all applications installed and running on the company’s servers.
Once SEL is enabled, the applications are likely to begin failing unless the systems administrators have already configured those specific applications under SEL before.
What have we learned?
Let’s explore all that we’ve learned about SE Linux.
- SE Linux is a deep dive permissions system add-on for Linux. It primarily enhances security through obscurity. We already know that security through obscurity doesn’t work.
- SE Linux is fraught with peril. Unless systems administrators are properly trained to both understand SEL and how to configure apps under SEL, enabling SEL can lead to problems.
- SE Linux doesn’t improve security because once apps are configured under SEL, they are just as vulnerable to being exploited as if SEL were not enabled.
- SE Linux increases workload for systems administrators because not only do they need to do their normal Linux administration jobs, they must also deep dive into SE Linux a lot to make sure it is and remains correctly configured and functional.
- SE Linux is an overall hassle to manage.
- SE Linux is not required unless you’re attempting to win a contract with the United States Department of Defense.
Overall, the design behind SE Linux seemed to have noble intentions. Unfortunately, SE Linux is actually much the same as requiring someone to spend time hanging padlocks off of a chain-link fence as illustrated in this article’s opening. Unfortunately, those padlocks don’t serve to protect that fence. The fence is still doing all of the protection work.
However, these padlocks symbolize the exact way that SE Linux attempts to protect an operating system. The operating system is the chain link fence… and the OS does all of the protection. The padlocks (SEL) only serve to clutter up that fence, but don’t actually do much of anything to improve security.
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Analysis: Jack Smith’s 2020 Election Indictment
Let me start this article out by saying that I am not a Republican, nor do I much like Donald Trump either as a politician or as a person. He’s a vile, pathological lying, bigoted and overall crass person. The man literally has almost no redeeming values. With that said, I also don’t like when even the vilest of persons, like Donald Trump, isn’t getting a fair shake. Let’s explore.
Jack Smith’s 2020 Election Indictment
I recently published a news article discussing this very indictment. I’ve withheld making any comments over this indictment solely because that information was newsworthy. Meaning, passing along this information timely to Randocity’s readers was important. Yes, it is important. However, there are some problems with this indictment that few news channels are discussing. The first and biggest problem is…
Presidential Immunity
Many of the statements included in Jack Smith’s indictment were made while then President Trump was still a sitting President. He made the statements while officially holding the office of President of the United States.
The President of the United States is entitled to Absolute Presidential Immunity, shielding the President from lawsuits while performing business as President. However, some in the judicial system believe that Presidential Immunity is not absolute, meaning that criminal conduct performed by the President (outside of Presidential job responsibilities) may not be immune from prosecution.
I’m not convinced that that’s the correct course for the United States. While I don’t want rogue Presidents performing illegal criminal actions, I also don’t want the DOJ able to apply spurious lawsuits on either a sitting President or, more importantly, a former President after-the-fact.
The question remains, were the statements that President Trump made regarding January 6th and those involving the placement of fake electors considered within the job role of President? While I would love to say, “No”, I am not in a position to make that judgement. Only a court can. That means it’s the responsibility of Jack Smith to have a court determine if Trump’s statements are admissible towards the case he is bringing. Meaning, many of the statements made by Trump included in Jack Smith’s indictment were made while Donald Trump was still President.
The question is then whether the statements are protected by Presidential Immunity. Jack Smith would need to first establish if any or all of Trump’s statements can be admitted as evidence or if they must be excluded as part of Presidential Immunity that Trump held at the time.
“At the time”
Here’s another problem that is born out of the above. Presidential Immunity is clearly active while a person is actively holding office as President of the United States. Once a person leaves office and becomes a former President, all of the acts performed AS PRESIDENT should still remain protected under Presidential Immunity. If not, it means that as a former President, all actions made by a then President can, at the time they become an ex-President, become fodder for criminal litigation.
If America starts trying and convicting each and every President as soon as they leave office, where are we as nation? More than this, does Presidential Immunity really exist? No. Actions performed by a President during his or her tenure in office must remain sacrosanct even after leaving office. Those actions were performed while faithfully executing the duties as President. Even when the person leaves office and becomes an ex-President, those Presidential years remain a sacrosanct bubble protected by Presidential Immunity in perpetuity. That means that an ex-President cannot be tried for actions performed WHILE President after becoming an ex-President.
This should go without saying. If America allows the justice system to begin prosecuting every former President for actions performed while in office, who would ever want to become President?
However, any person who is not President CAN be tried and convicted for actions performed while NOT President, either before being elected or after becoming an ex-President.
Jack Smith is Barking up the Wrong Tree
There were many ways a lawsuit could manifest against Donald Trump involving January 6th, such as involving Treason and Sedition, neither of which are named in Jack’s current lawsuit as charges. Both Treason and Sedition are high enough and serious enough crimes that these charges would easily negate Presidential Immunity by a landslide. After all, no President should need to ever perform Sedition or Treason in the execution of Presidential duties and responsibilities.
On the other hand, the four counts levied by Jack Smith are as follows:
- 18 U.S.C. § 371 — Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
- 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k) — Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
- 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)(2), 2 — Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
- 18 U.S.C. § 241 — Conspiracy against Rights
These obstruction and plain-old conspiracy charges don’t instantly negate Presidential Immunity. In fact, these charges are a bit open for being contested. These above crimes are not necessarily serious enough to warrant dropping Presidential Immunity over them and can also be interpreted in ways that make the prosecutor appear prejudicial (i.e., biased) towards the defendant.
Thus, the indictment Jack Smith has brought is fraught with problems, specifically around statements and actions made and also the specific charges being levied, all while Donald Trump still actively held Presidential Immunity.
Unnamed co-conspirators hold no such immunity from prosecution. These people should be brought up on charges for the actions they performed and statements they made around the 2020 Election, including newscasters and congressional members. However, Donald Trump’s statements and actions shouldn’t be used to prosecute Donald Trump while Trump still held Presidential Immunity, at least not until Jack Smith has a court determine which statements (and actions) ARE and ARE NOT protected by that Immunity. Until the Presidential Immunity issue is resolved, Jack Smith is barking up the wrong prosecutorial tree.
In fact, Jack’s whole indictment now actually does look like a witch hunt as Donald Trump suggests. Without first resolving whether Trump’s statements were protect by Presidential Immunity, transcribing those statements into an indictment is extremely risky and premature AND makes Jack Smith look like he’s rushing to get this lawsuit done, but quite improperly and with prejudice.
A prosecutor can’t simply dismiss steps because they’re inconvenient or slow the process. Unfortunately, making missteps like this only serves to weaken Jack’s case against Donald Trump, probably giving Trump the opportunity to have the entire case dismissed based on prejudicial treatment.
Instead, I would have preferred if Jack Smith had had a court first determine whether the statements transcribed are or are not, in fact, protected by Presidential Immunity. Let’s resolve this issue first. If some or all statements are protected by Presidential Immunity, then the statements cannot be held as evidence against Donald Trump or against Donald Trump’s alleged actions for the charges being levied.
Better, revise the charges to include Sedition and Treason so that there is no question as to whether Presidential Immunity is involved.
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Rant Time: Twitter’s Rebrand Suicide
In an odd move, Elon Musk has now officially thrown out the baby with the bathwater in Twitter’s rebrand to ‘X’. Yes, Elon Musk has officially rebranded Twitter to the single letter ‘X’. This will be short and sweet. Let’s explore.
X as a brand
Let’s jump right into this extremely questionable change. Twitter, as its former brand, had built extremely strong brand loyalty. From the cute and very much G-rated iconic blue bird to the light featured microblogging interface of the platform itself. Arguably, that small blue bird told you everything you needed to know about Twitter at first glance. There was no brand confusion between Twitter, the Twitter bird icon and any other platform or industry. Twitter was (and is) an entirely unique brand. Twitter even went so far as to define a new word in our vernacular as ‘tweet’ to signify the small microblog conversations on the platforms. Twitter was (and perhaps still is) about as strong a brand identifier as anyone could ever hope to produce for a product… and now it’s being totally thrown away.
On the other hand, ‘X’ has too many other uses and connotations in both the technology industry and in other industries, such as within Motion Pictures. Yeah…
I mean, why would you abscond with a single letter as a brand; a letter that, within the porn motion picture industry signifies adult content? X is also used by operating system designers for X11 or simply X for short, the graphical user interface server. Even Mac OS X’s branding could be conflated… and that’s perhaps what Elon is hoping. Between X-rated movie content and X utilized in the operating systems including with Mac OS X, the branding of ‘X’ is ripe for confusion and conflation. It’s even the middle letter in the word toXic, which Twitter has fully become since Musk’s takeover.
X also signifies crossing letters, words or phrases out and it sometimes even means ‘deletion’. Twitter was always about creating new content, never about deleting it or marking it out. It’s an odd play to buy a domain and rebrand when ‘X’, in terms of writing prose, has always signified deletion, hiding or marking something out. Again, this is a completely negative general connotation when applied to writing prose.
In other words, X is probably the worst brand identifier anyone could possibly choose for any site, least of all for Twitter!!??
Flipping the Bird
Elon Musk seems intent on flipping the bird at all things Dorsey. In that vein, Musk has questionably decided to rebrand Twitter to something other than Twitter. Um… Okay. However, rebranding is not necessarily a smart idea, but so be it. It even seems that Elon has thrown away yet more money to obtain the one letter domain x.com to support the rebranding (which this domain purchase probably cost him no less than $50k, but probably closer to $1 million or more), which at this moment redirects to Twitter.com.
(Note: Not linkifying any of Twitter’s domains in this article is entirely intentional. If you wish to visit any of the domains stated, you will need to type the domains into your browser manually.)
Clearly, Elon seems intent on replacing twitter.com with x.com at some point in the future. There are probably too many technologies within Twitter’s own internal software stack which reference the twitter.com domain name to change to x.com instantly. Redirection is the easiest (and laziest) first step.
Branding Difficulties?
The problem with this ‘X’ branding is not only its bad connotations around the porn industry, the colors chosen also embolden a very dark look. Dark grey and black brandings don’t say light and cheery. X’s color choices and even the letter itself say “dark and sinister.” Because X looms large with already existing, huge negative connotations, attempting to apply that to a site which is intended to offer a small, light microblogging interface that’s intended to be both fun and informational only serves to change the meaning and tone of this site in the negative.
Twitter has already embodied negative connotations ever since Musk took over. With his questionable foray into allowing the MAGA extremists back onto the site, allowing those bad actors to spew both conspiratorial and provably false rhetoric, Twitter is no longer a safe space. Twitter’s once light, safe environment disappeared the instant Musk took over, now solidified by this ‘X’ branding change.
Since Musk, Twitter has become an unsafe haven for negative, false and useless information. It is also a new toXic cesspool of hate and violence speech. If that’s what Musk was going for with the X branding, then well done. You’ve succeeded in turning Twitter into a toXic cesspool of false rhetoric, hate and violence.
Death Knell
With this rebranding to X, the only thing I expect to see is the final remaining advertisers to abandon what’s left of Musk’s quickly sinking website. Why would you, as an advertiser, want to associate your advertising brand with a brand identity that appears to be associated with negative adult content? Yeah. Not smart, but then we already knew that Elon Musk’s intelligence was limited to salesmanship, not in operating technology sites.
With this extremely questionable rebranding, I fully expect Twitter to wind down operations within 6-9 months… closing its doors soon after. There’s honestly no way to bring a modicum of safety or even the idea of safety to a site branded as ‘X’.
X doesn’t say, “safe.” On the contrary, this new branding says, toXic, adult porn content. If Musk wanted an intense uphill battle to try and change this letter’s already mired past uses, changing to X is the perfect way to get that challenge; a challenge I don’t think Musk is smart enough to win. Here you had a perfect branding with Twitter and the blue bird. Then, the current owner abandons it over a single letter that appears dark and sinister and which is mired in both adult content connotations and other technology uses. Nope, Musk is not very smart at all!
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Should I install Instagram’s Threads?
If you’re looking for guidance on installing any new software, you should always review the privacy policies, data retention policies and methods of deleting that data for any company providing a service. Let’s explore.
Instagram and Meta
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, wholly owns Instagram and now the new companion app released for Instagram called Threads. Threads is not a new app. It is, in fact, an old Instagram app that was discontinued in 2021… only to be born anew in 2023 with a new Twitter-like interface.
The problem with this app isn’t that it looks and feels like Twitter, but that is a problem which might born legal issues for Meta. No, the problem with Threads is who owns and operates this app.
If you already have an Instagram account and you enjoy using it, adding on Threads is likely not a problem. You likely already understand the pitfalls of owning an Instagram account.
On the other hand, if you have dropped using Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and all other apps produced by Meta, then downloading Threads is out of the question.
Data Retention and Data Removal
We already know that Meta never removes any data on request. The best that Meta will ever do is disable an account. That’s it. Data stored on Meta’s servers remains there forever. Meta never purges data not even upon request.
What that means is that if you’re on the fence about installing Meta’s new Threads, you should be extremely cautious about installing this app and agreeing to those services. Threads may look like Twitter and act like Twitter, but the data you input into Threads will be stored and collected by Meta forever.
Even users who have attempted to delete Threads data or their account have already run into a roadblock over this issue.
Another, who already apparently signed up, was similarly displeased: “We can’t delete our threads account without deleting our Instagram? They knew people would instantly hate it so they made it a saw trap.”
Source: Fortune
What that means is that if you already have an established Instagram account, you cannot delete anything you write into Threads without also deleting your Instagram account. Be cautious when thinking about installing Threads.
Knowing Who You Are
Because Meta acts much like LexisNexis in data gathering involving its users both on and off Meta’s sites, Meta can easily correlate all of their stored data and know exactly who you are just by having their app installed on a specific phone device. This means that there is no way to hide who you are from Meta. Meta’s data aggregation and collection goes way beyond normal and into the frighteningly dangerous territory.
It’s even worse than it sounds. Meta collects data on everyone it possibly can, whether they have an account on Meta’s platforms or not. What this means is that if you become a new user to Facebook, Meta will find and link any previously collected data about you to your new Facebook profile. You may think your account is new, but in reality Facebook might have years worth of purchase history, web browsing history and other rather creepy, stalking data about you now attached to your brand new account profile. All of this data you have absolutely no control over. You might not even know that it’s attached as Meta is great at hiding the fact that they perform data collection and aggregation in the first place.
What does this mean for Threads?
Threads may seem like an innocent application to install, but because of the sheer ugly way that Meta handles its user’s data, it could actually turn into a nightmare for you. It only takes one “problematic” Threads message and you may end up with real world consequences. Attempting to delete your Thread data seems impossible at the moment.
Deactivation
What Meta typically tends to offer is hiding of data. What that means for you is that if you deactivate your account, the best that Instagram offers at this moment is that your Threads data should no longer remain visible to the Internet through Meta’s interfaces. However, your data still sits on a Meta server somewhere for a data breach to occur and be leaked to the public.
What deactivation means is no security at all. It simply covers Meta’s method of wanting to retain all data it collects, but at the same time attempts to placate users by hiding that data from prying eyes, at least for this moment in time.
Data Value and Threads
Unfortunately, Meta values its storage and aggregation of data more highly than it does user privacy. This means that should you choose to install and use Threads, you’re at the mercy of Meta’s lack of data privacy. As I said above in the deactivation area, it’s all about placating the user instead of actually doing the correct thing and expunging data on request.
It’s clear that Meta never expunges data. In fact, asking to have your Facebook account deleted doesn’t work. A Facebook account is never deleted. It is simply deactivated. Even if you fill out the correct forms and request a total data purge from Meta’s servers, Meta simply won’t do it.
How do I know? Because I still, to this day, receive emails from Meta requesting that I reactivate my Facebook account. If Meta had actually purged all of my data, that would include purging my email address from their system. Yet, they STILL haven’t done so in the 8 years since I requested my Facebook account deletion. Facebook still sends me emails!
Threads
What exactly is Threads? Threads is a reincarnated and redesigned version of an older app that Instagram had formerly released, but that shut down in December of 2021. This older Threads app was pulled from the platform and, or so we thought, was gone until today. Today, July 6th, 2023, Threads has been reborn as a Twitter clone.
I have never used the older Instagram version of Threads, so I cannot tell you how it worked or how close it might have been to Twitter’s interface. However, this 2023 version of Threads, by all accounts, mimics Twitter far too closely. Threads is actually so close to working like Twitter that Elon Musk is now threatening Meta with lawsuits over the release of Threads. I have no sympathy for Elon or Twitter as of now. I dumped Twitter months ago and haven’t looked back. If Elon is suffering at the hands of Meta’s Threads app, that’s really a problem of Elon’s making.
If Elon had continued to produce a robust, safe, trustworthy social networking application, Threads couldn’t succeed. Clearly, Elon’s Twitter is completely failing at being a “safe space.” Thus, Threads is taking off like wildfire.
This statement about Twitter’s lack of safety is not meant to imply that Threads is a “safe space”. Oh, no no no. It’s way too early to know exactly where Threads will land on the safety spectrum as yet, but I have my doubts.
Data Grab Twitter Clone
Twitter clones are not a new thing. Truth Social looks and acts far too much like Twitter. I don’t know why Musk hasn’t chosen to sue Donald Trump over Truth Social. Yet, Elon Musk feels the need to throw down the gauntlet on Meta? Unfortunately, since Musk’s takeover, Twitter has become a toxic cesspool of hate with right wing MAGA extremists.
Further, it also seems that Musk has slowly fallen into the MAGA right wing extremist camp himself, to the detriment of Twitter remaining a “safe space”. Musk had originally proclaimed to be mostly center politically, but his MAGA conspiracy actions have spoken far louder than any of his hollow words when claiming Twitter is a safe social space. To be honest, Twitter will remain an unsafe social space so long as Musk remains at the helm.
Twitter Killer?
Will Threads be the Twitter killer? Perhaps in a short term. Users flock to anything that’s new, particularly when the current mainstay is so completely toxic, inappropriately managed and is effectively being run into the ground. Anything that seems more stable and less toxic is likely to garner a lot of attention. Unfortunately, toxicity exists everywhere, including within Meta’s app spaces.
Jumping out of Elon’s Twitter dumpster fire and into Threads; this is simply just another dumpster fire in the making. It’s new, yes, but it’ll just as quickly become a toxic cesspool of hate speech. It remains to be seen if that toxic cesspool becomes a liberal hate ground or a conservative hate ground. The only way Threads can avoid the hate speech outcome is to ban political speech entirely on Threads.
If people want to talk politics, they would need to go somewhere else. Unfortunately, Meta doesn’t have the ambition to do that. Removal of political speech would remove too many people from their platform. Meta can’t afford to alienate that many people. Thus, it’s only a matter of time before Threads becomes the new place for political hate speech. That kind of hate speech is likely to come to Threads sooner rather than later. It’s highly unlikely that the Instagram team is prepared for the onslaught of garbage speech, moderation and removals required for what will become the new toxic application to hang out on.
Dumpster Fire
Unfortunately, Threads is already a dumpster fire and it doesn’t even yet know it. Meta understands what it takes to operate a large platform, but it clearly doesn’t understand how to properly manage social discourse. If the moderation tools in Threads are anything like Twitter… moderation which requires involvement of an Instagram staffer, then Threads will fail as spectacularly as Twitter.
The only way Twitter, or at least a platform like Twitter, can survive is to change the entire way it handles microblogging. Instead of requiring Meta’s staffers to handle removal requests, Meta should push the burden and consequences of moderation success or failure onto the thread creator. What this means is that as soon as a person creates a top level thread, it becomes that producer’s responsibility to police what’s said in that thread.
Of course, there will be reporting options to report clearly violating speech to Meta. However, the thread creator will need to handle the burden of dealing with any comments. If a user in the thread begins spewing hate speech, the thread creator should be responsible for taking care of that user’s speech and removing it, not Meta. If the thread creator fails to manage the thread, then the thread creator will get penalized for that lack of management… meaning, throttling, banning and ultimately suspension.
If you write microblog texts that elicit such negative user interactions and you choose to do nothing about those responses, then you as thread creator take equal blame when those comments are reported and removed by Meta. This forces the burden onto you, the thread creator, to limit who can comment on your threads to avoid such negative engagements.
Additionally, moderation tools need to drastically improve. Meaning, if a user comments, the comments should be held in a moderation queue until the thread creator can approve, delete or report the comments. If the thread creator must take the burden of comments in a thread, then moderation tools are required to help the thread creator manage those comments.
Unfortunately, I’m fairly certain that Threads didn’t design their app this way. Instead, it likely works just like Twitter, where Meta staff are required to manage bad actors.
Real Names
One thing that Meta does that Twitter doesn’t do is require the use of real names on its platforms. This means that if you sign up for any Meta service, you are required to supply your real name. This means that when using Meta’s services, your real name is easily seen. Whether Threads allows the user to hide this information is currently unknown, but I’d guess not.
Will this blog author sign up for Threads?
No. I’ve already pulled myself out of Meta’s universe of apps. I have no intention of signing up for Instagram simply to use Threads…. only to put myself right back into Meta’s garbage system all over again? No, I will not sign up for Threads.
Would I recommend anyone else to sign up for Threads?
No. Meta’s application universe is so majorly problematic (you can’t delete your Threads account without deleting your Instagram account), I can’t recommend anyone to sign up for or use any services that Meta supports, especially if you value your family’s privacy. Meta’s top apps to avoid include:
- Threads
- OculusVR
- Onavo
- Beluga
It’s also worth noting that Meta owns many, many small subsidiaries that you should avoid as well. Check out this list to see what other apps you should avoid. If you’re really, really interested in testing what Threads is all about, then I’d strongly recommend signing up for a brand new Instagram account under a different email address. Unfortunately, Instagram may determine that you already have another Instagram account and link them together. Be careful.
However, it should now be crystal clear that Meta’s newest Threads is a must avoid.
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Biden: Supreme Court Packing
If Joe Biden has ever had a strong incentive to add more seats to the Supreme Court, the recent Supreme Court decision against Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program is just that incentive. Let’s explore.
Legal Merit and Standing
The Supreme Court is, at this point, simply going through the motions. This once seemingly impartial entity is simply pretending to be a fair and just body, but is now an almost completely Republican owned and partisan entity targeting the Democrats (and Democracy) at every turn. It can do this because of the way the court is now packed across party lines, in a highly partisan way.
However, it’s easy for these Republican Justices to pretend to use legal jurisprudence in the guise of their fully partisan agenda. It’s sickening and disheartening that people who have been put in a significant position of supposedly unbiased power in the United States can become yet another pawn of biased politics; wielding their judicial power like a weapon and targeting it firmly against the opposing political party and ultimately using their power against the very American people they swore to protect. That’s not justice.
If anyone has weaponized anything, it’s Donald Trump. With his court packing of the Supreme Court, this is exactly where the United States firmly sits. The Republicans have now firmly weaponized the Supreme Court against the Democrats and, more importantly, against the American people. It’s a sickening turn of events. It also signifies, once again, the destruction of the American people, America’s Democracy and the further erosion of America’s constitution.
Democrat Party
I’m not a Democrat by any stretch. I am also not a Republican. I’m a non-partisan writer who sits somewhere in the middle. I also don’t identify with either of these current two political parties. I don’t like how either of these two entities operate; neither of which actually perform their services on behalf of the American people for which they were elected. Both parties certainly make bold claims about what they are doing is “for the American people”, but the reality is, they do not and they haven’t worked for the betterment of America in a very, very long time.
With the above said, I can sniff out partisan politic antics instantly. This recent Supreme Court ruling against Biden’s loan forgiveness has the guise of seeming legit and above board, but underneath that legal facade, this SCOTUS ruling is 100% driven by partisan politics and is about as far against American betterment as one can get.
The Democrats don’t deserve to be harangued by Republicans any more than Republicans deserve to be harangued by Democrats. However, Republicans have been much more actively on the offensive against the Democrats (and ultimately against America) than vice versa. The Democrats have mostly been attempting to stay out of the Republican’s childish fray. Yet, the Republicans constantly keep pushing the Democrat-bad buttons, with Fox News Network taking this Republican button pushing to entirely unnecessary extremes.
Being nasty and vile towards anyone else is not what politics is about. It’s not what America is about. Yet, here we have supposedly conservative Christians taking this “nasty game” as far as they possibly can. How can ANYONE proclaim to be a conservative Christian and hold these nasty, vile and disgusting behaviors dear? Disgusting.
Both parties have lost sight of the true agenda of elected (and appointed) representatives. Instead of spending inordinate amounts of time in-fighting with one another, that time could be better spent actually producing legitimate, workable fixes for America, America’s Economy and the American people. Instead, we have the SCOTUS, who incidentally should have even declined to accept this case entirely, is instead poking their mostly Republican heads into a case were they have no business… and worse, making biased political statements with their actions.
Biden’s Supreme Court Revision
It’s time for Joe Biden to wake up. He can’t afford to sit idly by while Republicans run roughshod all over America, the American people and America’s constitution. Instead, Biden has a way to bring balance back to the Supreme Court. I’m not saying that the Supreme Court will be in any way fixed by Biden packing this court. Oh, no no no. That will take much more effort and changes. However, giving equal balance back to both liberals and conservatives alike on this court will at least make this court’s rulings much more fair and take this now unfair balance of power back out of the hands of the now Republican packed Supreme Court.
Right now, the court has 9 justices. However, there are 13 Federal circuit courts that sit directly under the Supreme Court. At the time when 9 justices were implemented, there were 9 circuit courts. This meant there was 1 justice for every circuit court. Since the circuit courts have increased to 13, our justices are now out of alignment against the circuit courts. This means that to put the SCOTUS back into balance against our now 13 circuit courts, 4 more justices must be added to the Supreme Court.
If Joe Biden pushes to have 4 new justices added to this court, he may even choose to nominate these justices, making the balance of the court change to 6 Republicans and 7 Democrats. That could possibly bring some semblance of balance back to the court, but also possibly push it back over to the Democrats. That’s a small price to pay to get this court out of its current heavy Republican imbalance. One extra Democrat justice is way more balanced than the current 3 extra Republican justices.
But the Court Isn’t Partisan?
No court should be partisan or hold with any partisan politics. Yet, we know that every person in the United States has their own opinions and must be allowed to vote in elections. This means that, yes, even these Supreme Court Justices have their own political affiliations… if even just at the moment of entering the ballot booth. Unfortunately as humans, we are fallible and subject to subjective personal whims. Sometimes those whims are of our own making and sometimes those whims are of others making.
Unfortunately, because these justices are appointed by politically affiliated and motivated Presidents, this places a political burden on top of the person being appointed to that judicial role. Meaning, if a Democrat President appoints a Justice, this likely means that that appointed person is also of a Democrat leaning persuasion and vice versa with the Republicans and conservatism. It may further mean that the Justice may feel the need to repay that appointment over time. This further means that as this person rules in their position as Justice, their political persuasion is likely to become part of that thought process when producing judicial opinions; thought processes that might actually help out the person who appointed that Justice to the bench.
Joe Biden’s Debt Absolution
I would be remiss by not bringing up this point. Some have argued that Joe Biden, as President, didn’t (and doesn’t) have the authority to forgive student loans in that large of a quantity; that the amount of money being forgiven by the government should have needed Congressional approval.
I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of this argument here because that’s an argument that cannot be decided by an independent blog. Suffice it to say, however, that as President of the United States, the person elected to this position has tremendous power over the American people. Whether that extends to forgiving student loans or other types of debt relief, that will have to be up to the courts to decide.
Clearly, though, if Franklin D. Roosevelt was given the broad authority to implement his “New Deal” to reinvigorate the then flagging economy, then Joe Biden should have had similar authority to implement his “Student Loan Debt Relief” program for the same reason amidst COVID. Let’s move on.
Re-balancing The Court
It’s clear that without a rebalance of the Supreme Court that this so-called conservative court will continue to run roughshod all over the United States of America and America’s Constitution. If we’re trying to heal this partisan divide, then the only way to do this is through bringing balance back to this court.
Thus, the only way forward is then by increasing the number of seats by 4. This increase also makes more sense when looking at the now 13 Federal Circuit courts that exist just below the Supreme Court. As stated above, increasing the number of SCOTUS seats to 13 would be firmly in-line with the current number compared to the 9 justices we was had when there were only 9 circuit courts. One Justice should exist for every circuit court that exists. That also means expanding the SCOTUS each time a new circuit court opens.
Biden must seriously consider rebalancing the court so that four new Justices are added to offset the conservative imbalance now held on this court. The only way the American people can be properly served is if the balance of conservative justices and liberal justices is near equal. This way, opinions written (even if of a specific political persuasion) cannot imbalance justice in the favor of one side or the other.
Taking Bias Out of the Justices
This is actually impossible. There is no way to do this short of forcing Justices to give up their ability to vote after they take their oath as Justice; that and having nominations come from anonymous sources, not the President. When Justices can’t vote in elections they shouldn’t be swayed by political actors. Unfortunately, that’s never likely to fly with the Justices. Even then, they’ll have spouses and children who can vote and who can sway the thoughts and minds of these Justices at home.
Political influence is everywhere. Even were Justices to give up their right to vote simply to take their seat as Justice, that wouldn’t remove years of ingrained political persuasion before they ever took their seat. It also won’t remove outside influences from those nearest to these Justices. It also won’t remove undue influence by those in political power near to the SCOTUS, including the President, Vice President and Congress.
Further Court Balance
One idea that clearly needs to be implemented is term limits. If four additional seats are added to the bench, these new seats should come without lifetime appointment. In fact, all of the current seats’ lifetime appointments should end after the next person is appointed. Lifetime appointments for the Supreme Court need to end completely.
How long should Justices be allowed to serve? They should be allowed to serve no longer than 10 years or until they are aged 65. If a Justice is appointed to a seat and they are aged 58, they will only have until age 65 to serve. After that, forced retirement and a new appointment is required.
More than this, every four years each Justice (including the Chief Justice) must be brought before Congress for a reconfirmation hearing. This allows Congress to vacate a Justice seat should the need arise. If a specific Justice has made rulings in inappropriate ways and/or having taken inappropriate largesse, having reconfirmation hearings every four years would allow Congress to vacate that seat, giving better checks and balances over inappropriate situations.
Once a seat is vacated, it is on the President to find and appoint a new person. If a Justice is forcibly vacated from their seat, they are no longer allowed to hold a seat on the Supreme Court Justice again nor serve in any other Federal court. They may join lower non-federal courts as a judge, but may no longer hold other federal judicial roles. Once removed, it’s permanent removal from all federal judicial positions. This is effectively federal disbarment for judges.
Such reconfirmation hearings should further entice the current Chief Justice to both police and take internal action against inappropriate Justices instead of waiting for Congress to take action. If Congress is forced to vacate that seat, that person cannot serve nor be appointed to work in the Federal judicial system again.
Such actions above may seem punitive, but that’s clearly what’s needed. Right now, only the Supreme Court can police and punish itself and clearly that is not happening. Leaving it up to people to police themselves clearly means no policing at all. This means that, as has been shown, the SCOTUS is unwilling to take action against its own. This same goes for Congress as Congress is also unwilling to take action against their own (an article for another day).
Fair and Balanced Court
Bringing all of these changes to the SCOTUS means a much more fair and balanced court. If there are ramifications to wrongdoing, making the wrong choices or, indeed, taking actions of malicious intent, there should be severe consequences.
Today, there are no consequences. It means that enterprising hackers can hack this court and use its lack of governance against it. This is exactly what’s going on right now. Hackers have infiltrated this court and are using the lack of checks and balances, lifetime appointments in coupling with this court’s lack of internal governance against not only the court, but against the American people. This was not intended by the framers of the Constitution.
The Constitution intended and “trusted” for appointees to be of highly upstanding, moral and ethical fiber in taking on these roles. Unfortunately, it didn’t foresee people of ill intent and of questionable morality and ethics to be appointed to these roles. A person who is willing to sit in a grey area of intent can subvert and use the court’s “trust” against it, particularly when there are multiple Justices colluding in this nefarious role. Worse, the court’s highly lax internal punishment structures when combined with lifetime appointments makes it ripe for this kind of abuse. In other words, it only takes one person of criminal intent to become a Justice on that court and the United States can crumble from within.
Again, none of this was intended, nor foresaw by the framers of the Constitution. Yet, here we are and here we sit. Court reform is in order and the above is a good, solid way of getting this ball rolling. Unfortunately, the current lifetime appointees seem guaranteed in their roles. However, eventually they will retire, relinquishing their seat. Until then, adding four more seats all serving without lifetime appointments and with forced reconfirmation every four years ensures that at least the newest seat-holders should remain of upstanding moral and ethical fiber, else their seat can be vacated and reassigned to someone who is willing to uphold the highest ethics and values.
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Disney and DeSantis: Who wins?
With Disney canceling its plans to spend $1 billion on a new Florida campus, this is Disney’s first salvo lobbed directly at Ron DeSantis. Can Florida survive this fight? Let’s explore.
Ron DeSantis is Playing with Fire
Tourism in Florida accounts for more than $40 billion each year. Tourism also generates massive tax revenue; tax revenue that grosses $11.4 billion in state and local taxes and $13.3 billion in federal taxes annually. DeSantis and Florida clearly stand poised to lose hard when Disney pulls the plug on its Florida Disney resort properties entirely. Yes, “when”, not “if”. The United States also stands to lose a lot of federal tax revenue as well. This article, however, intends to focus primarily on the ramifications to Florida.
Once DeSantis makes Florida’s actions so punitive that Disney can no longer make money in Florida, Disney WILL pull out and leave Florida. DeSantis has wrongly assumed that Disney will remain in Florida. That’s a completely wrong assumption. When state legislators make doing business in a state a major problem to the bottom line, corporations have to make hard, but necessary choices. Some of those hard choices may involve leaving that state.
Musk and Tesla made that choice after California and Gavin Newsom made doing business in California almost impossible for Tesla. Tesla moved its headquarters to Texas and is likely poised to cease all of its operations in California eventually, manufacturing or otherwise. Even though Musk has made a small move to bring some portions of Tesla back to California, that doesn’t mean Musk embraces California for its business structure. Moving a portion of Tesla’s engineering staff closer to Twitter is likely more of a strategic and convenient business arrangement than it is embracing a move back to California. Musk is simply attempting to keep Twitter from collapsing most likely by leveraging Tesla software engineers when possible to do double duty between Tesla and Twitter. Dividing work time between two separate companies is not a job I’d want to do. We digress.
Disney’s stance, after cancelling its $1 billion campus project, is now crystal clear. Disney is on the verge of making a similar hard choice that Tesla was forced to make. Nothing says that Disney’s entertainment parks must remain in Florida.
Disney’s Contributions to Florida
Disney properties are responsible for generating at least $1.1 billion in tax revenues annually TO Florida. Ten percent (10%) of the entirety of gross taxes generated in Florida are generated by one single entity, Disney. Yes, that’s 10% from Disney alone. When factoring in all of the non-Disney owned businesses which exist because Disney drives massive tourism to Florida, such as restaurants, hotels and transportation, tax revenue attributed to Disney’s presence in Florida could account for as much as 40-50% of all of Florida’s tax revenue. Meaning, when combining Disney’s income with income generated by all other businesses which rely on Disney remaining in Florida, that’s a number that could literally tank Florida’s economy were it to dry up overnight.
Putting a number on it, this equates to between $4.6 billion and $5.5 billion of tax revenue lost were Disney to close shop and leave Florida. On top of the tax base lost, Disney closing shop would definitely cause most, if not all of Disney’s 75,000 Florida workers to lose their jobs. Further, the loss of Disney’s tourism industry would have massive repercussions on tertiary businesses which partially or fully rely on Disney remaining open in Florida. Thus, Disney leaving Florida could potentially cause the loss of another 100,000 or more Florida jobs simply BECAUSE Disney has left Florida. That’s just the beginning of Florida’s woes. Disney leaving Florida would likely cause a massive recession in Florida, followed by major unemployment in Florida, which, in turn, could potentially trigger a massive recession around the rest of the United States, particularly around tourism. This at a time when tourism is just beginning to rebound from COVID.
Because Airlines carry so many passengers to and from Florida almost entirely for Disney’s tourism, such a closure could mean almost certain problems for the whole of the United States. In fact, a Disney Florida closure could potentially even bankrupt some smaller airlines; airlines which may rely on as much or more than 20-40% of their business ferrying tourists to and from Florida. Car rental companies could also be impacted. The gasoline industry might even be impacted as far fewer people hop onto the roads to visit Florida. Even national and state parks could be impacted as fewer RVs show up due to a Disney closure. There are too many industries that wholly or partly rely on Disney’s continued operations in Florida. Without Disney parks, what incentive is there to visit Florida?
This right here 👆 is exactly how Ron DeSantis is gambling with Florida and the rest of the United States economy.
Juggernaut without Federal Response
At this point, Biden and the feds need to step in and stop DeSantis from further meddling with Disney. The longer this DeSantis vs Disney fight drags on, the more likely Disney will consider moving its operations somewhere else, thus ceasing operations in Florida. Worse, the more DeSantis pokes at Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree, the more likely Disney is to perform a knee-jerk reaction by shutting it all down instantly… leaving Florida, the tourism industry and the rest of the country reeling.
As with most types of shutdowns like this, it won’t be felt instantly around the nation. It’s one of those slow trickle economic problems. Florida, particularly around the general vicinity of Disney’s campuses, will feel the closure pinch almost instantly. The unemployment of Disney workers will throw a huge crimp into Florida’s unemployment statistics. From there, like a juggernaut, it will continue to roll downhill gathering momentum and growing bigger, expanding its damage across Florida, then across hotels, airlines and transportation as a whole and finally affecting the whole of the United States.
The stock market will reel at first over Disney, but then those stock losses will expand into the tourism industry as a whole, including the entirety of both the transportation and tourism sectors. Even restaurant chains like Olive Garden and McDonald’s alike, chains which at least partly rely on Disney to keep their restaurants full in the immediate vicinity of Disney’s properties, will also likewise begin to feel the pinch; first at the cash register, but later as Wall Street outlooks dim over Florida’s economy.
Disney as a Global Entity
The loss of revenue from Disney will be immense as Disney ceases its Florida operations. There is no doubt. However, moving Disney’s Florida properties to a new location is definitely possible. Disney isn’t beholden to anyone to maintain its Florida resort properties other than Disney and Disney shareholders. If Disney cannot maintain appropriate income under Ron DeSantis’s oppressive government ideologies, Disney will have no choice but to close down its properties and move to a better location.
For example, Texas would likely welcome Disney with open arms, even though Greg Abbott has the potential to become just as oppressive to Disney as Ron DeSantis. Disney would have to weigh the risks of moving its operations under a Greg Abbott controlled Texas as a result. For Texas, out of the frying pan and into the fire comes to mind.
What this might ultimately mean is Disney could choose to move its biggest resort property outside of the United States entirely. It could find property in Dubai, for example. Don’t think that Disney doesn’t have a task force actively searching the globe for possible properties to replace its Florida resorts at this very moment. If Disney finds a property that’s an equal or better value to the deal it formerly had (past tense) with Florida, Disney would be stupid not to choose to move to that new location, leaving Florida’s economy and, by extension, Ron DeSantis reeling.
The best way for Disney to fight Ron DeSantis is not to fight with him at all. Instead, closure of all of Disney’s Florida properties would say all that needs to be said. It might be just the trigger that causes a massive United States recession, but that’s not Disney’s concern. It is the concern of the Federal Government, however. Disney’s concern is to continue to make money at its resorts. If Disney is unable to do this because of an oppressive government leader, the only choice is to move on and find a new, better property to again house its resort operations.
These are the matches 🔥 to which Ron DeSantis feels compelled to light and throw at Disney. Ron DeSantis, be careful throwing matches because when fires start, someone gets burned.
As a Florida resident then living under a massive recession after a Disney closure, just remember that it is you who chose to vote Ron DeSantis into office.
Can this situation be defused? Yes, but don’t think that it also can’t escalate for Florida? We’ll simply need to wait this one out.
Who Wins?
No one, not even Disney. If Disney closes its Florida properties as a result of DeSantis’s meddling, this closure has the potential to be the catalyst which causes a United States recession.
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Rant Time: Twitter vs. Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson, the former derisive, divisive and dishonest Fox News host and puppet for right wing extremists, is now seeking to set up shop on Twitter with Elon Musk’s blessing. Let’s explore.
Twitter’s Demise
Elon Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter! That’s a substantial number. While shareholders and the former Twitter board got to laugh all the way to the bank, Twitter users and the Twitter platform itself got the shaft.
There was (and still is) so much wrong with this deal, I don’t really even know where to begin. Suffice it to say that Elon Musk, a self-professed so-called slightly right-leaning independent (according to his own words), is now running Twitter. However, just today, May 12th, 2023 and after this article was published, Musk announces a new CEO in Linda Yaccarino, a former advertising executive with NBC Universal (more about this at the bottom of the article). Unfortunately, what Musk is doing with Twitter does not at all jibe with this own professed political leanings. In fact, Musk has ultimately made Twitter a completely safe haven for right wing extremists, letting them run roughshod all over everyone on the Twitter platform.
While Jack Dorsey’s team tended to kick any and all extremists (of any persuasion) to the curb by suspending and banning them, Musk has fully welcomed each and every one of them back with arms open wide. That doesn’t say slightly right-leaning behavior. It is most definitely not an example of someone who is an Independent. That behavior shows Musk to be has hard right leaning as just about any other right wing extremist MAGA Republican, I’m looking at you Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It doesn’t end with politics, though. Musk ousted massive numbers of Twitter staffers, leaving only a very small skeleton crew to actually keep Twitter alive. There’s definitely not enough staffers to keep up with abuse complaints or kicking extremists off, let alone properly manage Twitter Blue. With as few staffers as are left, I’m surprised Twitter is even online and working.
Twitter Blue
That tiny infamous Blue Check mark 
next to someone’s name formerly meant that that person is who they say they are. Musk’s move to the $8/mo plan lets anyone buy a without any verification. This means that the formerly trustworthy check mark today means absolutely nothing, other than someone is forking over $8/mo to Twitter. The no longer states anything about trustworthiness. In fact, that mark is now more likely to mean the person isn’t actually who they say they are.
Twitter Blue under Musk has done almost everything to dissolve Twitter’s trust. Under Dorsey, trust was everything. Under Musk, trust means absolutely nothing. Why?
Twitter’s Insolvency is Looming
Musk has already predicted that a bankruptcy is still likely with Twitter. With that looming bankruptcy, Musk is trying anything and everything to make money in any way possible. From that $8/mo check mark to the now $42,000 a month fee for API access. For every money making opportunity that Musk attempts to dream up, each “idea” (ahem) results in ever more people and businesses abandoning the Twitter platform. For example, WordPress has dropped Twitter from its social media sharing connectors due to this price hike. What business in their right mind would pay Twitter $42,000 a month to access Twitter’s API? When it was free, sure. At that kind of money? No way, Elon!
It is then no surprise that as rats continue to leave that sinking ship, insolvency for Twitter looms hard on its horizon. One thing is certain, $8/mo can’t sustain Twitter after Musk literally saddled Twitter with billions in debt. Worse, how many businesses are likely to fork over $42k a month for an API? Very few. Exactly how many billions in debt is Twitter? Possibly as much as $30 billion, perhaps more. A company that relies almost 100% on ad revenue for income can’t possibly pay down $30 billion… pretty much ever. Twitter Blue and API fees won’t work. Twitter’s days are most definitely numbered.
Desperation Level: High
All of the above is the exact pretext needed to understand how and why Tucker Carlson can take advantage of Twitter’s and Musk’s desperation. Musk is desperately wanting Twitter to survive. Unfortunately, Musk can’t afford to continue to throw infinite money at this albatross indefinitely. Enter, Carlson.
Carlson is now dangling a huge carrot in front of Elon Musk, a carrot that Musk seems unable to avoid chasing. I’ll give Tucker Carlson one thing here. He’s definitely a master manipulator. If he can manipulate Musk into endorsing a new Tucker Carlson show, that’s tantamount to a partnership with Twitter. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down.
Because Musk is now so incredibly vulnerable AND desperate to have Twitter make money in any way possible, Musk is seriously considering bringing one of the foulest, lying, distasteful, sack of 💩 entertainment hosts to his own platform. It would be one thing if Tucker Carlson had worked for the Onion. At least you’d know that Carlson’s rhetoric was supposed to be funny and satirical. Unfortunately, Carlson’s crap is just that, absolute crap. He lies incessantly, yet claims it all in the name of truth. Perhaps Carlson lies even more than Donald Trump? 🤷♂️ I know that that would be difficult, but Tucker Carlson is definitely giving Donald Trump a run for his money when it comes to spewing lies.
Yet, here we are. Elon Musk is seriously contemplating allowing this sack of 💩 entertainment host to continue his old Fox News show, now right on Twitter. Let’s just hope that Fox News sues the 💩 out of Tucker Carlson over breach of contract and prevents that.
Let’s be perfectly clear. Tucker Carlson is about as far right wing of a MAGA extremist as an entertainment host can get. By Musk endorsing and allowing such a right wing extremist onto Twitter, which further allows Carlson to continue his pro-Russian propaganda along side his insane MAGA rhetoric, this gives this man a voice who absolutely 100% DOES NOT deserve it. Disinformation never deserves a platform. Tucker Carlson wholly embodies disinformation. He didn’t deserve having this voice on Fox News and he most certainly doesn’t deserve to have it on Twitter now.
Sullying Twitter
Twitter, the once shining star of reasonably high quality trusted social media has, as of Tucker Carlson’s first show, devolved into a 100% right wing MAGA extremist pro-Russian propaganda platform. All that’s left is to get Donald Trump back over there to spout his lies.
It’s surprising to me that Twitter has any users at all at this point, other than MAGA Republican extremists. Twitter wasn’t even supposed to be a political platform, yet Twitter has now become a 100% political shit pit. You can’t even be on the platform without MAGA Republican extremist bullshit appearing in your stream nearly every other tweet. You can’t even block that bullshit. You are forced to see it whether you want it or not.
Let’s hope that BlueSky Social, Jack Dorsey’s burgeoning social app (currently in Beta testing), will take over where Musk’s Twitter has now completely failed. Let’s hope that BlueSky Social can also manage to put all of this political bullshit back into its proper place, like Twitter formerly did before Musk’s meddling.
Right Wing Extremism
Some readers might be thinking that I’m only calling out right wing extremism here. I’m not. Left wing extremism is just as major of a concern on social media. Both extremist viewpoints need to be tempered and tamped down. Extremist viewpoints need to be kicked to the curb on EVERY SINGLE social media platform. These extremist viewpoints tend to bring out the problem children and cause problems for everyone, everywhere.
So then you may be asking, “What about the 1st Amendment — Free Speech?” What about it? These platforms are privately owned by non-governmental entities. Free speech doesn’t apply to corporations. Free speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution only apply to the government, government workers and government operated entities. What does apply to these privately owned corporations and applications is the Terms and Conditions and Acceptable Use Policies. If you breach these agreements that you agreed to when you signed up, you are banned. That’s the end of it.
If you want to practice extremism in any form, do it somewhere else. I, and many others, certainly don’t want to see your lies, propaganda and conspiracy theories. This applies to ANYONE in any capacity, whether a government worker, a congressional representative, a celebrity or a nobody. You breach the agreement, you get banned.
Let’s hope that BlueSky Social takes a hard line on this because if they don’t, BlueSky will devolve into the same problem that Twitter has right now, save the huge monetary debt from Musk. Social media needs to remain open and accessible to all, not just those with extreme political leanings. If you want to rant political, go find a site devoted to politics. I don’t want to hear it on social media.
Tucker’s Show
Once Tucker launches his new show on Twitter, that’s ultimately the end of Twitter. It firmly also says that Musk and Twitter are both now in business as pawns for right wing MAGA pro-Russian extremism. Of course, Musk doesn’t care. He just wants money and he hopes that the 3 million viewers that Carlson had regularly on his Fox News program will appear and draw people to Twitter. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
Even if Carlson does manage to draw some of his former Fox News viewers in, advertisers don’t want to be associated with right or left wing extremists. This likely means that Twitter’s remaining advertisers will dry up. Whatever revenue that Twitter is now seeing from its advertisers will likely evaporate after Carlson begins his stupidity. That’s fine, though. Let Musk and Carlson waddle in each other’s filth. If these two want to perpetuate and perpetrate that kind of right wing extremism on whatever Twitter users remain, I say go for it. I just won’t be there to see it and neither will many others. You can’t sell stuff when no one is watching.
However, I’m all for allowing Musk to let Tucker Carlson hammer in the remaining nails on Twitter’s coffin. This is the most likely outcome. If Fox News, the bane organization to nearly every other organization attempting to offer legitimate news, is unwilling to keep Carlson employed, then it must be really bad. Putting Carlson back in front of a camera to spout ever more lies on Twitter… yeah, that’s likely to see Musk head to bankruptcy court even faster.
Linda Yaccarino as CEO?
This news was dropped by Elon Musk today, May 12, 2023 after this article was published. Let’s talk a bit about this questionable move by Musk. One thing that’s absolutely certain is that Musk is a highly controlling micro-manager. It’s guaranteed that Ms. Yaccarino and Twitter will be 100% remotely micromanaged. Meaning, Ms. Yaccarino won’t be free to do whatever she wants as CEO. Musk will remain in firm control over Twitter through Ms. Yaccarino as his puppet. It was clear in this choice that Musk was looking for a puppet and a puppet is exactly what he got.
How exactly a person who headed up NBC Universal’s advertising department can leapfrog into a CEO position is beyond me. I understand why he hired her, though. Her job will be to bring advertising revenue back to Twitter. She likely claimed in her interview to have many, many contacts in her Rolodex to accomplish this. In reality, Ms. Yaccarino will most likely fail at this task solely because of Twitter’s current trajectory… to become an extremist right wing playground. It is highly unlikely Twitter can recover from this trajectory. Musk may not even want it to recover. Yet, for advertisers, they don’t want to have their products placed next to talk of death threats, insurrection, lies, alleged vote rigging, conspiracy theories and disinformation.
No matter how much Yaccarino wants advertisers to embrace right wing extremism, there is absolutely no way Twitter will gain back advertising revenue by allowing right wing extremists to become the sole reason for Twitter’s existence. Advertisers want calm, mostly peaceful, neutral places to see their advertising work. They don’t want their products to appear to endorse political rhetoric, propaganda and violence. Prediction: Yaccarino will fail as CEO. Twitter is ticking down to bankruptcy anyway. It’s surprising ANY executive would jump on board with that clock ticking down. Ms. Yaccarino is most certainly not a turnaround specialist, which is exactly what Twitter needs right now. An advertising executive cannot possibly turn Twitter around.
Even the best professional turnaround specialist likely could not turn Twitter around, of which Twitter is now drowning with billions in debt. What hope does a former advertising executive turned CEO have to turn around Twitter? None. Musk simply needs the appearance of stepping away from Twitter so that he doesn’t lose Tesla and SpaceX both. In reality, she’s likely CEO in name only and will remain firmly a puppet for Musk. She’ll be tasked to build advertising revenue, exactly what she was doing at NBC Universal. Musk will call the CEO shots and she will implement them as he prescribes. Effectively, this makes Musk an unnamed co-CEO.
This arrangement doesn’t mean good things for Twitter, however. Twitter is still on course to self-implode probably within 6-12 months. There’s almost zero chance that Twitter can pay down around 30 billion in debt in any timely fashion with or without Musk at the helm, and most definitely not with Ms. Yaccarino at the helm.
Twitter is Dead
Musk, do whatever you want. If you think Carlson and now Yaccarino will be the saviors of Twitter, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Musk, it seems you like learning lessons the hard way. And with that Elon Musk, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Buh-Bye Twitter! 
↩︎
Starfield: Can this Game Survive?
Bethesda, a now wholly owned Microsoft game development studio division, stands poised to release its new space role-playing game (RPG) entitled Starfield on September 6, 2023.
Starfield’s release has already been delayed once by nearly a year, when it was formerly slated for release on November 11, 2022. Starfield’s nearly year long delay along with being made exclusively available to the Microsoft’s gaming platforms, coupled with its Game Pass inclusion might not signal great things for this upcoming game release. It might not even signal great things for Bethesda as a company. Microsoft is definitely not doing any favors for Bethesda. Let’s explore.
PlayStation 5’s Banner Launch
According to Kotaku, Sony is now seeing banner sales with its PS5. It can be difficult tell what’s boastful speculation around such sales, but one thing is certain, getting your hands onto a PS5 console can still be difficult nearly 3 years after the PS5’s November 2020 launch. For nearly 2 years, the PS5 was almost impossible to find on store shelves. When they did manage to appear, they were gone within hours. Going into the third year, it’s become somewhat easier to find as the demand has somewhat eased, that or Sony has drastically increased production or both. “Somewhat”, doesn’t imply that the PS5’s sales are in any way slowing, however. For Sony, the bristling sales of the PS5 continue.
Because this sales fact means Sony’s console is shaping up to be the banner console of this decade, one has to question both Bethesda and Microsoft’s decision to keep a game like Starfield exclusive to Microsoft’s platforms alone. One thing is certain, cutting off sales to a massively growing gaming segment is probably not the brightest of ideas. For Microsoft, Starfield may not become an overall major problem for Microsoft on the whole, but why intentionally tank part of your company when you don’t have to? For Bethesda, on the other hand, these mounting problems could end this division.
Exclusivity and Sales
Prior to the digital download explosion, the primary way that video games had always made bank was by selling physical game copies. Physical copies would show up at retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Gamestop. Once the digital download explosion began, not only could retailers sell boxed copies, they could also sometimes sell digital codes for online digital stores.
Because both the PlayStation and the Xbox are the primary two video game consoles on the market for a game like Starfield, this meant sales from both platforms play fully into both the success and the revenue of that video game title. So as not to exclude the Nintendo Switch from this conversation, know that this console also exists and some “adult” style games do eventually make it to the Nintendo Switch console. Whether Starfield would have been tapped for the Switch is questionable. As of Starfield (and likely many future Bethesda game titles), though, producing availability across all non-Microsoft platforms has halted.
Bethesda (likely at Microsoft’s prompting) has made the dubious decision of making Starfield (and likely most new Bethesda games) available exclusively on the Xbox and on Windows-based PCs (Microsoft’s platforms). You might have thought that Microsoft’s Bethesda would have stopped there and just accepted the loss of half of the video game market in revenue, but no. It gets worse for Bethesda.
According to Forbes, the PS5 has also sold the fastest amount of consoles since its launch that Sony has ever sold in its history. That means that the PS5 appears to be on-track to outsell the PS4. Considering that the number of PS4 consoles exceeds 117 million today combined with the over 38 million PS5’s sold so far, that’s a huge number of potential buyers to exclude from a video game’s sales. I did say it would get worse.
Game Pass
For video game players, an all-inclusive monthly game subscription service like Game Pass is a huge win. For video game developers, not so much. Let’s understand why. Video game buyers can, for a relatively small monthly fee, instantly buy into a massive library of games that can all be downloaded and played immediately. A single game that formerly cost each buyer $60 to purchase new, now costs a game player $9.99/mo for 30 days of play! That $10 doesn’t just cover one game, though. That monthly fee covers hundreds or maybe thousands of games available in the Game Pass library all unlocked the instant the subscription starts. No trips to the store. No game discs to scratch up. No wasted plastic. Quick and easy access over the Internet.
Sony has a similar subscription product called PlayStation Plus Essential. It’s effectively Sony’s burgeoning version of Game Pass, with a similarly growing library of games all accessible at a flat monthly rate.
With these subscription services, the monthly costs can be reduced if you’re willing buy into 24 months of Game Pass service. Unfortunately, this bundled deal is only available if you buy an Xbox console at the same time. Still, not a bad deal. If you already have an Xbox console or are looking to extend your existing subscription past the 24 months, the only option is the $9.99 per month deal.
Game Pass versus PlayStation Plus Essential
This article would be remiss without discussing an important aspect around buying into Game Pass versus Sony’s PlayStation Plus Essential. The $10/mo Game Pass plan DOES NOT include Xbox Live Gold, the service needed to play online multiplayer games. This means that in addition to the $10/mo, you’ll need to buy or have Xbox Live separately. However, with Sony PlayStation Plus Essential, this plan offers both access to the PlayStation Network along with a limited library of games. Essentially, Sony’s lowest tier plan is equivalent to having Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass together at Sony’s lowest monthly price tag. While Sony gives you both services together, Sony only allows limited access to games with the Essential tier. You’ll have to pay up into Sony’s larger PlayStation Plus tiers to gain access to more games from Sony’s game library.
To get Xbox Live combined with Game Pass for your Xbox, you’ll need to buy into the Game Pass Ultimate edition, which is priced at $15 a month ($5 more than the base Game Pass edition without Xbox Live). However, that’s still a savings of $5 a month when paying for Xbox Live Gold monthly, which is priced at $10 a month separately.
Why is having access to Xbox Live and PSN important? These services are required to allow you to play online multiplayer games. Because many games these days require Xbox Live and PSN to function, buying into the lowest edition of Game Pass alone won’t allow you to play games that require Xbox Live. You’d need to pay up to the $15/mo edition to buy Game Pass Ultimate to enable play of online multiplayer games along with gaining access to the Game Pass library of games.
Having Xbox Live is not required when buying into the Game Pass $10/mo edition. However, without Xbox Live, you will be limited to playing only Game Pass library games that do not require Xbox Live, which consist of offline single player games. There are fewer and fewer of these games released every year.
Subscription Services vs Profits
The one thing that hasn’t been discussed much with these gaming subscription services is exactly how developers will make money. Right now, $9.99 a month is great for a gamer who immediately gains access to perhaps thousands of games, including many day-one releases.
For the game developer, Microsoft cannot afford to hand that game developer $60 for each downloaded game from Game Pass. Same for Sony. This means that developers see drastically reduced revenue from games on Game Pass.
What this means is that for each download from Game Pass, the developer will receive a tiny fraction of money in a monthly payment tallied up for each gamer who downloads a specific game title. No download = No money. Simply because a game has been listed in Game Pass doesn’t mean the developer gets money. Developers are only likely to get paid IF a player downloads and plays the game. Even then, once a player deletes the game after installing it, the monthly revenues stop.
Let’s do the Math
Console Physical Disc Model
If there are 117 million PS4 consoles and if just 10% of those console owners buy a game at $60, that’s 60 * 11.7 million = $702 million in total revenue from that game’s sales. Of course, that’s what the retailers get. The wholesale price for a video game is around $50 paid by the retailer to the game studio. That’s 50 * 11.7 million = $585 million in sales that went directly to the game studio. Clearly, other fees will need to be paid out of that revenue by the developer who might net $200-300 million or so. This revenue windfall occurs within a month of two of a video game’s launch.
Game Pass Model
There is no revenue windfall, at least not for the developer. As stated above, a video game placed into the Game Pass library means drastically lower income. Instead of the $200-300 million windfall in physical disc sales nearly all at once, now developers must live on a much lower fraction of revenue that gets spread out over many months.
If 11.7 million players subscribe to Game Pass, in one month that equates to $10 * 11.7 million subscribers = $117 million per month (assuming that the number remains steady). This next part assumes that ALL 11.7 million decide to download the Starfield game. We know that’s not likely, but let’s assume this anyway.
If a game developer drops a brand new day-one game onto Game Pass, like Starfield, the game’s revenue will be a tiny, tiny fraction of that $117 million per month. Where a game developer receives 100% of the wholesale revenue from physical box sales, subscription based sales might receive 1% (probably way less) in total revenue from the revenues brought in by Game Pass’s monthly subscription fees. Why $1 million? That’s ~1% of $117 million. Keep in mind that $117 million is already fractionally less than the $585 million the developer could have received by selling boxed copies.
Instead of the $200-300 million for boxed sales for a single game, the game’s developer might now receive $1 million in that first 30 days after release, possibly not even that much. Keep in mind that the monthly revenue collected by Microsoft for the monthly Game Pass subscriptions must be shared amongst ALL video games that are being played and downloaded that month. The more games being played, the more developers must share in that revenue. That means that the more wide diversity of games that are being downloaded and played, the less revenue there is to go around to all of these developers. That $1 million mentioned might actually become $100k because of the revenue sharing and the wide diversity of games being played at any given month.
Revenue paid to developers who place games into Game Pass library is only for actively played games. Once gamers play the game fully, then each deletes the game from their console, the revenue stops the instant the game is deleted from the console. The game developer will only be paid as long as the player keeps the game installed and likely only if the game is launched and used periodically. If the game can be beaten in under 30 days, then the developer will be paid for only the days the player has actively played the game. If many players beat the game in 10 days, that’s only 10 days of revenue paid out for each specific player.
What all of this means is that it offers Microsoft ways of reducing payments to developers based on how often and how long a player plays a game. In other words, instead of the pay-$60 model where the revenue is locked in as long as a sale is made, developers are now under a much stricter, lower revenue model. It is also a model that can see Microsoft reduce payments because of revenue sharing and lower use. If two games were the only games played on Game Pass in a month, that means that Microsoft would only need to pay out revenue to 2 developers from that $117.5 million pool of income. If 100 games from 100 different developers suddenly become active, Microsoft must now share revenue amongst those 100 developers from that same $117.5 million pool of income.
Microsoft must also determine which of the Game Pass games deserves a larger portion of revenue than the others so that the most often played games get the most revenue. Meaning, of those 100 game developers some might only see .01% of the sales while some might see as much as 1% or 2% of total revenues from monthly subscribers. As stated, the point here is that $117.5 million in subscriber fees is a mere fraction of money that could have been had using the $60 per disc price.
It only gets worse from here. Microsoft itself also instantly skims revenue off the top of the Game Pass subscriber fees to cover its own service management costs (hosting, managing listings, paying out revenue, etc). Only after Microsoft skims its own Game Pass revenue is any remaining money left over to cover developer game use payments.
Assuming there’s $117.5 million in total Game Pass revenue (as exampled above), there might only be $20-50 million left (after Microsoft skims its expenses) to pay developers for their games. This ultimately means there’s fractionally less than you might think to pay off developers for the inclusion of their games on Game Pass.
For Starfield, this game’s revenue may fare even worse. Because Microsoft wholly owns Bethesda, Microsoft may have chosen Starfield to become a loss leader. In the sales world, that ultimately means that the product is intended to be a “giveaway”. In other words, Microsoft may require Bethesda to forgo receiving any payments from Game Pass. Thus, Starfield may not make ANY revenue from its day one release on Game Pass. Under this loss leader strategy, the only money Bethesda may make would be from the tiny amount of boxed copy sales from stores like Amazon and Best Buy. Considering the price of Game Pass and its current popularity, not many players are likely to opt to pay $60 for boxed copies.
Digital Sales
While you might be thinking that some people might opt to buy the game digitally, like boxed copy sales, a few will opt for this approach. Some don’t want to invest in Game Pass and be saddled with a monthly expense to keep track of. This means that some digital sales will occur. However, the benefit of gaining access to thousands of game titles usually wins when it comes to these types of sales. Like physical boxed copies, digital sales are also likely to be limited and few. I fully expect the vast majority of Starfield players to play via Game Pass (both on the Xbox and on the PC).
Sleazy Game Pass Sales Strategy
One sleazy strategy which Microsoft has used with Game Pass and which attempts to force gamers to buy a game outright is when Microsoft removes a game title from Game Pass library 30 days after its release. This limited time release followed by speedy removal is solely an attempt to prey on the consumer’s wallet. Many gamers do fall for this tactic and opt to buy a digital copy over a boxed copy. Digital purchases offer instant access and allows the gamer to continue playing once the game is downloaded. No trips to the store looking for a physical copy.
This Game Pass sales strategy is extremely sleazy and is also worth noting because Microsoft could pull this stunt with Starfield; tease players with a 30 day Game Pass limited availability, then pull the plug and force all players to purchase the game full price to continue playing. Because of the purported scale and size of the questing within Starfield, a player likely cannot fully complete Starfield within 30 days. Be wary of this sleazy sales tactic when buying into Game Pass. Personally, I’d consider this tactic as a form of bait and switch, which is illegal in the United States under federal law.
If you’re concerned that this could happen with Starfield in Game Pass (it has a reasonably high chance), you should opt to buy the game outright either a physical boxed copy or a digital copy at full price and forgo using Game Pass to play Starfield. This will allow you to continue playing the game should Game Pass decided to pull the game quickly. Of course, you can opt to play under Game Pass until the game is pulled from the library at which point you’ll need to decide whether you want to buy it to continue. If the game is as potentially buggy as I expect it to be, many Game Pass players may choose not to buy it after only a few days of play. This sleazy sales tactic has a high probability of backfiring on Bethesda and Microsoft if the game launches with as many problems as Fallout 76.
Starfield Sales Cannibalized?
Why spend $60 for a single game when you can pay $10 and gain access to perhaps thousands of games, along with day-one releases like Starfield? While a few physical disc sales might be forthcoming, the vast majority of players are savvy enough to realize the usefulness of buying into a large library of games under Game Pass all for $10.
For Starfield, the revenue handwriting is on the wall… and it’s doesn’t paint a rosy picture. Voluntarily cutting revenues by less than half via excluding the Sony PlayStation – fractional amounts of revenue by placing Starfield on Game Pass day one = drastically reduced income for Bethesda. Instead of the potential for nearly a billion in sales by tapping the overall video game market (Xbox + PS + PC + Switch) by forcing boxed sales only, Microsoft has made the dubious decision to reduce Starfield’s potential revenue down to perhaps at most $100 million in Day One Game Pass downloads. That number is if Bethesda is very, very lucky. If Starfield is considered a “loss leader” on release then it will receive zero in revenue from Game Pass.
You might be saying, “But what about physical disc sales?” What about them? With the Starfield game being released onto Game Pass day one, what incentive is there to run out and buy a physical disc copy at $60 when you can save $50 and instantly sign up for Game Pass at $10, download and play the game on release day sans disc? For that matter, what incentive is there to buy a digital copy at $60? Sure, Starfield may see a smattering of physical box and digital sales, but the total revenue for these sales might not even exceed $10 million. Game Pass is most definitely cannibalizing boxed and digital video game sales. This Game Pass idea is actually one of the strategies that Microsoft wanted prior to the introduction of the Xbox One; basically, an all digital universe of games. Microsoft is moving in this direction rapidly, clearly at the expense of the developers.
Keep in mind that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. This means that a player can pay $10, play and beat the game in 30 days and then cancel their Game Pass subscription. Instead of paying $60 to own the game, they’ve now paid only $10 to play the game. That’s a whopping $50 savings for the gamer and a massive amount of lost revenue for both the game developer and Microsoft.
While the release of Starfield might see a temporary boost in Game Pass subscribers and in Xbox hardware sales (this is the hope Microsoft has for Starfield), that boost still won’t be any where near enough for Microsoft to cough up the nearly $1 billion in revenue that Bethesda could have had by including all consoles and by releasing only boxed copies day one. Instead, Microsoft has relegated Bethesda’s Starfield to becoming one of the least profitable AAA game titles to be released by a major developer.
Revenue over Time
Subscription models gain revenue slowly over time. You might be thinking that maybe Bethesda can reach the $1 billion revenue mark in 12 months. Video game sales don’t work like that. Video games see a surge in play until many players play the game out. One the game has been played out, it’s dropped and forgotten. The only games which can see continued revenue models are massively multiplayer online (MMO) style games like Call of Duty, Fallout 76, Fortnite and even Destiny. Even then, these MMO style games see dwindling subscribers over time until eventually there aren’t enough playing to support the game financially. When that happens, the MMO game shuts down.
Starfield as an MMO?
We don’t yet know enough about Starfield to know if it even contains an MMO component. Only when the game is released will we know if Starfield is designed like Fallout 4, a completely offline single player experience… OR if it is similar to Fallout 76, a completely online MMO. Maybe it’s like Grand Theft Auto and offers both an offline gaming experience and has a separate online MMO map. Until the game releases, there’s also no way to know if Starfield has been built to support an ongoing revenue model.
It’s clear, the sales revenue for Starfield (as a game) will not be had by day-one game sales. That means that Bethesda must make up for the severely cannibalized day-one game sales by compensating for that major loss in revenue in some other way. With Fallout 76, that’s done by using the Fallout 1st subscription and the sale of Atomic Shop “Atoms.”
For Starfield, I’d expect Bethesda’s team to make up for that loss in day one game sales by forcing an in-game monthly subscription plan. This separate in-game monthly subscription will likely unlock downloadable content (DLC) and other required add-ons. With Fallout 76, Fallout 1st is not required to play the game. However for Starfield, Bethesda may be forced to make this change. Starfield might offer up a very basic and limited gaming experience included in the base price, then require paying into a monthly subscription plan to unlock the entirety of the game. At least, this is one avenue that could be taken. Even the $60 full disc buyers might be forced to pony up for these extras to continue playing.
This avenue may end up the primary means that Bethesda utilizes to make back the amount of lost revenue required to cover its multi-year game development expenses when producing Starfield. As described above, Game Pass revenue alone will not be enough to cover these incurred expenses. Keep in mind that Starfield had been in development before Microsoft bought Bethesda. After Bethesda was purchased, Microsoft has seemingly tied Bethesda’s hands by forcing exclusivity to the Xbox and PC and by also forcing Bethesda to release the Starfield game through Game Pass on day one. It’s possible that Microsoft might rollback the decision of a day one Game Pass release for Starfield. It’s also entirely possible that to play the game via Game Pass, a separate second subscription might be required.
For Bethesda, that means that once each player enters the Starfield game world, revenue will need to be found separately by Bethesda inside the game… and that likely means a separate monthly subscription for Starfield itself. It may also mean paying for a separate currency, like Atoms, to unlock in-game features, spaceships, outfits, consumables and so on. If you buy into Starfield, expect to be hit in the wallet at every turn within the game’s universe.
Can’t progress? Pay up. Can’t fly into a new solar system? Pay up. Need a special outfit to complete a mission? Pay up. Even though Microsoft has seemingly tied Bethesda’s hands for how the game gets sold initially, Microsoft likely can’t tie Bethesda’s hands once the gamer enters the game’s universe.
Inside of a game’s universe, Bethesda has seemingly complete control. It can force subscriptions, microtransactions and a whole slew of other for-pay options to draw in more revenue. As a direct result of Game Pass’s near non-existent revenue, expect Starfield’s game world to be chock full of microtransactions using your credit card almost incessantly. It’s honestly the only way Bethesda can recoup the money it took to develop this game over several years, even if Bethesda can’t control how the game gets into the consumer’s hands.
PlayStation Plus Essential
For all of the reasons as Game Pass above, all of the revenue and low developer payment arguments will apply to the PlayStation Plus Essential service. With that said, let’s hope that Sony will change the PlayStation Plus Essential service name, though. This current naming is completely clumsy and does not in any way state what it is. Even re-using the PlayStation Now brand would have been a better choice in naming for this game library service, as the “Now” indicates instant access.
Bugs, Bugs and more Bugs
One thing Bethesda has not been good at is writing solid, bug free games. It doesn’t matter what game it is, the affectionate moniker of Bugthesda has been given and it is more than just for humor’s sake. This moniker is at once both truthful and problematic. It says that bugs are inevitable with any game released by Bethesda. Bethesda’s Todd Howard chooses to laugh this off as not a problem at all, as if Bethesda’s products are truly bug free. Sorry to disappoint you, Todd. Every Bethesda game I’ve ever experienced has had myriads of bugs and still contain many bugs to this day. Fallout 76 STILL contains day-one release bugs nearly 6 years later!
Starfield won’t fare any better. Starfield will release day-one with a massive number of bugs. That’s not a prediction. That’s a fact. If you go into Starfield on day-one, expect it to be chock full of bugs. Some of the bugs might be minor and cosmetic (lights don’t work right, 3D characters standing and moving in T-poses, weapons don’t render properly, etc). However, there will also be at least one showstopper bug where mission progress cannot move forward. Oblivion had them, Skyrim had them, Fallout 3 had them, Fallout 4 had them and, yes, even Fallout 76 STILL has them.
There has not been a single Bethesda game released that has not had showstoppers. I expect Starfield to have at least one, but probably more than that. I also expect Starfield to have crashing bugs; bugs that see you play for an hour, then the entire game crashes back to the OS… possibly losing progress.
Why mention bugs at all here? Bugs have become the bane of the video game industry. In the 1990s, video game developers took pride in shaking out nearly every single bug before placing their games onto cartridges. When the Internet wasn’t the “thing” that it is today, game developers had to make their games function 100% before sending it out to the consumer. Unfortunately, using the Internet as a crutch, revisionism has allowed video game developers to become extremely lazy. This allows developers to release horrible, bug-laden experiences, then begin shaking out the bugs along the way with one, two or even hundreds of releases… all while using paying players as beta testers.
Unfortunately, games like 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077 initially released to incredibly bad reviews over its horrible bugs. While Cyberpunk’s developer, CD Projekt RED, has ironed out many of the bugs since its 2020 release, that doesn’t make the game’s overall reviews better. Once those reviews are there, they’re there for the life of the game. Those low reviews will remain and taint the review system regardless of whether the developer shores up the game. If you release a bad buggy game initially, your initial reviews stay there to impact the game’s rating long into the future. Those bad reviews, thus, impact that game’s sales forever.
Was Cyberpunk 2077 able to recoup from its initially bad launch? In some small way, perhaps. Maybe through word of mouth, but definitely not via its Metacritic scores.
For Starfield, the first 3 months after its launch will become crucial to its success or failure. Starfield’s release date is set for September 6, 2023. Bethesda’s developers are now all working at a feverish pace to complete this game in time for that September launch date. Yet, we know it won’t be complete even after a year’s delay. If it was delayed a year, that means its bugs were major and the game was as yet unfinished. It is doubtful a year will buy them enough time to fix all of that.
What this means for Starfield is that its initial reviews will make or break it. It also means that game players are becoming intolerant of being taken advantage of by game developers. Game players are not beta testers, yet more and more game studios are treating game players as tertiary beta testers. Instead of hiring actual beta testers, game developers forgo those expenses and expect paying players to report the bugs. Worse, they do. More than ever, this is the wrong choice and it is a choice that can doom a game. We pay to PLAY the game, not BETA TEST it.
Overall
Considering the massive loss in revenue due to Game Pass, the high probability for the inclusion of pay-for-play micro-transaction features, the probable need for a separate subscription, Starfield seems poised to become one of the worst games ever released by Bethesda. Unfortunately, Bethesda has too many “fanboys”; “fanboys” who are willing to buy anything released by Bethesda regardless of its useful state. For the purposes of this article, “fanboy” is used in a gender neutral capacity, encapsulating both males and females alike. For the same reason, Apple has too many of these same “fanboys” type buyers willing to buy anything Apple releases, good or bad. Bethesda’s “fanboys” are just as avid and ravenous and, for whatever misguided reason, believe Bethesda can do no wrong. To them I say, enjoy being exploited.
The purpose of this article is to call out all of the problems that Bethesda faces with the release of Starfield. Because Microsoft has strongly tied Bethesda’s hands in very specific ways, that leaves Bethesda employing other not-so-favorable options to gain that lost revenue back. As a result, I fully expect Starfield to be a poor gaming experience overall, mostly because of the compromises required for Bethesda to make back the revenue it ultimately lost as a result of Microsoft’s exclusivity and Game Pass release decisions. That and Microsoft isn’t likely to allow Bethesda to delay Starfield any longer. Whatever state Starfield is in come September is how it will launch.
How does this make a difference to me as a gamer?
Good question. For you as a gamer, you might not care much overall. That is, unless you’re really looking for a new high quality gaming experience. Though, while the incessant micro-transactions designed to bilk you for money exist at every turn, the rest of the game might seem still like a benefit to you. Game Pass itself was designed to be a huge benefit to gamers, giving them access to a huge library of games. If you don’t like Starfield, you move on and try another. In the hundreds or thousands of games out there, there may be some that work for you. If Starfield bombs, it will simply be relegated to a game on Game Pass that no one plays.
For Starfield, it doesn’t mean good things. For Bethesda, it means even worse things. For Microsoft, it means great things. Well, maybe not great, but definitely something Microsoft can ignore. If Bethesda is forced to continue down this path by Microsoft, as a developer it may cease to exist inside of Microsoft… ultimately being folded into other game studios. Microsoft doesn’t care about exactly who does what as long as someone does it. Does that mean Fallout or Starfield or other Bethesda franchises disappear? No.
Like Halo before it, Microsoft will hand Bethesda’s intellectual property to another developer to continue building new games under those franchises (or not). Microsoft doesn’t actually care who develops any given franchise as long as they’re willing to do it and what they create sells more of Microsoft’s goods and services. Once a franchise runs its course and it’s done, Microsoft is also willing to shelve the franchise indefinitely, like it did with Fable. If Bethesda as a developer fades into oblivion, Bethesda’s IP may or may not live on depending entirely on Microsoft.
That’s why all of this might (or might not) matter to you.
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WordPress: Gutenberg vs Calypso
WordPress is a somewhat popular text blogging platform. It is, in fact, the blogging platform where this blog is presently hosted. This post is intended to offer up some background history of WordPress and where WordPress is currently heading (hint: not in a good direction). Let’s explore.
Original Editor — Circa 2003
When WordPress.com launched in 2003, a very basic text editor was included with the interface. This text editor was the defacto editor for the WordPress platform until around 2015, when Calypso launched. This very basic text editor was not HTML aware nor did it in any way support any advanced HTML features. As a WordPress user, you had to use trial and error methods to determine if the editor itself and the underlying submission syntax checker would allow any specific inline HTML or CSS features to be published.
This basic editor also did not support or even render such basic styling features like the application of styles like underline, italics or bold or even changing fonts and sizes. If you wanted to use these features within your article, you were forced to use hypertext markup to “wrap” lines of text with such formatting styles. This made editing and re-editing articles a chore because the editor itself did not render this markup at all, which meant you had to stumble over all of the markup when reading your article back. If you wanted to see the article fully rendered including these styles and markups, you were forced to preview the article in your WordPress theme.
In other words, a few markup features worked, but many, many did not. If you included hypertext markup in your article, you also had to know how to craft hypertext markup properly. You were then forced to test if the markup that you included would be accepted by the platform. This made crafting hypertext markup complicated, slow and required a huge learning curve. The editor itself showed you the entire article, markup and all, which made reading an article using this editor a complete pain in the ass. Note that this editor still exists in the platform as of this writing, through the wp-admin interface. It’s also still just as clumsy, antiquated and problematic as it always was.
This 2003 editor fares even worse today after you’ve edited an article in 2018’s Gutenberg, where Gutenberg crafts its blocks using a massive number of really ugly HTML comment and statements. It’s impossible to read an article’s text in among Gutenberg’s prolific and ugly markup when viewing it in such a basic editor. 2015’s Calypso, on the other hand, has tried to keep its markup limited, which served an author much better if you had to dive into HTML for any specific reason. Sometimes simpler is better!
Enter Calypso — Circa 2015
Around 2015, WordPress introduced a new editor called Calypso. This new editor at least supported basic live text style rendering; rendering that now allows you to see underline, italic and bold formatted live in the editor itself while writing. In essence, Calypso offered writers a similar experience as when using a software word processing product like Microsoft Word. Calypso even supported keyboard hotkeys to set these styles, making writing much easier.
No longer are you required to trip over ugly HTML markup statements. Limited hypertext markup is further included and is often rendered by the Calypso editor. Such rendered markup includes embedding images, YouTube videos and other basic multimedia inclusions like image slideshows. No longer did you need to go documentation hunting for the right WordPress tags to get this information included. This means that if you drop a link to a YouTube video in, the editor is aware that it’s a YouTube video and might render the video itself inline in the editor. The Calypso editor also crafted whatever HTML markup was needed to get this multimedia rendered properly. Early in the life of Calypso, YouTube UI rendering didn’t occur. It wasn’t until a few later releases that it began to render the videos in the editor. Advanced CSS styling and features, however, were mostly beyond the Calypso editor, but it can be included in an article by selecting “Edit as HTML” and manually adding it, as long as the syntax parser allows the syntax through. This situation pretty much exists today even with Gutenberg.
For about a 3-4 year period, WordPress was on the right track with the Calypso editor, making enhancements and bringing it up to date each year. Calypso was then a somewhat simplistic HTML editor, yes, but it was leaps and bounds better than the original WP Admin editor that was introduced in 2003. As a blog author, you were still forced to preview every article to make sure that it formatted properly in your site’s theme. Calypso’s performance as an editor is still unmatched, even today. Calypso launched and was ready to use in under 3 seconds when beginning a new article. Impressive! Very, very impressive!
The entire Calypso editor, while writing, remained speedy and responsive. In other words, if you typed 200 words per minute, the editor could fully keep up with that typing pace. Calypso didn’t then (and still doesn’t now) offer spell or grammar checking or perhaps some of the advanced features that would come to future editors, but not much in the blogging world at that time did. Though, these features could have been added to Calypso. Instead, WordPress.org had other not-so-brilliant ideas and then Gutenberg happened.
Enter Gutenberg — Circa 2018
In 2018, Gutenberg launches and replaces Calypso within WordPress.com. However, because Calypso had been so entrenched in the platform due to its adoption and use over those ~3 years, the Gutenberg team was more or less forced to continue supporting Calypso inside of the Gutenberg editor. The way the Gutenberg team managed this was by encapsulating the Calypso editor into what would become known as Gutenberg’s “Classic Block”. The inclusion of this block type is solely designed for backward compatibility with Calypso crafted articles.
Let’s postulate an insane request if WordPress had requested this action of bloggers after Gutenberg’s introduction. What if WordPress had required perhaps thousands of bloggers to check every article ever written for compatibility after auto-upgrading every article to Gutenberg blocks? Gutenberg’s article upgrade system has never worked very well at all. WordPress clearly wasn’t this level of insane to require this of its bloggers.
Once you also understand the ineptitude of the Gutenberg development team and how Gutenberg actually works (or doesn’t), you’ll understand why this didn’t happen and why it was simpler to integrate Calypso into Gutenberg’s Classic Block instead of asking every blogger to ensure their converted articles are still properly formatted. Yeah, if WordPress had required this step, the WordPress.com platform would have died. Thus, Calypso compatibility was built.
Gutenberg’s Misguided Design and Philosophy
Gutenberg was touted as a mixed media extravaganza for blogging, except for one thing. WordPress is STILL intended to be a text blogging platform. It’s not YouTube, it’s not Snapchat, it’s not Twitter and it’s not TikTok. You don’t need this type or level of multimedia extravaganza in a text blogging editor for the vast majority of blog posts. It’s useless and it’s overkill. Yet, the Gutenberg team blazed onward with its incredibly misguided development idea.
The need to embed graphics, YouTube, TikTok and other mixed media within a blog post is self-limiting, simply by the sheer fact that WordPress is still designed to be a written blog article platform. Embedding such mixed media might encompass 1-5% of the total volume of an article, mainly used to support written talking points, not as a primary blogging mechanism. I’m not advocating not adding these multimedia features, but I’m also not advocating that these features become the primary reason to make a new blog editor either.
The Gutenberg development team ultimately spent an inordinate amount of time over-designing and over-coding what is now essentially a technical replacement for cut and paste; the entire block design that Gutenberg touts. Cut and paste already exists. We don’t need a new way of doing it. Honestly, a replacement for cut and paste really IS the entire claim to fame for Gutenberg’s block system. Effectively, the Gutenberg block system was designed for ease of moving the blocks around… or at least, so we’ve been led to believe. In reality, moving blocks around is an absolute chore when attempting to use the up and down arrow controls. As a technical replacement for cut and paste, Gutenberg is an abject failure.
Further, even though Gutenberg touts its ability to work with WordPress themes, that feature has never properly worked and Gutenberg is not and has never been WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get). You would think that even though Calypso was never intended to offer WYSIWYG rendering, implementing a brand new editor in WordPress would offer this very important feature to bloggers. If you thought that, you’d have thought wrong. With Gutenberg, you are still forced to preview articles using your site’s theme to see the exact placement of everything. Gutenberg’s supposed use of themes is so basic and rudimentary that placement of almost anything, like even an image, almost never works in the same way as the theme’s placement.
However, Gutenberg’s main and biggest problem today is STILL its performance. Honestly, it’s one of the worst performing text editors I have ever used. The 2003 editor still outperforms than Gutenberg by an order of magnitude. If you’re writing a one paragraph one block article, Gutenberg might be fine. When you’re writing a 5,000 word blog article broken into maybe 50 or more blocks, by the final Paragraph Block, the input performance is so bad that the small flashing letter cursor lags behind keyboard input as much as 5 words (maybe even more based on your speed of typing). If you’re a 200 WPM typist with an even 1% error rate, good luck writing an article in Gutenberg. This lagging issue MUST have been apparent to the developers… unless they’ve tested nothing, which appears to be the case.
Gutenberg has failed at almost every design case it has tried to achieve! Calypso still outperforms Gutenberg in almost every single way, even when embedded in the “Classic Block”. It’s the entire reason I exclusively write using the “Classic Block” in WordPress.
Gutenberg doesn’t enhance the blogging experience at all. Just opposite, in fact. Gutenberg gets in your way. It’s slow. It gets worse. The Paragraph Block is so bare bones basic that it can’t even perform a simple spell check, let alone provide grammar checking. Yet, its input performance is so ironically slow for being as basic as it is. Honestly, both WordPress.com and WordPress.org (authors of Gutenberg) are deluded if they think Gutenberg is the answer to blogging. Calypso as an editor was way more useful and powerful than Gutenberg has ever been. Yet, here we are… stuck with this dog slow dinosaur that was foisted onto us unsuspecting WordPress bloggers.
Within 3 months of its release, Calypso’s dev team reduced its launch time from 10 seconds down to less than 3 seconds. In the nearly 6 years since Gutenberg’s launch, almost nothing has improved with Gutenberg, least of all its solid 15 seconds launch timing. You’d think that in nearly 6 years, the Gutenberg team could have made Gutenberg perform better along side adding important blogging features, like spell and grammar checking. Again, you’d have thought wrong. Of course, by all means let’s add embedding of YouTube videos in a block. But no, let’s not add spell or grammar checking to the Paragraph Block to enhance the entire reason why WordPress exists… writing. Oh no, let’s not fix the editor crashing which forces bloggers to reload the entire editor page and lose work that, you know, helps bloggers do the thing they’re here to do… write! By all means, let’s not fix the lag that builds up after 10, 50 or 100 blocks that lags input down to unbearable levels that prevents bloggers from doing the one thing they’re here to do… write!
No, instead let’s build useless block system, that technical replacement for cut and paste, that only serves to get in the way of blogging, slow everything down and serves to make the entire editor unstable. How many loss crashes can a blogger endure before realizing the need to write in an offline editor? Once this happens, what use is Gutenberg to WordPress?
I don’t know what the Gutenberg team is spending their time doing, but they’re clearly not solving these actual real usability problems within Gutenberg, nor by extension, attempting to enhance and extend WordPress as a text based blogging platform for us writers.
Calypso Lives On
Because the Gutenberg team was forced to retain Calypso within the Classic Block type in Gutenberg, it is the one and only one saving grace and shining light in among the darkness that is now Gutenberg. Without the Calypso editor’s continued availability within Gutenberg, this platform would be dead. Calypso is the sole and single reason why I can still use WordPress to write this article right now. Were I to use the Paragraph Block as the Gutenberg team has intended, instead of being maybe 90% of the way through this writing article at this point, I’d be 10% finished… spending all of that extra time fighting with the major input cursor lag, the hassle of block management and the continual lockups of the editor. Yes, Gutenberg randomly locks up hard when using the Paragraph Blocks, forcing the writer to reload the entire browser tab (and possibly lose some writing effort in the process). Calypso in Gutenberg’s Classic Block retains all of its snap, performance and stability that it formerly had when it was WordPress’s default editor back in 2015. I don’t have to worry about that silly Gutenberg block performance issue.
To this day, I still don’t know why WordPress thinks Gutenberg is better than Calypso… other than for the fact that a bunch of misguided developers spent way too much time coding something that simply doesn’t work.
In the name of brevity, I’m leaving out a WHOLE LOT of Gutenberg problems here; problems that if I were describe each and every one, this article would easily reach 10k to 20k words. I’m avoiding writing all of that because it’s a diversion which doesn’t help make this article’s point. Suffice it to say that everything Calypso had built as an editor was rebuilt into Gutenberg almost rote. Almost nothing new was added to Gutenberg to take Gutenberg beyond Calypso’s features.
Surly Gutenberg Developers and WordPress staff
I should mention that I’ve attempted interacting with the Gutenberg development team, spending my own time submitting valid Gutenberg bug reports to their official bug reporting site… only to be summarily harangued by their developers. When someone treats me with such disrespect, I don’t bother… a fact that I told one of those disrespectful developers. Time is way too short to spend it screwing around with ungrateful, surly people. Unfortunately, this ungrateful surliness has also made its way into the ranks at WordPress.com, in their leadership team and even on down into the support team.
For example, I asked for a feature to be submitted allowing the WordPress user to be able to choose their preferred block upon Gutenberg launch. Instead of actually agreeing and submitting the feature request, I got an unnecessary explanation of why the Paragraph Block exists in the way that it does.
Here is this Support Team member’s quote:
The Paragraph block is the default block in the WordPress Gutenberg block editor because it caters to the most fundamental and common use case when creating content: writing and structuring text.
And yet, the Paragraph Block performs the worst of any block in Gutenberg. If the Paragraph Block is that important of a block to Gutenberg, so important that it needs to be set as the default launching block, then why do we need all of these other more or less useless mixed media blocks? More importantly than this, if the Paragraph Block holds that level of importance to Gutenberg, why doesn’t it just work? If Gutenberg is supposed to revolutionize the blogging industry with its “new” mixed media approach, why can’t we set our default launching block to be something other than the Paragraph Block? No, WordPress, you can’t have it both ways.
It’s actually quite difficult for me not to hold that developer’s (and, by extension, WordPress staff’s) bad attitude against Gutenberg’s lack of quality. I still don’t understand why a developer would continue to write (bad) code for a project when they’re that disenchanted with writing it? It’s also not that this user’s bad attitude stemmed from my single interaction. Bad attitudes almost always originate internally and extend onto customer interactions. People who are that disenchanted with the products they are supporting probably need to find better jobs where the management team actually cares about the products they sell.
Design Failure
WordPress is a text-based blogging platform. There is no disputing this fact. However, the Gutenberg editor along with the Gutenberg team seem to want to rework this fact by adding Gutenberg’s strange mixed media features. In addition to the technical replacement for cut and paste along side these mixed media inclusions, one feature noticeably missing from Gutenberg is enhancements to the Paragraph Block itself, features that if added would majorly help in making writing simpler, easier and faster; with writing being the whole point to why WordPress exists.
For example, Google’s Gmail email editor has, for many years now, included grammar and spell checking via inline popup helpers. These helpers aid writers in crafting more professionally written articles. While the Gutenberg team was spending its lion’s share of its time crafting a technical replacement for cut and paste (its entire block system), Google spent its time helping writers to, you know, actually write. Even other platforms like Medium have drastically improved its own editors by helping writers to write better.
To this day (nearly 6 years after Gutenberg’s launch), the Paragraph Block still doesn’t offer grammar or spell checking built-in. Instead, the Gutenberg editor throws all of that back to the browser to handle. While Firefox does have a rudimentary spell checker built-in, it does not offer grammar checking at all. After all, Firefox is a generic web browser, not a writer’s tool, unlike WordPress and Gutenberg which are intended to be writer’s tools.
Unfortunately, the dictionary included in Firefox is also exceedingly basic and is missing many valid words. This means that it is, once again, left to the writer to determine if the red underline showing under a word is valid. Firefox does offer replacement suggestions, but only if you choose to right-click on the word, requiring active writer interaction. Once again, Firefox is not intended to be a writer’s tool, but WordPress and Gutenberg are! Yet, both WordPress and Gutenberg refuse to build the necessary tools to help writers write better. Instead, they offers us the questionable mix-media extravaganza editor with a poor technical replacement for cut and paste; an editor that isn’t even properly supported or managed and is broken more often that it works.
If Gutenberg is what we writers and bloggers get to look forward to for the next 6 years at WordPress, perhaps it’s time move to a different blogging platform. WordPress, word up!
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Fact Checking the Donald Trump Rhetoric
Donald Trump makes many claims and assertions which have no basis in fact. He does this almost every time he speaks at a podium anywhere. Additionally, misguided Republicans (aka his sycophants) blindly accept Donald’s rhetoric and believe Donald to be, and I quote these misguided people, “The Best President Ever.” Let’s explore how much of Donald Trump’s rhetoric is false.
Donald Trump’s Claims after Indictment
Let’s start with claims stated by Donald Trump’s own mouth following his indictment. Many of these claims may seem to hold weight until you realize that Donald Trump is a pathological lying narcissist. What that means in layman’s terms is that he habitually lies about almost every single thing he says. While there may be grains of truth in a few of his statements, they usually end with a massive lie.
I honestly don’t see the appeal or attraction in listening to someone whose lies outnumber truths and who continues to lie constantly, even when there’s absolutely no need to do so. Why so many Republicans are so willing to accept and embrace Donald Trump’s habitual lying needs to become the subject of an educational research paper that has yet to be written.
Let’s jump right into Donald’s claims…
Claim 1: Presidential Records Act requires Negotiation between National Archives and ex-President to return classified documents.
Claim Status: False. At the time a new President is sworn into office, all previous documents by the previous President must be returned, handed over to and automatically become property of the National Archives. Nothing in the NARA statute requires or even suggests “negotiating” with any former President for document turnover.
Claim 2: Joe Biden has over 1800 boxes of classified documents.
Claim Status: False. A small number of documents in boxes were found and returned from Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and Boston to the National Archives. It is entirely unclear whether those documents had been there from when he left office as vice president or if they were acquired and carried there after he became President. Additionally, the documents may not even be classified or sensitive. How would a Vice President gain access to such highly classified documents anyway?
Claim 3: All past Presidents have taken home classified documents after their administration ended. Trump actually admits to having done this himself (see below).
Claim Status: False and True, respectively. While Trump’s admission of taking boxes of classified documents to Mar-A-Lago is True, the remainder is False. No past presidents have intentionally and willfully taken boxes of classified documents from the White House or any other facility operated by the government upon departing their role as President. Donald Trump is the first and only President to have both done this upon departing the role and he is also the first ex-President to have admitted to having done this.
Claim 4: Trump’s call to Georgia soliciting votes was a “Perfect Call”
Claim Status: False. Trump’s call to Georgia’s elections official to solicit those officials to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump is not only NOT a “Perfect Call”, it very likely constitutes malicious intent to willfully solicit conspiracy and interfere with the 2020 election in Georgia. Willful election interference is a crime in Georgia.
Claim 5: Trump claims that America is experiencing the highest inflation in 60 years.
Claim Status: False. In 1979, 42 years ago, the annual inflation rate was 13.3%, 7.3% higher than our current 6% annual inflation rate as of February 2023. Let’s further put his statement into broader perspective. Donald Trump ushered in our current inflation rate as part of his own failure in handling the first year of the COVID pandemic. The United States is presently in the midst of inflation, not because of Biden, but because of Trump’s economic mismanagement of the pandemic his final year in office.
Claim 6: Trump’s claims about ballot box stuffing in the 2020 election were “all caught on government cameras.”
Claim Status: Mostly False, but also slightly True. It is categorically False and was never proven in Donald Trump’s over 63 election lawsuits that ballot box stuffing ever took place at any actual 2020 election polling places. Such activity was also never caught “on government cameras.” If it had been, he wouldn’t have lost over 63 lawsuits with this exact argument. However, Donald Trump himself did attempt to use the court system and the Insurrection itself to stuff his own ballots into ballot boxes to sway the election in his favor. Thus, his statement is somewhat True that ballot box stuffing was attempted, but only by Donald Trump himself and, by extension, those in the Republican party. In fact, many Republicans are still attempting to sway elections by heavy gerrymandering, which should be considered a form of ballot box stuffing and election interference.
Claim 7: $85 billion worth of equipment was left in Afghanistan after US withdrawal.
Claim Status: False. Around ~$83 billion total was spent on managing portions of the US occupation of Afghanistan. On withdrawal, around $7 billion in total equipment was left behind, much of it left in an inoperable state. Let’s understand the further subtext over Trump’s statement. Donald Trump was instrumental in negotiating with the Taliban in his final year in office over the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was planned for early 2020. Thus, the Afghanistan withdrawal and any associated costs of equipment left behind was a direct result of Donald Trump’s meddling in Afghanistan’s affairs. Donald Trump left behind an exceedingly short timetable for Joe Biden to execute a proper withdrawal, forcing this action just a few months after his inauguration. Thus, Donald Trump is actually at least partially responsible, along with Joe Biden, for the cost of any equipment left behind and any casualties after withdrawal from Afghanistan due to Trump’s exceedingly short timetable that Biden likely felt forced to uphold.
Claim 8: Illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-A-Lago
Claim Status: False. After months of the failure in negotiations back and forth between Trump and the National Archives to return documents, the FBI was sent with a legally issued, judge authorized, properly signed and carefully executed search warrant to search and seize the documents that Donald Trump brought with him from the White House to Mar-A-Lago. The search was not a “raid”. The search was conducted in an orderly fashion as written in the warrant. Documents were seized by the FBI in relation to those required by the warrant. Further context follows. Donald Trump was given every opportunity over many months to surrender all documents involving the National Archives, but chose to ignore those requests. The search and seizure was only required by the FBI because Donald Trump himself failed to comply with repeated requests by the National Archives to return requested documents; documents that Donald Trump claimed he did not have, but which were subsequently found during the legal search.
Claim 9: DOJ / FBI lying to FISA Court to gain access to spy on Trump Aide
Claim Status: Somewhat True and somewhat False. At the time, the FBI was investigating a Trump aide for possibly spying in relation to the 2020 election. When the FBI submitted its request to FISA, it believed that it then had probable cause for the investigation (False). It was later determined that the FBI’s probable cause might not have been valid (True). Further context is warranted. Because this situation happened under Trump’s Presidency, he should have done something as President. Clearly, he didn’t. As the then sitting President, Trump complaining after-the-fact about a situation that he could have handled then is his own fault and of his own making and no one else’s.
Claim 10: Alleged democrat unconstitutional changes to election laws by not getting approvals from state legislators
Claim Status: Ambiguous. Trump is guilty of this himself. By Trump attempting to seat false electors in the 2020 election, who would then vote in Trump’s favor instead of the duly authorized electors during the electoral college vote, this is actually an unconstitutional change to election laws unapproved by states. Second, by requesting Mike Pence to throw the electoral college confirmation in Trump’s favor (remember, the “‘Hang Mike Pence’ chant?”) during the insurrection, this is also another example of unconstitutional changes to election laws not state approved. While Trump may be calling out a different event in his own mind, these are the two events that most people will remember that Trump perpetrated on the United States… events which fully fit Trump’s claim.
Claim 11: The DOJ was working in collusion with Facebook and Twitter to hide and suppress data involving the Hunter Biden Laptop.
Claim Status: False. Twitter and Facebook have never colluded with anyone in the government. Information about the Hunter Biden laptop was never hidden from anyone on Twitter or Facebook. Any posts removed or hidden were done so by each respective company’s staff. Further context is required. The alleged Hunter Biden laptop has never been proven to have ever been owned by Hunter Biden himself. A person purporting to be Hunter Biden, but never properly identified, dropped off a laptop at a repair shop. The repair shop owner turned the laptop over to the FBI. The laptop has never been proven to have ever been owned by anyone in the Biden family. The contents of the alleged laptop hard drive were supposedly copied prior to being handed over. The alleged hard drive content supposedly has incriminating data, but again nothing on that hard drive has been shown to implicate Hunter Biden or indeed even hold incriminating evidence. The data, the laptop and the situation were likely fabricated to disparage the Biden family. This one is solely a false talking point by the Republicans intended solely to disparage the Democrats and, more specifically, the Biden family.
Claim 11: Massive election interference (via Alvin Bragg)
Claim Status: False, but true in other ways. Context required. In point of fact, there is massive election interference occurring today, but not by the Democrats. It is actually a point of fact that Republicans are perpetrating massive election interference through heavy gerrymandering in their respective states. By redrawing district lines in convoluted and complex patterns solely designed to dilute Democrat voters into fewer numbers and concentrate Republican voters in greater numbers, this ensures Republicans win state (and federal) elections when they otherwise would not. Gerrymandering is a form of election interference on a massive scale. Gerrymandering is designed to allow politicians and legislators to pick their voters, subverting the will of the voters to pick their candidates. Additionally, Republican led states have tampered with voting laws by attempting to outlaw vote-by-mail and other similar proxy voting mechanisms in favor of in-person day of voting. These law changes are intended to exclude many legal voters (such as disabled individuals and veterans) as yet another means to allow Republicans to pick their voters, not the other way around as elections should require. Further, Donald Trump allegedly sought to interfere with both the 2016 and 2020 elections. See above to cite DJT’s interference with the 2020 election.
Claim 12: Alvin Bragg case “never should have been brought”
Claim Status: Wishful thinking. Donald Trump lived and worked in New York prior to his Presidency. Bragg’s indictment states 34 counts of falsifying business records with intent to commit “another crime” prior to the election. With this article, it’s pretty much proven that Donald J. Trump is a pathological liar. Lying this pathologically goes to prove that Donald Trump is not a trustworthy person and is not credible. Alvin Bragg has not proven himself to be a pathological liar or untrustworthy. As such, the Alvin Bragg indictment is a whole lot more credible than Donald Trump’s wishful thinking and statements of being “Not Guilty.” However, “guilty until proven innocent” is how the United States rolls. In that goal, let’s allow Alvin Bragg’s indictment to be brought to trial so Donald Trump can prove that Bragg’s indictment is indeed not valid, which will allow a jury to decide the matter of Donald Trump.
Claim 13: Crime statistics in Democrat run cities are the likes of which we have never seen before.
Claim Status: False. Republican led states far outpace crime over Democrat run states. Democrat run cities within Republican run states do have higher crime rates, but that’s only because the states are Republican run, operating under much more lax Republican state crime and gun laws. In fact, gun violence in Republican run (Red) states far outpaces gun violence perpetrated in Democrat run (Blue) states. It is actually Republican led states that have far higher crime problems than Democrat states. Most Democrat run cities in Democrat run states do not have the same crime rate problems as Democrat run cities in Republican run states.
Claim 14: In the 2020 election, DJT claims he won 75 million votes, “which is more than any sitting President in the history of our country.”
Claim Status: False. In the 2020 election, Donald Trump did not get 75 million votes. He received 74,222,958 votes. Rounding that, you’d round it down to 74 million votes. It gets worse, though. Joe Biden, in fact, won 81,283,098 votes (or 81 million votes). If anyone has the distinction of winning the most votes in United States Presidential history (based solely on Trump’s statement), it is in fact, Joe Biden who gets that honor. And yet, here we have Donald Trump taking credit for an honor which he didn’t earn and doesn’t deserve. Note that in 2016, Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but still managed to win the electoral college.
Claim 15: “[Documents] that I openly and in very plain sight brought with me to Mar-A-Lago from our beautiful White House…”
Claim Status: True. Donald Trump has confessed to having brought classified documents from the White House to Mar-A-Lago after having left office as President for a few hours, but then as ex-President after Biden’s inauguration. As ex-President, these (still classified) records were no longer Trump’s records and he had no more right to remain in possession of these classified documents after becoming ex-President. Admitting to having taken classified documents without authorization is probably exactly the admission and evidence that DOJ’s Jack Smith needs to majorly help indict and convict Trump’s case. Donald Trump needs to learn to shut his mouth.
Claim 16: “As President, I have the right to declassify documents, and the process is automatic.”
Claim Status: True and False, respectively. It is True that as sitting President, the President holds the rights to declassify some documents. It is absolutely False that the process is automatic. To declassify documents as President, forms must be filled out and submitted so that the National Archives can ascertain validity of the request and so that the documents can become properly reclassified in the archive. It does not and cannot happen automatically. However, the President cannot declassify certain types of statutorily protected documents at all, not even by thinking about it or by using paperwork. As an ex-President, however, the power to declassify documents is forfeit and lost. Simply walking out of the White House with boxes of documents in hand as soon-to-be-ex-President is not sufficient to ‘automatically’ declassify documents. The appropriate paperwork must be filled and filed to both verify if the document can be declassified and also to request the archive to update its classification, if so. If the President didn’t request these actions prior to becoming ex-President, then the documents should not be considered declassified. As stated, statutorily protected documents simply cannot be declassified at all by a sitting President. Possessing any of these statutorily protected documents as ex-President should be considered a felony. If Trump’s team had submitted declassifying document forms within 30 days of having exited the White House, the now Biden controlled government would probably have been lenient enough to accept the declassifying requests on Trump’s behalf, with the exception of statutorily protected documents, of course. I mean, how hard is it to do the right thing?
Republican Claims
While many of the Republican talking points have been covered by Donald Trump’s claims above, with those talking points lifted almost verbatim from Trump’s speeches, let’s discuss the delusions that many Republican voters are under about Donald Trump. Further, let’s validate these continually regurgitated Republican talking points.
Delusion 1: Donald Trump ushered in and presided over the best economic prosperity ever seen in the United States as the 45th President.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump didn’t usher in United States economic prosperity during his tenure. This economic prosperity is falsely attributed to Donald Trump. The prosperity that carried through Trump’s first 3 years during his Presidency was as a direct result of Barrack Obama. Obama ushered in this prosperity after the 2008 mortgage meltdown almost tanked the entire economy. It was Barrack Obama who spent the time and effort to rebound the economy to the prosperous level seen in 2015, just prior to Trump taking office. Once Trump took office, Trump rode Obama’s economic wave for his first 3 years, until the economy slowed in early 2019 and then COVID happened and fully tanked the economy. If Trump were the economic savior he is so readily touted and claims to be, Trump’s fourth year in office should have remained as prosperous as the 3 years prior, regardless of COVID. Note that economic prosperity includes job gains, inflation, wages and all manner of other metrics that Donald Trump rode and took personal credit for, but which happened because of Obama. One thing that Trump can take full credit for is tanking the economy once COVID arrived. Yet another dubious honor.
Delusion 2: Unemployment was at its lowest rate ever under Trump.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump presided over 2.9 million lost jobs over his 4 years in office. The unemployment rate went up by 1.6% to 6.3%. Compare that to the end of 2022 when the unemployment rate was 2.2% under Biden.
Delusion 3: The deficit was at its lowest rate ever in the history of the United States.
Delusion Status: False. Under Donald Trump, the United States deficit actually increased almost exponentially, skyrocketing from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion, the most ever for a one term president. A dubious honor to be sure.
Delusion 4: There were no wars under Donald Trump.
Delusion Status: False. While the United States entered no “new wars”, existing and inherited wars grew both in size and in monetary expenditures under Donald Trump. Trump even exacerbated these inherited wars causing even more death and destruction by his own actions, including the use of expensive drones. Trumps claims are just that, claims… and false ones at that.
Delusion 5: Gas prices were the cheapest ever under Trump.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump presided over somewhat cheaper gasoline prices between 2016 and 2019 than between 2010-2015 (which averaged over $3). The average price of a gallon of gas during Donald Trump’s presidency ranged between $2.00 and $2.75 per gallon. In fact, when Biden took office, gas prices began to decline a little over Trump’s term for at least Biden’s first year in office. After that, the gas price gouging situation began, echoing similar prices seen during some of Obama’s term in office. In the year 2000, though, the United States had seen gas prices drop to around 99¢ per gallon at the time, far cheaper than was ever seen during Trump’s time in office. More false rhetoric.
Delusion 6: Democrats are ushering in higher crime rates.
Delusion Status: False. In fact, this situation is truthfully the opposite. Republican led states are ushering in some of the highest crime rates in the nation. This is mostly because Republicans are NRA friendly, if not NRA backed. Thus, Republicans refuse to write legislation to control guns. Many Republican led states are now crafting and signing new legislation to both legalize guns even more and allow such activities as concealed carrying without a permit. For example, Republican Ron DeSantis recently signed a permitless concealed carry into law in Florida. Republicans are clearly very, very gun friendly legislatively, to the point that it is now facilitating skyrocketing crime rates and homicide statistics in Republican led states.
Delusion 7: Democrat cities are ushering in higher crime rates.
Delusion Status: Ambiguous and False. The subtext of this false narrative is to disparage Democrats without explaining that Republicans are actually responsible for this situation. Democrat run cities that are now experiencing higher than normal crime rates in those cities which exist within Republican led states. It is then no surprise that because Republicans are writing state legislation to relax gun laws, allowing open carry and even permitless concealed carry and easier access to buying guns, that the crime rate in all cities in those Republican states is skyrocketing. Thus, this false rhetoric is designed to ignore the fact that it is the Republicans who are actually responsible for the skyrocketing crime rates in those Democrat run cities.
Delusion 8: Democrats are responsible for the open border crisis.
Delusion Status: Mostly false. While Joe Biden has made a few questionable maneuvers regarding securing the border, Republicans are the ones making this situation worse. With Greg Abbott human trafficking immigrants across the country to other states along with Ron DeSantis, which is a federal crime, this action is backfiring on the Republicans. Abbott’s trafficking is actually having the opposite effect by encouraging even more immigrants to arrive at the border so they can be bussed into the United States. While Biden hasn’t sufficiently secured the border, it is the Republicans who are causing the borders to become clogged due to their cushy busses, free transportation and free food and lodging that Greg Abbott is giving to the immigrants the moment they get here. It is Abbott who is welcoming the immigrants with open arms, not Biden. The border security is actually the responsibility of Greg Abbott, in coordination with the border patrol. It is not Joe Biden’s responsibility. If Greg Abbott is not actively trying to secure the border, that failure falls almost squarely on Texas and Abbott, not on Biden. Once again, the false delusional rhetoric is the responsibility of the Republicans, not the Democrats.
Delusion 9: Donald Trump is the best president EVAR!
Delusion Claim: False. Donald Trump has actually proven himself to be the worst President in United States History. What other sitting president fomented a violent insurrection against the government? Donald Trump has had a lot of firsts, but none of these firsts are something to be proud of, nor do any of these firsts prove Trump to be a great or even good President. These firsts are of dubious distinction:
- President Donald Trump fomented and incited a violent Insurrection on the United States Capitol building for the sole purposes of causing election interference, entirely for the purposes of keeping himself in power as the President of the United States beyond his Constitutionally mandated 4 year term.
- President Donald Trump took many boxes of allegedly classified documents from the White House back to his home in Mar-A-Lago in Florida; boxes that hadn’t been proven to be declassified at the time. Trump argues that he declassified them simply by thinking about it. That’s not one of the legally adopted US Government processes required to declassify documents. The legal process involves filling out paperwork, submitting it to the archives and having that request accepted and acknowledged. If the archive staff wasn’t aware the documents were declassified, then they are not declassified. Attempting to declassify them as an ex-President also isn’t possible.
- President Donald Trump was the only President to have been impeached by the House of Representatives twice. He was also the first President to have been denied conviction by the Senate twice.
- Donald Trump is the first former President of the United States to have been criminally indicted by any prosecutor.
There are likely many more firsts yet to come, but these above are the highlights (err… lowlights) of Donald Trump’s dubious Presidency. In addition to the false rhetoric already refuted above, Donald Trump’s term wasn’t spectacular by any Presidential standard. While Trump certainly wasn’t the first president to serve only one term, Trump most definitely shares in a very small group of Presidents who have only served one term including:
- James Buchanan
- Andrew Johnson
- Franklin Pierce
- William Henry Harrison
- John Tyler
- Millard Fillmore
- Warren G. Harding
- Herbert Hoover
- Zachary Taylor
- Martin Van Buren
- Rutherford B. Hayes
- Benjamin Harrison
- Chester A. Arthur
- Gerald Ford
- James Garfield
- Jimmy Carter
- William Howard Taft
- George H. W. Bush
- James K. Polk
- John Quincy Adams
- John Adams
- John F. Kennedy (for obvious reasons)
- Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump served as President, yes, but didn’t really help the United States very much. Most countries laughed at Trump like a clown and easily saw through Trump’s crass veneer. He raised the deficit by tremendous amounts, spending vast amounts of money, but not really providing much benefit to United States citizens. Because Obama had already set the economy on an upward trajectory, Donald Trump didn’t have to do much to keep that trajectory on track. He simply needed to not interfere with it and that’s what he did (or rather, didn’t do). Donald Trump’s legacy, however, wasn’t that he was mostly a do-nothing President. It would be how he handled his final year in office and specifically what happened on January 6th that effectively eclipsed his previous 4 years of service and rewrote his historical legacy as the 45th President.
Because Donald Trump was ill-prepared to handle the pandemic, he first tried to ignore it. When that didn’t work, he then tried to do as little as possible. This left the United States open to the rapid spread of it. While the CDC and other health agencies tried to steer Donald Trump in the right direction, he was having none of it. This meant that many hundreds of thousands of people died of COVID-19 in the early days because Donald Trump failed and refused to do anything.
It wasn’t until his approval ratings dropped to all time lows that he began to work on such projects as Operation Warp Speed, to develop and push through vaccines quickly. While he did preside over such health projects, it was too little, too late… at least for his legacy. If he had acted much sooner to the pandemic, many more people could have lived.
If Donald Trump had left well enough alone regarding the election and accepted his defeat gracefully during the 2020 election, you know by actually conceding to Biden, his legacy would have remained fully intact. Instead, Donald Trump took a different, highly questionable and very unethical approach to leaving office (or rather, to prevent his leaving office). Trump attempted to perpetrate many dubious (and probably very illegal) schemes in this process which ultimately fomented into a violent Insurrection on Capitol Hill by his supporters, all in the goal of attempting to halt the counting of the Electoral College votes with the sole intent to interfere with the Election and halt the peaceful transition of power.
Though, Donald Trump (and his cabal) claimed those violent rioters weren’t his supporters at all, instead suggesting they were actually Democrats and/or ANTIFA, even though this idea makes zero sense at all. Why would Democrats show up to a Trump rally at the Ellipse and support Trump? Then see those same Democrats march to the Capitol Hill buildings only to rip apart the buildings and violently attack police officers? It wasn’t a Democrat rally. It was a Republican led rally. Why would Democrats attend a Republican rally in those numbers? No, those people were definitely Donald Trump supporters.
Worse, for 4 hours and a handful of minutes, Donald Trump allowed the rioting to continue unabated instead of calling an end to it as President and sending in troops to stop it. The President should ALWAYS call for law and order, but instead this President stayed entirely silent, aiding and abetting the rioters silently.
Donald Trump’s historic legacy will be forever overshadowed and tainted by Trump’s incredibly dubious and stupid choice to foment a violent insurrection, followed by his over 4 hours of (in)action on January 6th, 2020… fully and completely eclipsing any good that may have been accomplished during his previous years as President. No one will care ultimately what he did in his early years, but everyone will remember that a President of the United States attempted to tear up the Constitution solely for personal gain.
Sychopant Supporters
Donald Trump’s sycophants, however, act like parrots. These delusional people simply repeat everything Donald Trump says almost verbatim, as if he’s somehow the voice of reason and/or the voice of truth. If anything, this article should illustrate exactly how misguided Donald Trump’s sycophants are and how much Donald Trump lacks the ability to tell the truth. Truth is just not something Donald Trump does.
The Washington Post estimates that of Donald Trump’s 4 years in office, he perpetuated well over 30,000 false or misleading claims. That’s not insignificant. Unfortunately, too many of his sycophants are blind to his lack of morals and ethics. Anyone willing to stand around for 4 hours while cops are beaten within inches of their lives is not someone you should endorse as “The Best President EVER” as you’re obviously delusional. Only someone delusional can look beyond the criminal, the unethical and then condone downright evil behavior only to claim they see someone who they believe to be “Good”. Good? That’s a laugh. Wolf in sheep’s clothing is more like it.
Donald Trump is not a good person. He’s not even an ethical person. There are things that Donald Trump most definitely is, though. He’s a manipulative person. He’s a sociopath. He’s a classic narcissist. He’s a philanderer. He’s bigoted. He’s misogynistic. He’s may even be somewhat delusional himself. However, there are almost no redeeming qualities about Donald J. Trump. How can you look in the mirror and state with a straight face that this man, a man who is willing to allow people to be injured and killed during a 4 hour period when he could have stopped it, a man who sat around allowing hundreds of thousands to die of COVID when he could have helped, is someone to look up to? No. There is simply no excuse here.
I don’t personally hate Donald Trump. I pity him. He’s a man who is caught up in his own delusional world and simply cannot break free. He is out for himself and what others can give him. This is why he relies on delusional people to continue to hand over their money to him. Donald Trump likely needs some major psychiatric counseling and therapy along with possibly some medication. He doesn’t need to be running the United States, however. This man should have, in fact, been barred from ever holding office ever again as he is simply not fit to hold it.
Those sycophants who parrot Donald’s every word AND who also hold governmental office must likewise be shown the door. Anyone who is that much of a blind follower of someone else cannot be working towards the benefit of their own constituents. If Donald Trump is more important then a congress person’s own constituents, voting them out and replacing them with someone who can think for themselves is the only answer. The current Republican party is blinded by a man who is ultimately a huge problem, not just for the Republicans, but for the entire world.
Let’s hope that Jack Smith, special counsel brought in by the DOJ, can bring this man to justice for the pain, suffering and, yes, death he has inflicted on far too many. If Donald J. Trump is elected again as President, his delusions won’t stop with an Insurrection. America as we know it will end… and along with it your freedoms, your home, your families, your beliefs and possibly even your very lives. Donald Trump is not the answer to America’s problems. America’s last gasp will be at the hands of Donald Trump. Donald J. Trump will end America. There will be nothing at all great about that, but then there won’t be many left to worry about it either.
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