Starbucks moving, is this a good thing?

I have been hearing a lot of chatter about Starbucks moving, well, not officially moving but doing the let's  pretend we aren't moving to our new Nashville facility, while actually intending to move there. Oh well, the corporate world does all sorts of silly things. After the McDonnell-Douglas merger, Boeing moved their headquarters to Chicago, and once their tax benefits ended, they move to the Washington D.C. area, only to bumped back to Seattle, where they started, after too many attempts at making money rather than making quality product. You can make both, quality product and money, but it doesn't happen when money is prioritized. 

I am not sure how lost Starbucks is, since I don't actually go there very often, and they closed the sit down location near me, but let them wander the country with their corporate headquarters, moving every 5 to 10 years depending on tax options, and eventually they will be just like TGIFridays or Applebee's. Starbucks does coffee and there is no reason they are the only company people should think do coffee well, since many have issues with their standard brew (tastes burnt). If the complaint is more about them moving than their product, then everyone just needs to remember that Starbucks likely requested huge tax benefits from Seattle and Washington, and when those didn't show up, they decided to flex. It is really too bad that corporations are willing to disrupt their employees lives for tax benefit.

If I were a conspiracy theorist...

Sometimes one has to wonder - Trump has made a big deal about avoiding the correspondents annual dinner, and when he does deign to visit, there is a shooter? If Trump wants something else to complain about with the press, there it is. So one has to wonder, did the administration plan it so Trump would have something else to trash the press about, or perhaps so it would divert attention from the Iran war Trump started but no one is keen about. An outlier, maybe he is hoping it will boost his popularity like the last attempt, because his approval rating reflects disapproval. It really is too bad the Trump administration has lied so often about anything and everything no one will believe any denial that they did not plan this.

Is that spotlight for me?

While it is nice that Vance went to Hungary to endorse Orban, it is even better that it was as effective as most people would have believed. I haven't visited Hungary in a few years, but can't see them thinking the that couch lover Vance is a good endorsement. Couches are not considered conservative.

Also not generally considered conservative is starting a war for no apparent new reason, though rumors of Israel telling Trump it would make him look powerful are reasonable enough to believe, since the man loves his ego stroked. Speaking of stroking, early drawings of the Trump Presidential Library and Phallic Symbol have been released. For someone reason it will have a recreation of the ballroom he is building next to the White House inside. Tacky is as tacky does, and he just can't get enough of gold spray paint.

With all this going on, you would think Trump doesn't need much more spotlight, but then he went trying to upstage Pope Leo during Easter weekend with a rant about war. Anyway, as expected the Pope wasn't keen on Trump's violence or his violent rhetoric. Oh well, that mess is still going on, with Trump succeeding in his efforts make the United States a laughingstock of a super power. 

No real surprises.

Gallup has decided their US government contracts are work more than measuring and reporting the current incumbent President's popularity, especially when said incumbent dislike bad news, like approval numbers that are moving in the wrong direction.

After a January where Noem couldn't find good press, it seems she passed the baton to Bondi, who is continuing the status quo of people wondering why Trump chose these people for his Cabinet, as there is no way anyone would consider them the best the country has to offer. Nothing says a good photo op like the AG sitting in front of and ignoring Epstein's victims while the AG commenting on the Dow Jones when asked why no  one has been prosecuted. It seems her testimony was a game of non sequitur bingo, with praises of the President, the Dow, and anything else should could think of aside from details on issue at hand (the Epstein file).

Two more weeks of Bondi's BS and then we can see who gets the baton for March.

Talk about a Vanity Project - Melania, a New Film

Generally I don't pay that much attention to First Ladies. Sometimes they are in the news frequently, like Hillary Clinton, and with others, like Laura Bush, they keep lower profiles. Until this week, the current First Lady, Melania Trump, actually had what seemed to be a low profile sort. This week though, to prove that wrong, Amazon showed everyone that they were hoping to buy a bit of White House favor by reportedly paying $40 million for the film, and promising another $35 million in promotion for it. In all honesty, I was perfectly happy with her remaining in the background, no tacky jackets or overdone hats, but in that way of events, the government is killing citizens and the White House is doing a movie release, so the thing got far more press than it should have, since they chose to keep the release schedule, regardless of the general consensus that doing it now just adds more negative press than the film would have earned anyway.

Politics, sometimes you can't win regardless of how much you spend.

It appears that losing the judicial contest in Wisconsin after pumping in quite a bit of cash, followed by having Teslas sales and profits "officially" plummeting (official means it was reported in an earning call), have caused everyone's favorite former illegal alien Elon Musk to pull back on trying to buy elections. The old adage about any press being good press doesn't actually lift sales, and since there was little aside from bad press on Mr. Musk, it was hard for any good reports on Tesla to surface. Of course, Mr. Musk amplifying the issues didn't quiet them down much. While I felt sorry for the individual car buyers who had their vehicles defaced, the showrooms I don't feel that bad about, because the showrooms managed to get Mr. Musk's attention, because those are company owned. It really is hard to feel sorry for him when he was so happy cutting grant money to starving children -- and he still wonders why people weren't happy about that. I do hope Tesla manages to prove they weren't stealing from the Canadian government, and I may be wrong but I thought somewhere I read they applied for rebates for more cars than they sold, but Tesla claims it didn't do anything wrong.  Again, let's hope that is the case, because defrauding the Canadian government while they are currently upset with the United States over repeated 51st state comments can't possibly end well for Tesla.

Why do they seem so stupid?

 I am guessing when you assume everyone in the world is dumber than you, then obvious stupidity isn't really going to be an issue. The whole gift plane, for instance, is not something that would have occurred under previous administrations because of the perception of the attached strings, whether they exist or not. Most normal people might expect to be given a can of soda with no strings attached, but something like an aircraft would not treated the same way. Considering there are already questions about the computer chips he wants to sell the middle east as part of a deal, it isn't hard to conceive that they are included in expectations for the aircraft. (I think there were some military deals as well, so think what you will.)

I do hope the congressional Republicans who want to push for a more balanced budget sooner actually get something right, but I honestly doubt it. The last thing we really need is to up spending on defense, and should really chop 5% from that budget before anything. While the Republicans traditionally love trying to chop up the social safety net, this is not the time for that. Just keeping Social Security payments adjusted to inflation increases will be a challenge, especially since too many Republicans forget the obvious thing, if you don't want to cut anything, then you need to increase revenue, which means raising taxes, and of course the rich people in charge of the current government aren't going to sign something like that into law.

Honestly, the one thing that is consistent is that the administration is shameless in its belief that selling government services to the highest bidder is perfectly acceptable, which is why no one he appointed was concerned about the children starving when USAid was terminated (it is obvious poor children can't donate much money to him). Rumors of Tesla's regulatory issues vanishing also support this theory.

No big changes over the last month

 Honestly, it is probably a good idea I don't feel compelled to comment on silly Trump shenanigans every week, or I would sound like a broken record.  The week there has so far been a rumor about Qatar gifting Trump a 747-8, then the government of Qatar refuting the claim.  Most interesting in that whole affair was how it was being set up so Trump would continue to have access to the aircraft after leaving office. Of course, with an AG eager to bless such a deal, it can all be passed off as legal, though how a $400 million gift from another country that he can still use once he has left office doesn't fall foul of the emoluments clause is still beyond me, but, then again, I am no Pam Bondi.

Trade deals are still not happening, though they have announced several that have something of an outline, at least if you are purchasing luxury cars from the UK, you can be assured that there won't be a price increase due to a tariff. To be honest, even though the UK "deal" has many details to work out, it was announced as being done, as someone needed good press, since Hegseth is still acquiring bad press because he prefers unauthorized chat programs.

24 hour news cycle needs a pause

 This isn't a response to anything specific, but it has occurred to me more than once, that the decline of the daily local newspaper has also been a decline in news that actually matters. Too often there seems to be some urgent necessity to report on everything immediately; whereas, I think giving the story time to breathe sometimes presents the news more fully and without talking heads filling in the holes with their best guesses. Social media, including this website, allows people the ability to spread their opinion almost instantly, if there are people who actually follow them on said social media. Much of social media should be given minimal notice or ignored, and the occasional useful story should be highlighted, but if one of the co-presidents posted "I farted" then many of today's media talking heads would be working to decipher what was meant, because obviously one does not post about flatulence if you are a president of the USA. Considering how things are going these days, either of them are likely to post such a comment and then laugh at all those looking for deeper meaning.

What are they thinking?

 It seems no one in Greenland wanted to play host to Usha Vance, so the itinerary was abbreviated with her and her husband just visiting a US military base.  Oddly, Vance decided to complain and insult Greenland.  Not sure what sort of treaty or lease exists for that base, but it these oafs really should remember that if it is a lease, there is always the possibility of it not being renewed.  There is no good reason Greenland should let a fox in the hen house, which with the rhetoric from Trump, it does sound like the US could use it for such a purpose.

I still don't understand why so many Republicans seem content to let Trump alienate the traditional allies of the US. If I recall correctly the revised NAFTA treaty was negotiated during his first term, so accusing Canada and Mexico of anything trade related is pretty much him complaining about his own negotiators.

And after all this there is still the rather ridiculous antics of co-president Musk, who has sued Twitter's former advertisers for not continuing to pump advertising money into that social media platform.  I saw a rumor today that he is also going to threaten people who criticize Tesla. Aside from being bland or downright ugly (see Cybertruck), I am not sure what people are saying. Musk just made the stupid decision to become the face of Tesla and then worked very hard to make sure much of the world was aware of his personal opinions, which they didn't happen to agree with, and now they are showing displeasure in the most obvious fashion... boycotting Tesla, and in some cases burning the product. I do seem to recall people being upset that Bud Light gave a trans person some beer and then boycotted that product, and I think Kid Rock even made a video about destroying a few cases of it with a gun. I also seem to recall that Disney has faced various boycotts over the years. Chick-fil-A has faced boycotts over the years as well, so it isn't the first time this has happened to a business, and the businesses are still operating (though I don't think Bud Light's market share has recovered). Musk should worry more about why people are picketing than that they are, but then figuring out why would require a bit of empathy, which Mr. Musk believes is a weakness.