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The #1 online casino company $RSI is primed for autism
Positions: $RSI 30 03/19 30C Proof: https://imgur.com/a/swCCMjz *This post is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as investment, financial, or other advice.* TLDR: Rush Street Interactive ($RSI) is the #1 nationwide online casino company and the #3 or #4 sports book depending on the state. Short selling, unwarranted institutional wariness of share dilution and the general market focus on sports book instead of online casino has left $RSI grossly undervalued. A massive blow out at Q4 earnings will result in analyst upgrades and a rapid repricing by market makers and institutions seeking exposure to the emerging sector. **Overview** "Sports book is really just kind of a warm up in a lot of ways for an online casino where the real money is made" - Niccolo De Masi, CEO dMY technologies Rush Street Interactive ($RSI) operates the BetRivers.com online casino and sports book. They are now fully licensed and operating in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia. They own and operate a casino in New York and already have a New York license making them well positioned for liberalization there. They merged with a dMY Technology Group SPAC on Dec. 31st 2020 with 240 million on the balance sheet to spend on growth. The online casino business is fundamentally more profitable than sports betting because the average value of a casino player is estimated at $600 while a sports book player could be as little as $20. Estimates put the online casino market at DOUBLE the size of the online sports book market and the online casino industry is really just getting started as more states liberalize. $RSI is expert at new market entry; they have been first to market in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Colorado and even when they aren't first they are capable of capturing market share in competitive markets such as New Jersey. They also have products which women play which accounts for at least half of the market in online casino. The female market is one that the pure sports book plays miss out on. Also for some fucking reason they operate a casino and sports book in Colombia (rushbet.co) and may make large expansions into other parts of south America as legalization continues. This means they have the expertise necessary for global expansion in the future although the states remains their primary focus and growth driver. **The Financials and Strategy** Unlike other companies in the space Rush Street is already profitable in 2020 and has a strong focus on Return On Invested Capital (ROIC). Q3 gross revenue was $71.9 Million. Q4 revenue is going to be a blow out. Combing through state gambling revenue data and breaking that down by market share my estimate is that Q4 revenue could be as high as $120 Million. Paired with this blow out will be a **guidance raise to $500 Million for 2021**, which is 2/3 of DraftKings 2021 guidance of $750M. https://imgur.com/a/xkfcayC What is striking when compared to $DKNG is that their advertising spend was only a quarter of revenue in Q3 while $DKNG spent 155% of their revenue. This will change as they begin to focus on growth, but it shows they are very good at getting return on ad spend. This company should actually be valued close to $DKNG based on growth potential once guidance is raised. https://imgur.com/a/RQQXtGg Their focus on attracting **female gamers** is also important to their long term growth potential. The sports book plays with cross sells to casino such as $DKNG will not be able to grow through the female demographic in the same way. **This cannot be understated** as one of the major strategic advantages of $RSI. https://imgur.com/a/xzJj26n As I said before I expect their trend of rapid growth to continue for Q4 earnings, certainly going to be a blow out based on looking at state gambling revenue numbers. My estimate is that their revenue will be around 110M for Q4. I also expect guidance to be raised to 500M for 2021 due to strong performance in existing markets and the recently opened Michigan market as well as their sports book launch in Virginia. https://imgur.com/a/ckTqHhh **Short sellers have entered the chat** The short interest on $RSI sits at 5.08 M shares as of 01/14/21 representing a 30% increase. Now why would a company already valued at 2.8 Billion and with a comparative valuation of 8-10 Billion compared with $DKNG and $PENN be so heavily shorted at such a low market cap? My conclusion is that an institution with 10s of millions to throw at shorting this stock wants to take advantage of fear of share dilution from warrant calling or to establish a better entry prior to earnings. **Commander in GILF Cathie Wood is Bullish on the sector** On Feb. 2nd ARK disclosed that they had purchased 620,300 shares of $DKNG. This is extremely bullish for the sector. I am highly confident that after Q4 earnings ARK will be purchasing shares in $RSI as well due its strategic advantages relative to $DKNG and exposure to the female demographic. For such a small market cap company this will be a major catalyst. **Institutions are bullish** Fidelity has increased their holdings to 14% as of today: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001793659/8f10b0d8-a3d2-447c-bc75-87587d0a4670.pdf Alliance Bernstein holds a 6% position reported today: http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001793659/e883778d-e759-4a85-91c1-3242ed110720.pdf **Final notes** Jerome "The Bus" Bettis, Steelers legend and hall of fame running back, is their brand ambassador... This company knows their target audience and how to appeal to them, likely more 'classic' ambassadors to come to attract even more boomer and Gen X degenerates. Keep in mind these are the gamblers with big money to spend, the average age of an online casino gambler is 42. This stock has been grossly underpriced due to short selling. The terms of the SPAC deal were not unfavorable and all the insiders held their shares through the merger banking on growth in the market - **management owns 77% of the company**. This is a true value play on a well managed company in an emerging industry with a market size in the hundreds of billions. I plan to hold shares long term. I will post a part 2 breaking down their latest S-1 filing and Q4 revenue by state when they release their Q4 earnings date. Do your own research. References: https://www.legalsportsreport.com/sports-betting/revenue/ https://fintel.io/doc/sec-rush-street-interactive-inc-ex991-2021-january-05-18632-947 https://s26.q4cdn.com/794539746/files/doc_presentations/2020/RSI-Investor-Presentation-15-Oct-2020.pdf https://ir.rushstreetinteractive.com/news/news-details/2020/RUSH-STREET-INTERACTIVE-ANNOUNCES-THIRD-QUARTER-2020-RESULTS-AND-RAISES-FULL-YEAR-GUIDANCE/default.aspx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQWEhWuPmzU https://www.thestreet.com/investing/draftkings-surges-as-stake-bought-by-ark-next-generation Positions: $RSI 30 03/19 30C I will be adding 04/16 25cs each week until earnings. Exit strategy: "What's an exit strategy?" - u/deepfuckingvalue Update 021321: IMPORTANT after a commenter pointed out that technically they could report as late as April 2nd I AM RECOMMENDING THAT EVERYONE ROLL OUT TO APRIL 16TH 35Cs
The #1 online casino company $RSI is primed for ingress.
Positions: $RSI 03/19 30C Proof: https://imgur.com/a/swCCMjz This post is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as investment, financial, or other advice. TLDR: Rush Street Interactive ($RSI) is the #1 nationwide online casino company and the #3 or #4 sports book depending on the state. Short selling, unwarranted institutional wariness of share dilution and the general market focus on sports book instead of online casino has left $RSI grossly undervalued. A massive blow out at Q4 earnings will result in analyst upgrades and a rapid repricing by market makers and institutions seeking exposure to the emerging sector. Overview "Sports book is really just kind of a warm up in a lot of ways for an online casino where the real money is made" - Niccolo De Masi, CEO dMY technologies Rush Street Interactive ($RSI) operates the BetRivers.com online casino and sports book. They are now fully licensed and operating in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia. They own and operate a casino in New York and already have a New York license making them well positioned for liberalization there. They merged with a dMY Technology Group SPAC on Dec. 31st 2020 with 240 million on the balance sheet to spend on growth. The online casino business is fundamentally more profitable than sports betting because the average value of a casino player is estimated at $600 while a sports book player could be as little as $20. Estimates put the online casino market at DOUBLE the size of the online sports book market and the online casino industry is really just getting started as more states liberalize. $RSI is expert at new market entry; they have been first to market in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Colorado and even when they aren't first they are capable of capturing market share in competitive markets such as New Jersey. They also have products which women play which accounts for at least half of the market in online casino. The female market is one that the pure sports book plays miss out on. Also for some fucking reason they operate a casino and sports book in Colombia (rushbet.co) and may make large expansions into other parts of south America as legalization continues. This means they have the expertise necessary for global expansion in the future although the states remains their primary focus and growth driver. The Financials and Strategy Unlike other companies in the space Rush Street is already profitable in 2020 and has a strong focus on Return On Invested Capital (ROIC). Q3 gross revenue was $71.9 Million. Q4 revenue is going to be a blow out. Combing through state gambling revenue data and breaking that down by market share my estimate is that Q4 revenue could be as high as $120 Million. Paired with this blow out will be a **guidance raise to $500 Million for 2021**, which is 2/3 of DraftKings 2021 guidance of $750M. https://imgur.com/a/xkfcayC What is striking when compared to $DKNG is that their advertising spend was only a quarter of revenue in Q3 while $DKNG spent 155% of their revenue. This will change as they begin to focus on growth, but it shows they are very good at getting return on ad spend. This company should actually be valued close to $DKNG based on growth potential once guidance is raised. https://imgur.com/a/RQQXtGg Their focus on attracting **female gamers** is also important to their long term growth potential. The sports book plays with cross sells to casino such as $DKNG will not be able to grow through the female demographic in the same way. **This cannot be understated** as one of the major strategic advantages of $RSI. https://imgur.com/a/xzJj26n As I said before I expect their trend of rapid growth to continue for Q4 earnings, certainly going to be a blow out based on looking at state gambling revenue numbers. My estimate is that their revenue will be around 110M for Q4. I also expect guidance to be raised to 500M for 2021 due to strong performance in existing markets and the recently opened Michigan market as well as their sports book launch in Virginia. https://imgur.com/a/ckTqHhh Short sellers have entered the chat The short interest on $RSI sits at 5.08 M shares as of 01/14/21 representing a 30% increase. Now why would a company already valued at 2.8 Billion and with a comparative valuation of 8-10 Billion compared with $DKNG and $PENN be so heavily shorted at such a low market cap? My conclusion is that an institution with 10s of millions to throw at shorting this stock wants to take advantage of fear of share dilution from warrant calling or to establish a better entry prior to earnings. Cathie Wood is Bullish on the sector On Feb. 2nd ARK disclosed that they had purchased 620,300 shares of $DKNG. This is extremely bullish for the sector. I am highly confident that after Q4 earnings ARK will be purchasing shares in $RSI as well due its strategic advantages relative to $DKNG and exposure to the female demographic. For such a small market cap company this will be a major catalyst. Final notes Jerome "The Bus" Bettis, Steelers legend and hall of fame running back, is their brand ambassador... This company knows their target audience and how to appeal to them, likely more 'classic' ambassadors to come to attract even more boomer and Gen X degenerates. Keep in mind these are the gamblers with big money to spend, the average age of an online casino gambler is 42. This stock has been grossly underpriced due to short selling. The terms of the SPAC deal were not unfavorable and all the insiders held their shares through the merger banking on growth in the market - **management owns 77% of the company**. This is a true value play on a well managed company in an emerging industry with a market size in the hundreds of billions. I plan to hold shares long term. I will post a part 2 breaking down their latest S-1 filing and Q4 revenue by state when they release their Q4 earnings date. Do your own research. References: https://www.legalsportsreport.com/sports-betting/revenue/ https://fintel.io/doc/sec-rush-street-interactive-inc-ex991-2021-january-05-18632-947 https://s26.q4cdn.com/794539746/files/doc_presentations/2020/RSI-Investor-Presentation-15-Oct-2020.pdf https://ir.rushstreetinteractive.com/news/news-details/2020/RUSH-STREET-INTERACTIVE-ANNOUNCES-THIRD-QUARTER-2020-RESULTS-AND-RAISES-FULL-YEAR-GUIDANCE/default.aspx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQWEhWuPmzU https://www.thestreet.com/investing/draftkings-surges-as-stake-bought-by-ark-next-generation Positions: $RSI 03/19 30C I will be adding 04/16 25Cs each week until earnings Exit strategy: "What's an exit strategy?" - u/deepfuckingvalue Forgot to add: http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001793659/8f10b0d8-a3d2-447c-bc75-87587d0a4670.pdf Fidelity just doubled their position to almost 15% Update 021221: Everyone that went in on my initial entry is down 40% right now. As I said I plan to continue to buy 03/19 25Cs each week until earnings. If you’re worried about further losses wait until the day before earnings to load up, you may miss a run up though. Update 021321: IMPORTANT after a commenter pointed out that technically they could report as late as April 2nd I AM RECOMMENDING THAT EVERYONE ROLL OUT TO APRIL 16TH 35Cs
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1. https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%) NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar. https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866 NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis !!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should. In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase. Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below: https://www.playboy.com/ https://www.playboytv.com/ https://www.playboyplus.com/ https://www.iplayboy.com/ Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success. “Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.” https://www.scientificgames.com/ https://www.microgaming.co.uk/ “This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.” https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/ As per their SEC filing: “Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1 They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon. https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again: https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea “Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.” “According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently: https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress. Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait. https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/ Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05 Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing: “For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.” “In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.” They are profitable across all three of their current business segments. “Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world. "Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.” Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame: “As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn. The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :( He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :) Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw. I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003 Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this: “Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy. “Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative. https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html Y’all like that China money? “Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.” Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose. I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing “Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.” “Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.” Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong. Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will. Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way. Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains. TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here: WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf Or here: https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.” STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon. Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
Lost in the Sauce: Barr's DOJ shut down investigations of Trump and admin officials
Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis. Housekeeping:
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Post-election
On Saturday, Trump announced on Twitter that he has put his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in charge of his campaign's long-shot post-election legal challenges. Other people on the team include Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis.
Giuliani worked with a Russian agent to smear Biden. diGenova and Toensing tried to get the Justice Department to drop charges against corrupt Ukraine oligarch Dmytro Firtash. Powell represents Michael Flynn and champions "deep state" conspiracies. Ellis said gay marriage leads to pedophilia.
NYT: Mr. Trump turned to Mr. Giuliani earlier on Friday in reaction to the latest setback he faced in court, this one relating to votes in Maricopa County, Arizona… A half-dozen other Trump advisers have described Mr. Giuliani’s efforts as counterproductive and said that he was giving the president unwarranted optimism about what could happen… In an Oval Office meeting with aides on Thursday, Mr. Trump put Mr. Giuliani on speakerphone so the others could hear him. He angrily accused the aides of not telling the president the truth
Giuliani’s conspiracy-riddled rant at Four Seasons Total Landscaping was so disastrous that it “scared off many of the lawyers” recruited to argue election-related lawsuits.Politico: “Campaign officials described the episode as disastrous...there are widespread concerns within Trumpworld and GOP circles that Giuliani’s antics are thwarting the president’s legal machinery from within.” Two major law firms have withdrawn from Trump campaign cases as his legal challenges crumble. Arizona’s largest law firm Snell & Wilmer dumped the RNC and Trump campaign effort to challenge votes in Maricopa County. Porter Wright Morris & Arthur is abandoning Trump’s attempt to block Pennsylvania's popular vote for Joe Biden.
In one day (Friday), nine cases meant to attack President-elect Joe Biden's win in key states were denied or dropped - seven in Pennsylvania, one in Arizona, and one in Michigan.
The new federal chief information security officer, Camilo Sandoval, has already taken leave from his day job to participate in a pro-Trump effort to hunt for evidence of voter fraud in the battleground states. The group, Voter Integrity Fund, is a newly formed Virginia-based group that is analyzing ballot data and cold-calling voters. Sandoval was officially appointed on Nov. 4, 2020, but lists his starting date at October on his personal LinkedIn page.
WaPo: Sandoval is part of a hastily convened team led by Matthew Braynard, a data specialist who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Another participant is Thomas Baptiste, an adviser to the deputy secretary of the Interior Department who also took a leave to work on the project. Braynard said in an interview that several other government officials on leave are also assisting the effort, but he declined to identify them.
Media’s role:
Facebook Cut Traffic To Leading Liberal Pages Just Before The Election: Liberal page administrators who spoke with BuzzFeed News said that their reach declined by as much as 70%, and still hasn’t recovered.
Facebook Live Spread Election Conspiracies And Russian State-Controlled Content Despite Employee Fears: The social network’s live video tool has recommended videos featuring misinformation and the hyperpartisan views of Trump allies leading up to and following election day in the US.
In the week after the election, Trump’s postings dominated Facebook, accounting for the 10 most engaged status updates in the United States, and 22 of the top 25. “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” was his top post.
YouTube Is Doing Very Little to Stop Election Misinformation From Spreading
Social media app Parler receives financial backing from conservative hedge-fund investor Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, The Wall Street Journal reported. Parler turned into a kind of de facto home for conservatives’ protests against the election— including the persistent “Stop the Steal” campaign— after the race was called for former Vice President Joe Biden. Several high-profile conservative social media personalities encouraged people to abandon Twitter and Facebook because of their moderation policies, and instead follow them on Parler.
Transition
Emily Murphy, the head of the General Services Administration, still hasn’t signed the official letter that would allow the incoming Biden team to formally begin the transition. House Democrats are assessing options to force the GSA’s hand, which could include summoning Murphy to the Hill to testify or suing her. “Obviously, Congress could file suit against the GSA administrator for failing to do her duty. We could seek to get a court to, in fact, issue an order
Her ascertainment is the legally necessary precursor to the government’s assistance to the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team. It releases $6.3 million dollars to the team, which is funded by public and private money; a loan of expanded federal office space and equipment; access to government agencies that will begin sharing information and records about ongoing activities, plans and vulnerabilities; national security briefings for the president; and other support.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently confirmed that it is not providing national security briefings to the president-elect. The Defense Department has also reportedly indicated that it will not meet with the Biden-Harris transition team until Murphy formally affirms the apparent winner.
One of the officials fired in Trump’s latest purge was helping prepare for the transition to the new administration. USAID Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick was removed abruptly to make way for a Trump loyalist after she had been supportive of transition planning, including the preparation of a 440-page manual for the next administration. The GSA’s refusal to enact the transition has locked Biden’s team out of crucial Covid-19 pandemic data and government agency contacts. The president-elect’s Covid-19 task force has been trying to work around the federal government by connecting with governors and the health community.
The head of Operation Warp Speed, Moncef Slaoui, called on the White House to allow contact with the Biden team, saying “It is a matter of life and death for thousands of people.”
White House’s Office of Management and Budget is considering 145 new regulations and other policy changes they could enact before Biden’s inauguration - rules that will be challenging to undo once they are finalized. Critics and supporters of the administration say they expect a final burst of regulations to be finalized in the weeks before Jan. 20.
The rules under development include policies that the incoming Biden administration would probably oppose, such as new caps on the length of foreign student visas; restrictions on the Environmental Protection Agency’s use of scientific research; limits on the EPA’s consideration of the benefits of regulating air pollutants; and a change that would make it easier for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, rather than employees with more robust wage protections.
Last week, both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said they’re preparing for a second Trump term. “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Pompeo said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon (clip). Pompeo then doubled down on Fox News (clip). “We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption there will be a second Trump term,” Navarro said on Fox Business Friday (clip).
DOJ interference
Attorney General William Barr stopped career prosecutors in DOJ’s Public Integrity Section from investigating whether President Trump broke any laws related to his conduct with Ukraine last year. The section was initially given the green light to pursue “a potentially explosive inquiry” into Trump, but after the Senate acquitted the president during impeachment proceedings, Barr sent the case to the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn. Prosecutors in DOJ’s Public Integrity Section were also prevented from bringing charges against former interior secretary Ryan Zinke by political appointees atop the Justice Department. Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen told prosecutors that they needed to gather more evidence and refine the case against Zinke for lying to Interior investigators.
The investigation into Zinke stemmed from his decision to block two Native American tribes—the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan—from opening a casino in Connecticut. Zinke’s office had been lobbied heavily by MGM Resorts International, which had been planning to open its own casino very close to where the tribes intended to break ground.
Sixteen assistant U.S. attorneys specially assigned to monitor malfeasance in the 2020 election urged Barr on Friday to rescind his memo allowing election-fraud investigations before results are certified. "It was developed and announced without consulting non-partisan career professionals in the field and at the Department. Finally, the timing of the Memorandum's release thrusts career prosecutors into partisan politics," the prosecutors wrote. An internal Justice Department investigation found that federal prosecutors who oversaw a controversial non-prosecution deal with Jeffrey Epstein in 2008 exercised “poor judgment” but did not break the law. “They just say he used poor judgment, and that's their way of basically letting everyone off the hook while offering some sort of an olive branch to the victims that we acknowledge weren't treated perfectly,” said Brad Edwards, who sued the DOJ in 2008 on behalf of Epstein accusers.
Immigration news
Eastern District of New York Judge Nicholas Garaufis (Clinton-appointee) ruled that Chad Wolf was not legally serving as acting Homeland Security secretary when he signed rules limiting DACA program applications and renewals. Therefore, in a win for Dreamers and immigration activists, Garaufis said the changes were invalid.
The judge described an illegitimate shuffling of leadership chairs at the Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for immigration enforcement, for the predicament of Wolf's leadership and that of his predecessor, Kevin McAleenan. "Based on the plain text of the operative order of succession," Garaufis wrote in the Saturday ruling, "neither Mr. McAleenan nor, in turn, Mr. Wolf, possessed statutory authority to serve as Acting Secretary. Therefore the Wolf Memorandum was not an exercise of legal authority."
There's a renewed push to get Chad Wolf confirmed as Homeland Security secretary -- a position in which he's been serving in an acting capacity for a yearr -- before Inauguration Day. In the past week, Homeland Security officials spoke to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office about bringing the nomination to a floor vote in the coming weeks.
Within the last six months, as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the US, the Trump administration filed 75 lawsuits to seize private land along the US-Mexico border for the border wall." People right now are having to choose between their health and their homes," said Ricky Garza, a staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy group. After a series of price increases, Trump’s border project will cost taxpayers $20 million per mile of border fence. A review of federal spending data shows more than 200 contract modifications, at times awarded within just weeks or months after the original contracts, have increased the cost of the border wall project by billions of dollars since late 2017. DHS has expelled unaccompanied immigrant children from the US border more than 13,000 times since March,using the coronavirus as an excuse to deny children their right to asylum. Previously, unaccompanied children were sent to government-run shelters as they attempted to pursue their asylum cases. Migrant children from Central America are being expelled to Mexico, where they have no family connections. The expulsions not only put children in danger - the policy violates a diplomatic agreement with Mexico that only Mexican children and others who had adult supervision could be pushed back into Mexico after attempting to cross the border. The House Judiciary Committee released a report on the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the border, revealing that the federal agency that cares for migrant children was not told about the policy. The chaos contributed to the inability to later reunite parents and children. The Trump administration is trying to deport several women who allege they were mistreated by a Georgia gynecologist at an immigration detention center. Hours after one detained woman spoke to federal investigators about forced hysterectomies at a Georgia detention center, she said ICE told her that it had lifted a hold on her deportation and she faced “imminent” removal. Six former patients who complained about Dr. Mahendra Amin had already been deported. Northern District of Illinois Judge Gary Feinerman (Obama-appointee) blocked a key Trump administration policy that allowed officials to deny green cards to immigrants who might need public assistance Advocates who had feared that the policy would harm tens of thousands of poor people, particularly those affected by widespread job loss because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Miscellaneous
Microsoft said it has detected attempts by state-backed Russian and North Korean hackers to steal valuable data from leading pharmaceutical companies and vaccine researchers. “Among the targets, the majority are vaccine makers that have COVID-19 vaccines in various stages of clinical trials.” Two census takers told The AP that their supervisors pressured them to enter false information into a computer system about homes they had not visited so they could close cases during the waning days of the once-a-decade national headcount. The Supreme Court on Tuesday signaled it’s unlikely to tear down Obamacare over a Republican-backed lawsuit challenging the landmark health care law. Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump appointee Justice Brett Kavanaugh strongly questioned whether the elimination of the mandate penalty made the rest of the law invalid. Kavanaugh appeared to signal on several occasions that he favored leaving the rest of the law intact if the mandate is struck. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) was sued last week by four whistleblowers claiming that he abused his office to benefit himself, a woman with whom he was said to have had an affair, and the wealthy donor who employs her before retaliating against the members of his staff who reported him to the FBI. The Trump administration is rushing plans to auction drilling rights in the U.S. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before the inauguration of Biden, who has vowed to block oil exploration in the rugged Alaska wilderness. Biden’s efforts could be complicated if the Trump administration sells drilling rights first. Formally issued oil and gas leases on federal land are government contracts that can’t be easily yanked.
Hi everyone! I am working non-stop provide the best research and analysis regarding DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG). I originally posted my overall investment thesis on the company a few weeks back and now I am breaking down and analyzing the latest news and developments regarding DKNG! And no, it is not the ticker symbol for Donkey Kong. DraftKings in my opinion, is the best pure play investment if you want some exposure to the sports betting, iGaming, and daily fantasy sports space. They're founder led (3 founders to be exact) and they're invested into the company themselves right alongside all of us shareholders or potential shareholders. Within the last week, there has been some exciting developments regarding DraftKings. I will share them below: DK Gift Cards Are Live! You can buy a DK gift card as a stocking stuffer for Christmas if you want. I’m really excited to hear this news. It’s only going to increase the brand awareness of DK and that’s what we want. According to the press release on DK’s investor relations website, they’ve partnered with InComm Payments to facilitate the launching of the gift cards. InComm payments is a global leading payments technology company that has a network of retailers that DK will be able to leverage through this partnership. Convenience stores like 7-Eleven, Speedway and Dollar General are just some of the many convenience stores in Incomm Payments’ network that DK will be able to leverage. For now, the gift cards will be offered in $50 and $25 denominations. The great thing about this to me is that they’ve beat their competitors to this. That shows managements initiative and ability to get things done which I complimented when I first picked this company. As of right now, you’re not going to be seeing any “FanDuel” (boo FanDuel *thumbs down emoji*) gift cards in the stores. Tim Richardson, the Senior Vice President at InComm Payments was quoted as saying “DraftKings will benefit from having its brand present in tens of thousands of Incomm Payments’ retail partner locations across the US”. Overall, good news for DK. New York State – Getting desperate? Do they need some online sports gambling revenue? I want to make this clear before I write about this topic – sports betting is already legal in New York state. The problem is, it’s only legal in brick and mortar (retail) locations. Just under a dozen upstate casinos can operate brick and mortar sports books at the moment. In typical DK fashion, they’re already active in a casino in New York State. DK offers in person brick and mortar sports betting through the Del Lago Resort Casino in Waterloo, NY. My news update I’m sharing is that it appears New York state might be considering expanding to online sports betting too due to a budget shortfall they’re experiencing (they need more tax revenue). This news came out on Wednesday, 12/16/20 during the day time. Governor Cuomo had a press conference during the day. The press conference was primarily focused on giving an update on the COVID-19 pandemic in New York state. During the presser, the topic of New York state’s budget shortfalls came up. As a possible financial solution, Cuomo said “Are there other ways to get revenue? How about marijuana? How about sports betting?” He’s referring to the possible tax revenue that could be collected if sports betting offerings were expanded beyond just the brick and mortar offerings. What if every New Yorker could place a sports wager from the comfort of their own home on their cell phone? The battle for legalizing online sports gambling in New York has been going on for years. Governor Cuomo has always been opposed to it. One of the reasons Gov. Cuomo has cited in the past is that he thinks a constitutional amendment would need to be made to New York state law to allow for mobile sports betting in the state. However, one state representative from New York that has been pushing hard for online sports gambling begs to differ. In response to Cuomo’s comments in the presser earlier that day, State Senator Joseph Addabbo said that there would be no constitutional problem with mobile sports betting because the servers could be placed on site of grandfathered in physical casinos. Addabo said that New York state’s need for revenue is “real and immediate” This is a situation to keep a close eye on. The impacts of legalizing mobile sports betting in NY would be substantial for DK as it would open the population of 20 million people in NY state the opportunity to place wagers on the DK Sportsbook app through the comfort of their home. I imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult for DK to mobilize once they get the green light for mobile betting as they already have the standing relationship with Del Lago Resort Casino for in person betting. The Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) granted DK a provisional license to conduct online gaming and sports betting in the state of Michigan For this update I also want to be clear – retail (brick and mortar) and mobile sports betting are already legal in the state of Michigan. It’s just that there’s a lot of yellow tape for Sportsbooks like DK to navigate within a state even after sports betting has become legalized. This provisional license provided by the MGCB was provided to DK and 14 other sportsbooks (including rival FanDuel) on Thursday, December 10th last week. Now there are just a few more regulatory requirements that DK has to meet in the state of Michigan before they can go live. According to http://www.michigan.gov, “Before launch happens, the platform providers must complete additional regulatory requirements including independent testing of platforms and games and MGCB approval of their internal controls, which ensure gaming integrity. The firms also must secure occupational licenses for certain employees.” You can read the full article on Michigan’s government website here. Knowing that DK has a knack for being quick to mobilize once they’re given opportunities in respective states, I fully expect them to pass these last few tests with flying colors. The DK Sportsbook app has already been available in the state of Michigan for “free to enter” games. Once they pass the last few requirements, actual wagers will be allowed to be placed. And money will be allowed to be made! Another promising sign coming out of the state of Michigan, is that on November 30th, 2020, DK became an official sports betting partner of the Detroit Pistons, the NBA basketball team in Michigan. DK Chief Business Officer, Ezra Kucharz, was on the record after the deal closed saying “As our first professional team activation in the state of Michigan, we are thrilled to join forces with the Detroit Pistons ahead of our pending market introduction”. In my opinion, I anticipate we’ll be seeing DK online sports betting in Michigan some time in early 2021. This concludes my update and analysis on DraftKings. TL:DR
Draftkings now offers gift cards and you can buy them in convenience stores (first sports betting company to do so)
DraftKings received a provisional license to conduct sports gambling in Michigan
Governor Cuomo of NY said he would consider legalizing "mobile sports betting" to raise additional tax revenue
If you would like to read my original deep dive and analysis on DKNG, you can check it out here:
Canada Goose Workers Allege Unsafe Working Conditions in Winnipeg Factories. “Before I came to Canada I was in Qatar and then Dubai and it’s the same here in Canada Goose: No humanity.” Comments || Link
Providing workers with a universal basic income did not reduce productivity or the amount of effort they put into their work, according to an experiment, a sign that the policy initiative could help mitigate inequalities and debunking a common criticism of the proposal. Comments || Link
Women who are young, “conventionally attractive” and appear and act feminine are more likely to be believed when making accusations of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment often stems from hostility toward women, the desire to dominate women, or backlash against women who violate gender norms. Comments || Link
Blue Origin launched and landed its reusable New Shepard spacecraft yesterday. The test flight sent a capsule containing 6 passenger seats and a test dummy named "Mannequin Skywalker" to an altitude of around 65 miles (105 km), paving the way for commercial flights as soon as April. Comments || Link
Raising the minimum wage by $1 reduces the teen birth rate by 3%, according to a new study examining U.S. state-level data. "For each $1 increase in the minimum wage, the number of children born to women who were 15 to 19 years old decreases by 2.8% to 3.4%" Comments || Link
TIL Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 and further investigated it across his lifetime. He died in 1997 aged 90, less than a decade before the New Horizons launch to Pluto. To honour his wishes his ashes were launched inside the spacecraft, making it the longest post mortem fight ever recorded. Comments || Link
TIL: In 2018, doctors found that a patient, Kendra Jackson, had a leaky brain for 5 years. After an accident in 2013, she had a daily runny nose for years and suffered headaches. She lost half a pint of brain fluid a day through her nose. Comments || Link
TIL Patricia Demauro walked to a craps table at Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa with $100. Four hours and 18 minutes later, Demauro had rolled the World Record for Craps Rolls. She rolled 154 times, the odds of accomplishing this is 1 in 1.56 trillion. Comments || Link
My dog giving his biscuit to his son. The dad thought the son didn’t get one and stood by the door until I opened it so he could give to his son. I cried. Comments || Link
Is Russia pushing America towards civil war through disinformation with the help of China?
Background Reading: I've done extensive research on Russia's tactic they call Informatsionnoye Protivoborstvo, IPb, which translates to Information Confrontation, or Information War. A tactic started in the 1990's after the collapse of the USSR. Deemed "Sixth Generation Warfare" by Russian military. It was designed to blur the lines between war and peace. I've wrote extensively on it here: https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/gczekd/informatsionnoye_protivoborstvo_ipb/ And the same post but further expanded to include further details and sources here: https://www.reddit.com/conspiracyNOPOL/comments/hf2iuv/are_you_a_product_of_ipb/ In these posts I give dozens of links to government reports and security agency reports from nations all over the world, some going back over 20 years. In the second post I expand upon my first and include several links to news reports from nations all over the globe reporting on Russian interference in elections and sowing division among their population. If you aren't well versed on Russian IPb, they are a good place to start. Division of the Left: After further research into the rising violence and confrontations in America, I believe Russia's end goal is Civil War in America. Russia has been caught stoking the rage in both ends of the spectrum, from Antifa to White Supremacy movements. This report by the EU discusses how Russia is currently creating and supporting online communities pushing Antifa and far left movements by pushing and amplifying police injustice, social inequality, racial issues and questioning the legitimacy of the government. https://www.eupoliticalreport.eu/russian-connection-in-us-riots/ Division of the Right: While at the same time Russia has been supporting and reigniting far right issues and supporting groups like White Pride, Tea Party, Boogaloo movement and other far right groups. Which this University of Washington article discusses, as well as how the goal is polarization. https://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf Russia's Plan for Donald Trump: Though ultimately their support for the American Far Right is greater, as they also needed to help influence the key piece to their plan, Donald Trump. Helping influence the American public into electing Donald Trump has been the pivotal point in their entire plan. Without the election of Donald Trump in 2016, America likely would not be in the position it is today. His instability and ego have made him the easily manipulated tool they needed to help ensure America destroys itself from the inside out. Russia is able to manipulate Donald Trump both directly, and indirectly. They can control Donald Trump directly, by Vladmir Putin playing as his pal. As well as the large Russian debt Donald Trump carries as they bailed out his failing businesses when no bank would touch him due to his bankruptcy of his Atlantic casinos. His debt to Russia and his fondness of Vladmir Putin allow Donald Trump to be directly controlled through direct suggestions. This foreignpolicy.com article discussing the Russian debt Donald Trump carries. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/ Besides the direct control they have over Donald Trump, Russia can indirectly control him as well. Largely by playing against his ego. Through online troll accounts, they can make trending posts that inflame him, causing him to lash out and become unstable. Often attacking the "Left" both Democrats and movements. Donald Trump is not a man lead by logic and reason, he is a man lead by his emotions, in particular his ego, which Russia has been able to weaponize against him, as well as America. This dashboard, called Hamilton 2.0 is a project powered by machine learning and AI to find and recognize social media posts posted by state backed actors from Russia, China, and Iran. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/ Setting the Stage and Possible Scenarios: I believe what were are witnessing is Russia pushing America towards Civil War come November 3rd. They are setting the stage for mass levels of civil unrest or rioting no matter what the outcome of the election. If Donald Trump wins, there will be mass levels of protesting. Especially if there is any evidence of voter tampering. Donald Trump will likely feel emboldened by his win, if it occurs, that he will likely mobilize the military in order to quickly squash the riots. With the potential outcome of Civil War, even within the government/military itself. If Donald Trump loses, he will likely blame voter fraud and claim the loss illegitimate. He will likely directly call on his supporters to take to the streets in protest, which will lead to protests from the left. Possibly leading to clashes. There is also a strong chance that Donald Trump will use his appointees within the Judicial Branch to rule the election illegitimate, which would likely lead to protests and rioting by Anti-Trump supporters. Russia has already attempted to create race wars in America during the 2016 election cycle, they did not succeed. The stage seems set for them to succeed this time. This article from the Michigan Journal of Race and Law discusses how Russia attempted to create a Race War in America during the 2016 election cycle. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1290&context=mjrl Opinion/Further Conspiracy Theories: I strongly believe that Russia is in collusion with China in their attempts to dethrone America as the global leader. To what level they are working together, I don't have much evidence to support, so I can not say at this time. They are largely each other's greatest ally, bonded in their distaste of America being seen as the global leader. But I believe neither wants to trust or rely on one another, their partnership is one of necessity. Russia needs China to become globally dominant so that global sanctions against Russia can be lifted. Russia's economy is currently heavily constricted by America lead sanctions against them. China needs Russia, because Russia has the espionage experience that China simply isn't creative or ingenious enough to master on their own. China's espionage is strongly tied to surveillance, information theft, and using its wealth to bribe. Russia has mastered the art of manipulation, they understand the ego of individuals in Western nations. Something China just simply doesn't grasp well, they don't understand how the West thinks, they don't understand individuality on the level we have. Russia does. Russia knows how to exploit our beliefs, ignorances, and ultimately our egos and mind. They know how to manipulate Americans, because they have been doing it since the Cold War. It is arguably their greatest strength, and I believe we may be close to achieving their greatest accomplishment, overthrowing America. Now here comes the conspiracy. I personally do not believe that SARS-CoV-2 was released intentionally. But if it was released intentionally, it was released to help create the underlying pressure in America that will help Russia's aim of creating Civil War in America to come to fruition. Russia tried in 2016, like I have shown in my previous links, but were unsuccessful. I don't think Russia wanted to take the risk of another failure. They needed to ensure their plan worked this time. Having China release a virus that would cause a global pandemic would help give Russia's plan a solid foundation of angst and anger in America. Which would also be why Russia has heavily been targeting America with anti-vaxx disinformation and Covid-19 misinformation. They want the pandemic to take a strong hold, the more damage the pandemic does to America, the higher the chance things will reach a tipping point and spill over into Civil War. Now as I said, I do not believe SARS-CoV-2 was released intentionally, but if you are someone who does, it was likely released by China in collusion with Russia to push America towards Civil War. China's Role: China's role in Russia's plan is simple, they see themselves as the emerging global super power of this century. It has been a plan it work for decades, and it is only accelerating. The first step was becoming the World's production powerhouse. It offered unbelievably cheap production by exploiting its workers and the environment. Capitalist Western nations could not resist in their search of ever growing profits. Hyper capitalist America was drawn in the furthest, becoming heavily reliant on cheap Chinese goods for the functioning of their society. Other nations fell for this as well, but to varying lesser degrees. This gave China the money they needed to move to the second stage in becoming the dominant global leader. They couldn't simply produce products designed by Western nations, they needed the ability to design and produce these products themselves. With the money the West gave China, China turned around and starting heavily funding Western institutions. Corporations, Government funded alliances, and University institutions. With these becoming dependent on Chinese funding, they became vulnerable to Chinese bribes and data theft. China funds these institutions so that they do the research for China, and then China steals the research and intellectual property it needs to further their own research. With the end goal of China becoming completely vertically integrated in production, the ability to produce everything on its own, from the raw materials and design, to the finished product. Essentially eliminating Western countries from the process, which previously was the all import design aspect. With China producing from start to finish, it would give them an incredible amount of control over Western nations, who would be almost entirely dependent on China. The dependence on China would allow them to extract far greater profits from the West than they do now. If you want a real world example of what China is doing, look at Amazon, which has essentially copied China's gameplan. Be unreasonably cheap by exploiting workers to centralize reliance on them, where they will then later be in the position to take full advantage of their customers. Another key part of China's plan of becoming the new dominant global leader for this century, is their heavy investment in developing nations. Being seen as a the global leader is a pay to play scenario. Previously this role was filled by America. Which is where Russia again becomes part of China's goal. Russia helped elect Donald Trump, who views these pay to play situations as "Bad Deals". Donald Trump is simply too simple to understand these "Bad Deals" was America paying for nations to be reliant on America and retain America's global influence. Pay to play. As Donald Trump and America pulls funding from global institutions like WHO, pulls out of trade deals that would make nations reliant on America like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, as well as funding to developing nations, America is losing influence. Every time America steps back from these, China steps up. Greatly increasing it's funding to global organizations and even more so, developing countries. South America and Africa still have many developing nations. Globally speaking these two continents along with India represent the fastest growing markets. China has been investing heavily into these regions to build infrastructure, so that when they become strongly developed, they will look to China as the global leader, not America. Many American's tend to not take South America or Africa's development seriously. In fact, many often scoff at their importance. But their development is crucial to China's overall plan. The reason? Food. The one thing that China is currently heavily reliant on the West for, particularly America, is food. China simply doesn't have the food production to feed its 1.43 billion citizens. As it stands now, without American staple foods, China would starve. Their plan to combat this is to develop South America and Africa. Both South America and Africa have the land mass and climate to be incredibly good sources of food production. Unfortunately they are currently underdeveloped and unable to meet China's demands. Once China finishes developing these continents, they will be more than capable of supplying China with food so that it can end its reliance on America. Brazil's current destruction of their rain forest to create space for agriculture is likely evidence that my belief in this is coming true. Conclusion/Summary: This was a long read, hopefully you made it this far. If you are American, hopefully you have read my views with an open mind, and carefully reviewed my sources. Hopefully it has enlightened you to what is going on in your country, who is causing it, why they are causing it, and how they are causing it. You all need to realize how you are being manipulated, and quickly change your path. There is four months until things will likely pique. If the path isn't changed, America could very well end up in Civil War, and it could even possibly trigger the Third World War. American's need to unite and realize how their government and their views are being manipulated. Vote with intention. Do not become apathetic. Get active, get informed, get involved, but do not get violent, do not get divisive. That is their goal, and it will be America's downfall if it continues. Do your part, learn about your government, at the local, state, and federal level. Don't fall for the apathy trap you're being sold that all parties are the same, they aren't. That is a lie you are told to keep you apathetic to voting. Come November 3rd, do your part. In the meantime, get involved and educate and inform others. Ignorance breeds hate, your best way to counter it is by helping your fellow Americans understand exactly what is going on. Goodluck. Final Note: I know some readers with see "Russian Influence" and immediately reject it and laugh it off as a leftist boogeyman. This line seems incredibly reflective, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." If you can read this post, https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/gczekd/informatsionnoye_protivoborstvo_ipb/ And think Russia isn't targeting America heavily with disinformation, you've bought the trick. EDIT/Backstory on Putin's personal feud with Hilary Clinton: Copypasta from my response to a comment about the person level politics that have influenced how this has played out For further backstory on why Russia and Putin is targeting America recently, and specifically Hilary Clinton previously, you have to look to Russia's Snow Revolution. In 2011 in Russia's election, America detected what they suspected to be widespread voter fraud. Then Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, publicly remarked on this voter fraud. Which lent credibility to the internal groups within Russia who believed Putin enacted voting fraud. This kicked off a massive movement in Russia from 2011-2013 called the Snow Revolution. Which lead to the arrest and disappearance of many dissenters, political opponents, and journalists. Vladimir Putin clearly and directly singled out Hilary Clinton and said she was responsible for this movement, and claiming she was directly responsible for supporting and funding it. Putin has a personal feud with Clinton, as he saw her as being directly responsible for the largest challenge to his power in during his reign. She was claimed to have directed a movement that saw Russia's strongman leader pushed around, by a woman. Putin could not tolerate this in public, or within the ranks of governing officials. Russia's economy is weak, and Putin must keep the image that he is a strongman with complete control of Russia, unless movements against him would build. In order to regain his image, Russia's IPb campaigns against America, but specifically the Democrats, and Hilary Clinton were put in place. Ever since 2013, Hilary Clinton has been targeted by Russian hacking and hoaxes pushed through social media platforms. Ultimately leading up to Russian linked hacking of Clinton's emails which was a great detriment to her election campaign. Putin succeeded in interfering with Clinton's attempt to govern, much like he accused her of doing in 2011. Some background information on the feud between Putin and Hilary Clinton. https://time.com/4422723/putin-russia-hillary-clinton/ https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/clinton-putin-226153 Nations are run by people. People have egos. Those egos can be damaged. What we currently see today in America has been influenced by that. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/clinton-says-russian-elections-neither-free-nor-faiarticle4237000/ Read that article, these are the comments from almost 10 years ago that created what we see in America. These are the comments that made the Democrats and specifically Hilary Clinton the target of Putin's IPb campaigns. These are the comments that lead to Russia helping elect Donald Trump. EDIT: Thanks for the awards! Just looking to provide others with some real world conspiracies!
Is Russia pushing America towards civil war through disinformation with the help of China?
Preface: I know my previous post I mention in "background reading" were posted in conspiracy subs, but I assure you they are fact based, and only legitimate government articles, academic articles, and security organization articles are used as sources. I simply didn't know of any other subs that would take this type of geopolitical issues that amount to conspiracy seriously. If you have any suggestions for political discussion subs that would like to discuss this material, please inform me of them. Background Reading: I've done extensive research on Russia's tactic they call Informatsionnoye Protivoborstvo, IPb, which translates to Information Confrontation, or Information War. A tactic started in the 1990's after the collapse of the USSR. Deemed "Sixth Generation Warfare" by Russian military. It was designed to blur the lines between war and peace. I've wrote extensively on it here: https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/gczekd/informatsionnoye_protivoborstvo_ipb/ And the same post but further expanded to include further details and sources here: https://www.reddit.com/conspiracyNOPOL/comments/hf2iuv/are_you_a_product_of_ipb/ In these posts I give dozens of links to government reports and security agency reports from nations all over the world, some going back over 20 years. In the second post I expand upon my first and include several links to news reports from nations all over the globe reporting on Russian interference in elections and sowing division among their population. If you aren't well versed on Russian IPb, they are a good place to start. Division of the Left: After further research into the rising violence and confrontations in America, I believe Russia's end goal is Civil War in America. Russia has been caught stoking the rage in both ends of the spectrum, from Antifa to White Supremacy movements. This report by the EU discusses how Russia is currently creating and supporting online communities pushing Antifa and far left movements by pushing and amplifying police injustice, social inequality, racial issues and questioning the legitimacy of the government. https://www.eupoliticalreport.eu/russian-connection-in-us-riots/ Division of the Right: While at the same time Russia has been supporting and reigniting far right issues and supporting groups like White Pride, Tea Party, Boogaloo movement and other far right groups. Which this University of Washington article discusses, as well as how the goal is polarization. https://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf Russia's Plan for Donald Trump: Though ultimately their support for the American Far Right is greater, as they also needed to help influence the key piece to their plan, Donald Trump. Helping influence the American public into electing Donald Trump has been the pivotal point in their entire plan. Without the election of Donald Trump in 2016, America likely would not be in the position it is today. His instability and ego have made him the easily manipulated tool they needed to help ensure America destroys itself from the inside out. Russia is able to manipulate Donald Trump both directly, and indirectly. They can control Donald Trump directly, by Vladmir Putin playing as his pal. As well as the large Russian debt Donald Trump carries as they bailed out his failing businesses when no bank would touch him due to his bankruptcy of his Atlantic casinos. His debt to Russia and his fondness of Vladmir Putin allow Donald Trump to be directly controlled through direct suggestions. This foreignpolicy.com article discussing the Russian debt Donald Trump carries. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/ Besides the direct control they have over Donald Trump, Russia can indirectly control him as well. Largely by playing against his ego. Through online troll accounts, they can make trending posts that inflame him, causing him to lash out and become unstable. Often attacking the "Left" both Democrats and movements. Donald Trump is not a man lead by logic and reason, he is a man lead by his emotions, in particular his ego, which Russia has been able to weaponize against him, as well as America. This dashboard, called Hamilton 2.0 is a project powered by machine learning and AI to find and recognize social media posts posted by state backed actors from Russia, China, and Iran. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/ Setting the Stage and Possible Scenarios: I believe what were are witnessing is Russia pushing America towards Civil War come November 3rd. They are setting the stage for mass levels of civil unrest or rioting no matter what the outcome of the election. If Donald Trump wins, there will be mass levels of protesting. Especially if there is any evidence of voter tampering. Donald Trump will likely feel emboldened by his win, if it occurs, that he will likely mobilize the military in order to quickly squash the riots. With the potential outcome of Civil War, even within the government/military itself. If Donald Trump loses, he will likely blame voter fraud and claim the loss illegitimate. He will likely directly call on his supporters to take to the streets in protest, which will lead to protests from the left. Possibly leading to clashes. There is also a strong chance that Donald Trump will use his appointees within the Judicial Branch to rule the election illegitimate, which would likely lead to protests and rioting by Anti-Trump supporters. Russia has already attempted to create race wars in America during the 2016 election cycle, they did not succeed. The stage seems set for them to succeed this time. This article from the Michigan Journal of Race and Law discusses how Russia attempted to create a Race War in America during the 2016 election cycle. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1290&context=mjrl Opinion: I strongly believe that Russia is in collusion with China in their attempts to dethrone America as the global leader. To what level they are working together, I don't have much evidence to support, so I can not say at this time. They are largely each other's greatest ally, bonded in their distaste of America being seen as the global leader. But I believe neither wants to trust or rely on one another, their partnership is one of necessity. Russia needs China to become globally dominant so that global sanctions against Russia can be lifted. Russia's economy is currently heavily constricted by America lead sanctions against them. China needs Russia, because Russia has the espionage experience that China simply isn't creative or ingenious enough to master on their own. China's espionage is strongly tied to surveillance, information theft, and using its wealth to bribe. Russia has mastered the art of manipulation, they understand the ego of individuals in Western nations. Something China just simply doesn't grasp well, they don't understand how the West thinks, they don't understand individuality on the level we have. Russia does. Russia knows how to exploit our beliefs, ignorances, and ultimately our egos and mind. They know how to manipulate Americans, because they have been doing it since the Cold War. It is arguably their greatest strength, and I believe we may be close to achieving their greatest accomplishment, overthrowing America. China's Role: China's role in Russia's plan is simple, they see themselves as the emerging global super power of this century. It has been a plan it work for decades, and it is only accelerating. The first step was becoming the World's production powerhouse. It offered unbelievably cheap production by exploiting its workers and the environment. Capitalist Western nations could not resist in their search of ever growing profits. Hyper capitalist America was drawn in the furthest, becoming heavily reliant on cheap Chinese goods for the functioning of their society. Other nations fell for this as well, but to varying lesser degrees. This gave China the money they needed to move to the second stage in becoming the dominant global leader. They couldn't simply produce products designed by Western nations, they needed the ability to design and produce these products themselves. With the money the West gave China, China turned around and starting heavily funding Western institutions. Corporations, Government funded alliances, and University institutions. With these becoming dependent on Chinese funding, they became vulnerable to Chinese bribes and data theft. China funds these institutions so that they do the research for China, and then China steals the research and intellectual property it needs to further their own research. With the end goal of China becoming completely vertically integrated in production, the ability to produce everything on its own, from the raw materials and design, to the finished product. Essentially eliminating Western countries from the process, which previously was the all important design aspect. With China producing from start to finish, it would give them an incredible amount of control over Western nations, who would be almost entirely dependent on China. The dependence on China would allow them to extract far greater profits from the West than they do now. If you want a real world example of what China is doing, look at Amazon, which has essentially copied China's gameplan. Be unreasonably cheap by exploiting workers to centralize reliance on them, where they will then later be in the position to take full advantage of their customers. Another key part of China's plan of becoming the new dominant global leader for this century, is their heavy investment in developing nations. Being seen as a the global leader is a pay to play scenario. Previously this role was filled by America. Which is where Russia again becomes part of China's goal. Russia helped elect Donald Trump, who views these pay to play situations as "Bad Deals". Donald Trump is simply too simple to understand these "Bad Deals" was America paying for nations to be reliant on America and retain America's global influence. Pay to play. As Donald Trump and America pulls funding from global institutions like WHO, pulls out of trade deals that would make nations reliant on America like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, as well as funding to developing nations, America is losing influence. Every time America steps back from these, China steps up. Greatly increasing it's funding to global organizations and even more so, developing countries. South America and Africa still have many developing nations. Globally speaking these two continents along with India represent the fastest growing markets. China has been investing heavily into these regions to build infrastructure, so that when they become strongly developed, they will look to China as the global leader, not America. Many American's tend to not take South America or Africa's development seriously. In fact, many often scoff at their importance. But their development is crucial to China's overall plan. The reason? Food. The one thing that China is currently heavily reliant on the West for, particularly America, is food. China simply doesn't have the food production to feed its 1.43 billion citizens. As it stands now, without American staple foods, China would starve. Their plan to combat this is to develop South America and Africa. Both South America and Africa have the land mass and climate to be incredibly good sources of food production. Unfortunately they are currently underdeveloped and unable to meet China's demands. Once China finishes developing these continents, they will be more than capable of supplying China with food so that it can end its reliance on America. Brazil's current destruction of their rain forest to create space for agriculture is likely evidence that my belief in this is coming true. Conclusion/Summary: This was a long read, hopefully you made it this far. If you are American, hopefully you have read my views with an open mind, and carefully reviewed my sources. Hopefully it has enlightened you to what is going on in your country, who is causing it, why they are causing it, and how they are causing it. You all need to realize how you are being manipulated, and quickly change your path. There is four months until things will likely pique. If the path isn't changed, America could very well end up in Civil War, and it could even possibly trigger the Third World War. American's need to unite and realize how their government and their views are being manipulated. Vote with intention. Do not become apathetic. Get active, get informed, get involved, but do not get violent, do not get divisive. That is their goal, and it will be America's downfall if it continues. Do your part, learn about your government, at the local, state, and federal level. Don't fall for the apathy trap you're being sold that all parties are the same, they aren't. That is a lie you are told to keep you apathetic to voting. Come November 3rd, do your part. In the meantime, get involved and educate and inform others. Ignorance breeds hate, your best way to counter it is by helping your fellow Americans understand exactly what is going on. Goodluck. Would love to hear feedback and people views on this geopolitical issue of Russia/China and the role of disinformation in the West. EDIT/Backstory on Putin's personal feud with Hilary Clinton: Copypasta from my response to a comment about the person level politics that have influenced how this has played out For further backstory on why Russia and Putin is targeting America recently, and specifically Hilary Clinton previously, you have to look to Russia's Snow Revolution. In 2011 in Russia's election, America detected what they suspected to be widespread voter fraud. Then Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, publicly remarked on this voter fraud. Which lent credibility to the internal groups within Russia who believed Putin enacted voting fraud. This kicked off a massive movement in Russia from 2011-2013 called the Snow Revolution. Which lead to the arrest and disappearance of many dissenters, political opponents, and journalists. Vladimir Putin clearly and directly singled out Hilary Clinton and said she was responsible for this movement, and claiming she was directly responsible for supporting and funding it. Putin has a personal feud with Clinton, as he saw her as being directly responsible for the largest challenge to his power in during his reign. She was claimed to have directed a movement that saw Russia's strongman leader pushed around, by a woman. Putin could not tolerate this in public, or within the ranks of governing officials. Russia's economy is weak, and Putin must keep the image that he is a strongman with complete control of Russia, unless movements against him would build. In order to regain his image, Russia's IPb campaigns against America, but specifically the Democrats, and Hilary Clinton were put in place. Ever since 2013, Hilary Clinton has been targeted by Russian hacking and hoaxes pushed through social media platforms. Ultimately leading up to Russian linked hacking of Clinton's emails which was a great detriment to her election campaign. Putin succeeded in interfering with Clinton's attempt to govern, much like he accused her of doing in 2011. Some background information on the feud between Putin and Hilary Clinton. https://time.com/4422723/putin-russia-hillary-clinton/ https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/clinton-putin-226153 Nations are run by people. People have egos. Those egos can be damaged. What we currently see today in America has been influenced by that. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/clinton-says-russian-elections-neither-free-nor-faiarticle4237000/ Read that article, these are the comments from almost 10 years ago that created what we see in America. These are the comments that made the Democrats and specifically Hilary Clinton the target of Putin's IPb campaigns. These are the comments that lead to Russia helping elect Donald Trump.
Is Russia pushing America towards civil war through disinformation with the help of China?
Submission Statement for conspiracyNOPOL: This post isn't about politics. It isn't about the left or the right. Republicans or Democrats. This post is about what is playing out on the global stage, and specifically in America. BOTH sides are getting played. It isn't about the politics of either side, this post is about how Russia and China are trying to get America to tear itself apart. Background Reading: I've done extensive research on Russia's tactic they call Informatsionnoye Protivoborstvo, IPb, which translates to Information Confrontation, or Information War. A tactic started in the 1990's after the collapse of the USSR. Deemed "Sixth Generation Warfare" by Russian military. It was designed to blur the lines between war and peace. I've wrote extensively on it here: https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/gczekd/informatsionnoye_protivoborstvo_ipb/ And the same post but further expanded to include further details and sources here: https://www.reddit.com/conspiracyNOPOL/comments/hf2iuv/are_you_a_product_of_ipb/ In these posts I give dozens of links to government reports and security agency reports from nations all over the world, some going back over 20 years. In the second post I expand upon my first and include several links to news reports from nations all over the globe reporting on Russian interference in elections and sowing division among their population. If you aren't well versed on Russian IPb, they are a good place to start. Division of the Left: After further research into the rising violence and confrontations in America, I believe Russia's end goal is Civil War in America. Russia has been caught stoking the rage in both ends of the spectrum, from Antifa to White Supremacy movements. This report by the EU discusses how Russia is currently creating and supporting online communities pushing Antifa and far left movements by pushing and amplifying police injustice, social inequality, racial issues and questioning the legitimacy of the government. https://www.eupoliticalreport.eu/russian-connection-in-us-riots/ Division of the Right: While at the same time Russia has been supporting and reigniting far right issues and supporting groups like White Pride, Tea Party, Boogaloo movement and other far right groups. Which this University of Washington article discusses, as well as how the goal is polarization. https://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf Russia's Plan for Donald Trump: Though ultimately their support for the American Far Right is greater, as they also needed to help influence the key piece to their plan, Donald Trump. Helping influence the American public into electing Donald Trump has been the pivotal point in their entire plan. Without the election of Donald Trump in 2016, America likely would not be in the position it is today. His instability and ego have made him the easily manipulated tool they needed to help ensure America destroys itself from the inside out. Russia is able to manipulate Donald Trump both directly, and indirectly. They can control Donald Trump directly, by Vladmir Putin playing as his pal. As well as the large Russian debt Donald Trump carries as they bailed out his failing businesses when no bank would touch him due to his bankruptcy of his Atlantic casinos. His debt to Russia and his fondness of Vladmir Putin allow Donald Trump to be directly controlled through direct suggestions. This foreignpolicy.com article discussing the Russian debt Donald Trump carries. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/ Besides the direct control they have over Donald Trump, Russia can indirectly control him as well. Largely by playing against his ego. Through online troll accounts, they can make trending posts that inflame him, causing him to lash out and become unstable. Often attacking the "Left" both Democrats and movements. Donald Trump is not a man lead by logic and reason, he is a man lead by his emotions, in particular his ego, which Russia has been able to weaponize against him, as well as America. This dashboard, called Hamilton 2.0 is a project powered by machine learning and AI to find and recognize social media posts posted by state backed actors from Russia, China, and Iran. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/ Setting the Stage and Possible Scenarios: I believe what were are witnessing is Russia pushing America towards Civil War come November 3rd. They are setting the stage for mass levels of civil unrest or rioting no matter what the outcome of the election. If Donald Trump wins, there will be mass levels of protesting. Especially if there is any evidence of voter tampering. Donald Trump will likely feel emboldened by his win, if it occurs, that he will likely mobilize the military in order to quickly squash the riots. With the potential outcome of Civil War, even within the government/military itself. If Donald Trump loses, he will likely blame voter fraud and claim the loss illegitimate. He will likely directly call on his supporters to take to the streets in protest, which will lead to protests from the left. Possibly leading to clashes. There is also a strong chance that Donald Trump will use his appointees within the Judicial Branch to rule the election illegitimate, which would likely lead to protests and rioting by Anti-Trump supporters. Russia has already attempted to create race wars in America during the 2016 election cycle, they did not succeed. The stage seems set for them to succeed this time. This article from the Michigan Journal of Race and Law discusses how Russia attempted to create a Race War in America during the 2016 election cycle. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1290&context=mjrl Opinion/Further Conspiracy Theories: I strongly believe that Russia is in collusion with China in their attempts to dethrone America as the global leader. To what level they are working together, I don't have much evidence to support, so I can not say at this time. They are largely each other's greatest ally, bonded in their distaste of America being seen as the global leader. But I believe neither wants to trust or rely on one another, their partnership is one of necessity. Russia needs China to become globally dominant so that global sanctions against Russia can be lifted. Russia's economy is currently heavily constricted by America lead sanctions against them. China needs Russia, because Russia has the espionage experience that China simply isn't creative or ingenious enough to master on their own. China's espionage is strongly tied to surveillance, information theft, and using its wealth to bribe. Russia has mastered the art of manipulation, they understand the ego of individuals in Western nations. Something China just simply doesn't grasp well, they don't understand how the West thinks, they don't understand individuality on the level we have. Russia does. Russia knows how to exploit our beliefs, ignorances, and ultimately our egos and mind. They know how to manipulate Americans, because they have been doing it since the Cold War. It is arguably their greatest strength, and I believe we may be close to achieving their greatest accomplishment, overthrowing America. Now here comes the conspiracy. I personally do not believe that SARS-CoV-2 was released intentionally. But if it was released intentionally, it was released to help create the underlying pressure in America that will help Russia's aim of creating Civil War in America to come to fruition. Russia tried in 2016, like I have shown in my previous links, but were unsuccessful. I don't think Russia wanted to take the risk of another failure. They needed to ensure their plan worked this time. Having China release a virus that would cause a global pandemic would help give Russia's plan a solid foundation of angst and anger in America. Which would also be why Russia has heavily been targeting America with anti-vaxx disinformation and Covid-19 misinformation. They want the pandemic to take a strong hold, the more damage the pandemic does to America, the higher the chance things will reach a tipping point and spill over into Civil War. Now as I said, I do not believe SARS-CoV-2 was released intentionally, but if you are someone who does, it was likely released by China in collusion with Russia to push America towards Civil War. China's Role: China's role in Russia's plan is simple, they see themselves as the emerging global super power of this century. It has been a plan it work for decades, and it is only accelerating. The first step was becoming the World's production powerhouse. It offered unbelievably cheap production by exploiting its workers and the environment. Capitalist Western nations could not resist in their search of ever growing profits. Hyper capitalist America was drawn in the furthest, becoming heavily reliant on cheap Chinese goods for the functioning of their society. Other nations fell for this as well, but to varying lesser degrees. This gave China the money they needed to move to the second stage in becoming the dominant global leader. They couldn't simply produce products designed by Western nations, they needed the ability to design and produce these products themselves. With the money the West gave China, China turned around and starting heavily funding Western institutions. Corporations, Government funded alliances, and University institutions. With these becoming dependent on Chinese funding, they became vulnerable to Chinese bribes and data theft. China funds these institutions so that they do the research for China, and then China steals the research and intellectual property it needs to further their own research. With the end goal of China becoming completely vertically integrated in production, the ability to produce everything on its own, from the raw materials and design, to the finished product. Essentially eliminating Western countries from the process, which previously was the all import design aspect. With China producing from start to finish, it would give them an incredible amount of control over Western nations, who would be almost entirely dependent on China. The dependence on China would allow them to extract far greater profits from the West than they do now. If you want a real world example of what China is doing, look at Amazon, which has essentially copied China's gameplan. Be unreasonably cheap by exploiting workers to centralize reliance on them, where they will then later be in the position to take full advantage of their customers. Another key part of China's plan of becoming the new dominant global leader for this century, is their heavy investment in developing nations. Being seen as a the global leader is a pay to play scenario. Previously this role was filled by America. Which is where Russia again becomes part of China's goal. Russia helped elect Donald Trump, who views these pay to play situations as "Bad Deals". Donald Trump is simply to simple to understand these "Bad Deals" was America paying for nations to be reliant on America and retain America's global influence. As Donald Trump and America pulls funding from global institutions like WHO, pulls out of trade deals that would make nations reliant on America like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, as well as funding to developing nations, America is losing influence. Every time America steps back from these, China steps up. Greatly increasing it's funding to global organizations and even more so, developing countries. South America and Africa still have many developing nations. Globally speaking these two continents along with India represent the fastest growing markets. China has been investing heavily into these regions to build infrastructure, so that when they become strongly developed, they will look to China as the global leader, not America. Many American's tend to not take South America or Africa's development seriously. In fact, many often scoff at their importance. But their development is crucial to China's overall plan. The reason? Food. The one thing that China is currently heavily reliant on the West for, particularly America, is food. China simply doesn't have the food production to feed its 1.43 billion citizens. As it stands now, without American staple foods, China would starve. Their plan to combat this is to develop South America and Africa. Both South America and Africa have the land mass and climate to be incredibly good sources of food production. Unfortunately they are currently underdeveloped and unable to meet China's demands. Once China finishes developing these continents, they will be more than capable of supplying China with food so that it can end its reliance on America. Brazil's current destruction of their rain forest to create space for agriculture is likely evidence that my belief in this is coming true. Conclusion/Summary: This was a long read, hopefully you made it this far. If you are American, hopefully you have read my views with an open mind, and carefully reviewed my sources. Hopefully it has enlightened you to what is going on in your country, who is causing it, why they are causing it, and how they are causing it. You all need to realize how you are being manipulated, and quickly change your path. There is four months until things will likely pique. If the path isn't changed, America could very well end up in Civil War, and it could even possibly trigger the Third World War. American's need to unite and realize how their government and their views are being manipulated. Vote with intention. Do not become apathetic. Get active, get informed, get involved, but do not get violent, do not get divisive. That is their goal, and it will be America's downfall if it continues. Do your part, learn about your government, at the local, state, and federal level. Don't fall for the apathy trap you're being sold that all parties are the same, they aren't. That is a lie you are told to keep you apathetic to voting. Come November 3rd, do your part. In the meantime, get involved and educate and inform others. Ignorance breeds hate, your best way to counter it is by helping your fellow Americans understand exactly what is going on. Goodluck. Final Note: I know some readers with see "Russian Influence" and immediately reject it and laugh it off as a leftist boogeyman. This line seems incredibly reflective, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." If you can read this post, https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/gczekd/informatsionnoye_protivoborstvo_ipb/ And think Russia isn't targeting America heavily with disinformation, you've bought the trick.
It was a most unusual sight for Joe Biden’s campaign: a crowd. Across the street from the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, in the town of Manitowoc, several hundred fans of the former Vice-President gathered in the afternoon sunshine late last month, carrying signs and wearing masks that allowed them to muster energetic, if muffled, chants. This was not a planned rally, more like a flash mob without the theatrics. Biden, insistent on modelling good medical etiquette during the pandemic, schedules no grand gatherings, leaving them to his rival, Donald Trump, who, before his coronavirus diagnosis, routinely spoke from a stage, with Air Force One positioned scenically behind him, as thousands cheered his boasts and invective. A line of police officers kept the crowd away from the brick foundry, where Biden’s motorcade was parked. Closest to the building, about a hundred Trump supporters had gathered, many waving campaign banners. One homemade poster read “A Vote for Biden = Socialism.” Another said, “Build the Wall with Liberal Tears.” A chant for four more years merged into one for four more terms. Few on the Trump side wore a mask. All of the Biden supporters did, including Darlene Wellner, an eighty-year-old retired social worker. I asked Wellner what brought her out for Biden. She started with Trump’s dishonesty and turned to his environmental policies. “So much damage has been done. It’s just heartbreaking what is happening in this country,” she said. Wellner has taken it upon herself to write thirty postcards to people she considers fence-sitters. “If I can influence five of them, it wouldn’t be bad.” Biden had arrived in Manitowoc, a town on Lake Michigan, largely thanks to Sachin Shivaram, the C.E.O. of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, who was so worried about Biden’s chances in the state that he contacted everyone he knew in hopes of persuading the campaign to deploy the candidate. “If you don’t have that on-the-ground presence of the candidate, it trickles down,” he told me. In his community of De Pere, he saw a surfeit of Trump signs, and almost none for his rival. At the factory, the union leadership supported Biden, but he noticed that some workers were wearing maga gear. He was thrilled to hear, about seventy-two hours ahead of time, that Biden would be seeking attention in Manitowoc, in a state where Hillary Clinton barely competed. He wasn’t alone. On the afternoon of the visit, the Manitowoc County Democratic Party storefront was bustling. “We’re in Trump country,” Karen Steingraber, a volunteer, said, as she assembled Biden-Harris signs, “but we do what we can.” Inside the foundry, Biden delivered a series of sharp-edged attacks to a few dozen carefully distanced onlookers and reporters. The speech was good stuff for the faithful—evidence that Biden, at seventy-seven, could deliver a biting anti-Trump narrative, along with his customary empathy toward the families of the covid-19 dead and those who are struggling financially. Addressing the working-class voters in Wisconsin who favored Trump last time, he pledged, “You will be seen, heard, and respected by me.” Speaking, as he often does, from behind a surgical mask, he said, “Frankly, I’ve dealt with guys like Trump my whole life. Guys from the neighborhood I come from who would look down on us because we didn’t have a lot of money or your parents didn’t go to college. Guys who think they’re better than you. Guys who inherit everything they’ve ever gotten in their life and squander it. Guys who stretch and squeeze and stiff electricians and plumbers and contractors working on their hotels and casinos and golf courses just to put a few more bucks in their pocket. Guys who do everything they can to avoid paying the taxes they owe because they figure the rest of us, the little people, we can pick up the tab for the country.” On paper, Wisconsin looks eminently winnable this year for Biden and the Democrats. The respected Marquette Law School poll, released on Wednesday, showed Biden ahead by five points, with a Libertarian candidate, Jo Jorgensen, receiving four per cent, and Trump favored by just forty-one per cent of likely voters. If it weren’t for the shock of 2016, when polls showed Clinton comfortably ahead in October, Biden supporters’ worry meter would be much lower. “Every Democrat is on edge,” Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told me as we sat on his back porch, in Madison. “To me, it means that every Democrat will work their heart out.” Trump was the first Republican Presidential candidate to win the state since 1984, but his winning margin was less than one per cent of the roughly three million votes cast, suggesting that even minor adjustments in the Clinton campaign’s message or tactics could have changed the outcome. Clinton received 238,449 fewer votes than Barack Obama had four years earlier, including forty thousand fewer in Milwaukee alone. Yet she lost the state by only 22,748 votes. Clinton and her team assumed that they would win Wisconsin with a minimal investment, even after she was pummelled in the Democratic primary, losing to Bernie Sanders by thirteen points. Only in the last two weeks of the campaign did Clinton advertise on television in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Madison. This year, Biden has dominated television advertising for months. In one measure of the intensified effort, a list of campaign events, Biden interviews, surrogate appearances, and radio and television advertisements stretches to two single-spaced pages. And the ground game is broad. By the campaign’s count, three thousand people have done phone-banking sessions in Milwaukee, where there are forty teams of volunteers and dozens of paid staffers. (The campaign declined to say exactly how many.) “We definitely learned our lesson,” Marcelia Nicholson, the chairwoman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, told me. Despite polling averages that have shown Trump lagging Biden for months, the Republicans, too, are boasting of their efforts on the ground and including rallies in the schedule. Before his coronavirus diagnosis, Trump had planned to hold events in La Crosse and Green Bay; Vice-President Mike Pence has visited the state five times since July, including a recent trip to Eau Claire, where he was joined by Ivanka Trump. The campaign is trying to fortify rural counties that voted for Obama twice before flipping to Trump in 2016; it also took the rare step of opening an office in Milwaukee, aiming to reduce Biden’s large margins among Black and Latino voters. Team Trump has held training sessions with more than six thousand people, according to the campaign. Samantha Zager, the deputy national press secretary, noted, “We’re the only campaign in the state currently asking Wisconsinites for their votes in person.” She described Biden’s bid for Wisconsin as “too little, too late.” I asked Wikler how Democrats intend to avoid a nail-biter this time. “Organizing,” he said. “In 2016, you’d go into an office and no one would be there. Someone behind a table would tell you to pick up a clipboard and bring it back when you’re done.” The next year, Martha Laning, Wikler’s predecessor, began building a statewide organizing effort that would operate year-round rather than emerge near the end of a campaign cycle. “You hire organizers to recruit local leaders to build neighborhood teams. They’re volunteer team leaders, they recruit volunteers. Those teams are responsible for organizing their neighborhoods,” Wikler said, likening them to old-school ward captains. In 2018, Democrats swept the elections for statewide offices for the first time since 1982.The current ground game is a joint operation of the Biden campaign and the Wisconsin Democrats. In addition, staff and volunteers from a raft of independent organizations are working to get out the vote. In Milwaukee, significant efforts are under way by Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (bloc) and Voces de la Frontera Action, which focusses on the city’s hundred thousand Latino residents, as well as other Latinos around the state. Since Kamala Harris, a Howard University graduate and member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, joined the ticket, organizers have been drawing strength from members of the Divine Nine historically Black fraternities and sororities. In Fitchburg, the state’s first elected Black mayor, Frances Huntley-Cooper, an Alpha Kappa Alpha, called it “an automatic network. I have so many sisters who are on the phone every day.” Many others, she said, are helping people navigate the requirements for voting by mail, and volunteering as poll workers. Then there is money. In one sign of the Democrats’ success, last month’s live reading of the script of “The Princess Bride,” by most of the original cast, attracted an astonishing hundred and ten thousand viewers and raised $4.25 million. The cast members of “Parks and Recreation,” “The West Wing,” and “Veep” appeared on other nights. Citing the organizing oomph, the Democrats I spoke to in several Wisconsin cities expressed confidence in Biden’s chances, if the election is fair and square. Their worry is that Republicans will find ways to suppress Democratic turnout. For months, Trump has been groundlessly attacking mail-in voting, recently tweeting falsely, for example, “The Ballots being returned to States cannot be accurately counted. Many things are already going wrong.” With court battles over voting rules already under way in Wisconsin, I asked Mandela Barnes, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, what he foresees. He said, “Republicans are going to use any tactic they can try to keep people from voting, because they know that lower turnout is typically beneficial to them.” More than a million voters have already requested an absentee ballot, and more than six hundred thousand have voted. Anticipating a torrent, election officials are getting creative. Some have positioned drop boxes outside public buildings, such as libraries, in Milwaukee. In Madison, a Democratic stronghold, hired clerks sit outside the City-County Building during office hours to collect ballots, first checking that they have been signed and witnessed. The city organized two events called Democracy in the Park, where poll workers stationed themselves in two hundred and six parks to register voters and receive ballots. On the first day, roughly ten thousand people delivered ballots. An attorney for two of the state’s most senior Republican legislators unsuccessfully tried to stop the exercise, arguing that it was “an illegal collection of ballots.” Republicans are also in federal court trying to limit the number of days that ballots, postmarked by Election Day, November 3rd, will be received and counted. Yet even as Trump rails against the dangers of absentee voting, the Wisconsin Republican Party is saying precisely the opposite, in literature designed to be hung on a voter’s door handle. “Absentee and Early in-person voting are safe and secure ways to guarantee your voice is heard,” the flyer says, featuring a stylized black-and-white photo of Trump, with only his trademark red tie in color, pointing at the camera. “president trump wants YOU to make a PLAN to vote TODAY!” I picked up the door-hanger at an office of the Racine County Republican Party, in Burlington. Among other handouts was a card showing a Photoshopped highway sign that read, “Caution: Democrat Voter Fraud Ahead.” Behind the counter, a volunteer, who asked not to be identified for fear of being targeted by Trump opponents, said he was afraid that Democrats would try to steal the election. “I know if Democrats lose,” he said matter-of-factly, “they will try to burn the country down.” Trump, whose campaign is lagging financially, is distributing flyers that misrepresent Biden’s record and positions. One, with the Trump campaign’s signature, is printed handsomely in red, white, blue, and gray. It wrongly states that Biden is calling for defunding the police, that he intends to “raise taxes on the middle class,” and supports climate policy that would cost ninety-three trillion dollars. I spotted it when I visited the middle-class Milwaukee suburb of Brown Deer, where Emily Siegrist, a Democratic nurse practitioner and former soldier in the Wisconsin National Guard, is running ahead of Dan Knodl, a Republican state legislator, who defeated her in 2018. This time, she is well-funded and working hard. When I caught up with her, she was wearing cut-off jean shorts and a gray sweatshirt that said, “Girls Unite.” I asked about the Democrats’ decision not to knock on doors or hold rallies, in contrast to the Trump campaign and many down-ballot Republicans. She said it makes campaigning harder, and creates a wild card in predicting the outcome. Although her volunteers have made fifteen thousand phone calls, by her estimate, she sometimes can’t resist campaigning the old-fashioned way. “I’ll ring the doorbell and jump back. I’ll talk to them from a distance, ‘My name’s Emily. I just want to introduce myself.’ ” Back in Manitowoc, Shivaram revelled in the positive vibes from the crowd that gathered to cheer Biden. “I had no idea that this many people supported Biden in Manitowoc,” he said. Although Biden held no rally and shook no hands, the visit accomplished its pandemic-era goals by earning plenty of local television, radio, and print coverage from the foundry speech and interviews with reporters in the larger Green Bay market. “The media coverage made the visit look big. That really energized people,” Shivaram said. So, I asked him, was he feeling better about Biden’s chances? “From my little corner, it doesn’t feel good at all,” he replied. “I’m scared he is going to lose.”
LANSING – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave the go-ahead Wednesday for Detroit's three casinos to open at greatly reduced capacity Aug. 5, after shutdowns that began in March because of the coronavirus ... "Gun Lake Casino is confident in our play-it-safe initiative, a thought-out safety plan implemented during the casino's initial re-opening in June," the casino, in west Michigan, said on its... Michigan Casinos, Bowling Centers and Movie Theatres Can Reopen Amid COVID-19 Pandemic By Matt Christopherson December 18, 2020 at 2:42 pm Filed Under: covid-19 , Whitmer Michigan: most tribal casinos to remain open despite new COVID-19 restrictions. "Gun Lake Casino is confident in our play-it-safe initiative, a thought-out safety plan implemented during the casino's initial re-opening in June," the casino, in west Michigan, said on its website. United States 11/18/2020. Three of Michigan’s 26 casinos were open for Memorial Day weekend. As of June 1, 10 were open and most of the rest had announced reopenings. Michigan casinos closed by March 22 due to the pandemic, which has impacted Metro Detroit much harder than the rest of the state. The pandemic hit the Great Lakes State and the sports world right after Michigan sports betting launched on March 11. The three Detroit commercial casinos have no reopening date set yet. Gov. The State of Michigan (MI) is located in the Northeast of the United-States. The Midwest “Wolverine State” has a population of nearly 10 million. Its official capital is Lansing but its main city is Detroit. There are around 25 casinos within the territory of MI. You can find nearly 35,00 slot machines and a total of 650 tables games ... Michigan movie theaters, casinos, bowling alleys to reopen Monday New state order in effect until Jan. 15 DETROIT – Movie goers should be excited to know that movie theaters are re-opening Monday,... Michigan Online Casinos. Michigan online casinos are live as of Jan. 22, and you have several great options in the palm of your hand. For anyone who has been keeping up with the progress of online gambling in Michigan, the launch is the culmination of a year of regulatory and operator work. Casinos were permitted to reopen from August 5 with strict health and safety measures in place, including being limited to 15% of their legal capacity. Last week, the Michigan Gaming Control Board announced that Detroit’s three commercial casinos reported $101.4m in revenue for October , including $7.6m from sports betting. Six tribal casinos in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are closed for the next three weeks, lining up with the state’s latest restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus. Eighteen tribal casinos are expected to remain stay open with COVID-19 precautions. Some announced restaurant closures, entertainment cancellations, gaming restrictions and updated...
