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TIL the citizens of Monaco are forbidden to enter the gaming rooms of the Monte Carlo casino. The citizens are not allowed to gamble at the country's famous casino.
Great Casino DLC. But I’m considered that some of the gambling features are not working in middle eastern countries. Now, it’s allowed to sell cocaine, crystal meth, weed, and guns BUT we can’t gamble? I would really appreciate if you could explain this logic!
New Zealand rapper/poet Tourettes just posted this poem about the signing of the TPPA in Auckland's SkyCity casino last week (accompanied by the some of the largest protests the country has seen since 1981 when riots broke out over apartheid-era South Africa's rugby team being allowed to tour there)
Princess Beatrice's ex boyfriend protests against being stopped at the Australian border for drug traces on his possessions. Allowed into country. Proceeds to crash car whilst skipping out on casino bill, cocaine in hand- link in comments.
Japan's parliament enacted early Thursday a law allowing casino gambling in the country. The law allows casino gambling in "integrated resorts" that include hotels and entertainment facilities.
Almost half the country still allows smoking in bars or casinos. HOW DO WE PRESERVE THOSE RIGHTS?
In my state, FL, bars are exempt from the smoking ban. I just moved here a year ago from NY and knowing a NY style ban is coming makes me feel sick. Smokers have to find a way to win hearts and minds. See the map on the top right in the link. Theres a lot of sanity left. Any area not shaded in white means bars, restaurants or casinos are exempt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_States
Imagine you’re a hedge fund CEO or senior executive. You’ve always had an inflated ego, and going to Wharton for an MBA definitely didn’t help in that regard. You interned at GS for the summer of 2003 and told all your friends about it, probably even brought it up oh so casually on dates. When you were hired as a trader by a moderately good to great fund, you probably lost a good deal of friends from your previous life, because they “just don’t get you now.” You’re in a different league than them, even your classmates that now work at lesser funds. You act friendly, liking Facebook posts, returning their calls, but there’s a nagging feeling that they’re holding you back. That you’ve made it, and you don’t need some loser that doesn’t even work on the East Coast. Jump ahead a few years It’s September 20th, 2008. Bear Stearns closed months earlier, Lehman went bankrupt a few days ago. "Buddies" of yours from both funds have been texting you, some you know from college. Maybe you’ll take pity on them and put in a good word, maybe you’ll tell them nothing’s available right now and that you’re sorry. You don’t tell them you were part of your fund's effort to short sell theirs into oblivion. Maybe you really are sorry though. What you’re more sorry about, however, is that your bonuses are probably going to be shit for a few years. They could even dip into five figures, god forbid. Your thoughts are of course directed to the millions of people losing their jobs across the country by the news, but inevitably your bonus reduction resurfaces as your biggest concern. “It’s not like I can do anything,” you say, after downing some wine. You go to sleep fairly easily, while across the country, innumerable people are forced to contemplate moving. Let’s jump ahead a few more years It’s mid-March, 2020. At this point, its become evident that COVID-19 is going to ravage the world, in some capacity (not gonna put politics into this because that’s not the point). As either a CEO or senior executive at a mid-range hedge fund, your thoughts gravitate towards your craft. It’s clear the market is going to tank, so you do what you do best. You short the shit out of several clearly sinking industries (https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/investing/short-sellers-market-coronavirus/index.html). But you don't stop there. You go on CNBC, Fox Business, maybe even the BBC, and announce doom and gloom. Doing this will get people to dump their stocks, meaning your shorts print even more money. Oh well, if there’s a positive to be gained from this whole thing it’s your fund making good money, right? By late March or early April, your wife convinces you that going with the kids to the Hampton’s would be the best choice, since the upper east side is getting a little claustrophobic. You’ll need to cancel your two week St. Barts vacation, what a bummer. You rent out a nice beach house in Sag Harbor for 125k a month, managing to beat out the other bidder by upping them by 10k. Once again, millions of people are losing their jobs, and you’re shorting the companies they work for. What else should you do? Only a few months forward this time It’s October. Weeks turned into months, and while you’ve started getting back to the city more and more, you’re still staying in Sag. Sometimes you have family friends over for an ostensibly socially distanced wine + cigar. You don’t think much of the events of the summer, aside from that one tweet you had PR send out in July. Your kids might have thoughts, you haven’t asked. Just a few more months, I promise It’s January. For really no other reason than the prospect of making more money, you along with a few other funds have decided to open naked shorts on GameStop. While technically not allowed, there are loopholes. Why would the loopholes be there, if not to be exploited, right? Not like you don’t do the same thing with your taxes. Then, the unthinkable happens A bunch of retail investors, led by a specific part of Reddit, decide to fuck your position by dramatically raising the share price. Since you firmly believe these people incapable of sticking to such an audacious play, you do nothing. Before long though, you start to become slightly unnerved by how steady the growth of the stock is. It's approaching $100, and you're losing hundreds of thousands to millions every day on short interest. So, you decide to take action. You get on CNBC, and cry about fundamentals. About volatility crushing these people. They don't listen, and keep buying. A week passes with you and your rich friends trying various strategies, none of it working. You're aware of another fund leaning on a popular trading app to force them into not accepting buy orders for GME, amongst others. You're not above sacrificing pride for money, so you announce your fund has closed its shorts. You're lying, of course. What kind of looks what you get at future parties if you cowed to these people? No, fuck that. You've read all the right books, been to the right schools, made the right friends, networked at the right parties and functions. You will not close, everything in your life has conditioned you not to. In fact, you'll double down. You go on CNBC some more. Artificially lower the stock price by trading between a few other funds. None of it's working, and you're intensely aware of another potential gamma squeeze on Friday. Restrictions on buying help during the day, but after hours, the stock jumps. That momentum carries it into a solid Friday. You won't budge, but at this point you're losing millions of dollars a day. So, here we are These people do not care about you. You're the least of their concerns, actually. They care about money and fund image, in that order. We have a real chance to make guys exactly like this hurt where it counts (for them), and I want people to understand that. I'm not saying throw your rent into GME. I'm saying you have the chance to really be a part of something, to screw the people that have been doing the screwing for your whole life. The house has been running a fixed casino, and you have the chance to hit back. Do not close. We have them, and they know it. We're winning, and if we keep winning they will give in.
How is all the garbage not burying us alive by now? Just think of all the garbage generated by major cities every single day. It's surreal to think how this civilization could even last a week, with so many people disposing of and using so much frigging stuff.
Yes, a lot of the first world off loads its garbage onto the third world and these developing countries, in turn, generate just as much of their own garbage. Garbage that usually ends up in toxic/illegal landfills, into various waterways, or floating out into the ocean only to become a part of the humongous island garbage patches dotted around the globe. In my case, nothing served as a more startling example of the waste we collectively generate than the local city dump. Occasionally, to get rid of old furniture and other random stuff, we've made trips to such a place as this, which allows you to drop off old junk in a giant dumping ground for a small fee. Even for the modest town I live in, this local dump, which is privately ran and is only one out of a couple for this area, has always had a literal mountain of garbage tens of feet high, by tens of feet long. It's sheltered in a very large half-open warehouse and there's always so much garbage there that it's practically touching the ceiling high above. And yet this is a normal amount of garbage collection for them. One that replicates itself week after week without fail. And they're not even the official dump for the city, which means that massive amount of garbage I've seen constitutes only a fraction of that actually generated by this city. And then, when you try to broaden the picture, every city, large or small, generates its own sizable amount of trash. Think how much trash a place like New York must create on a daily basis. Enough to fill hundreds, if not thousands, of warehouses like the kind I described above. Go bigger and think of the trash generated by entire countries, or entire continents. All the oceans of garbage and waste flowing out from our daily activity. And this happens every single moment, every single week, every single month, every single year. It's truly mind boggling. How we're not somehow buried in it up to our necks by now is astonishing. I'm reminded of a joke by Bill Burr, when he remarks on the highly accurate, but not often thought about fact, that everything we've ever used is somewhere. Think about your entire life and everything you've ever donated or thrown away. All that stuff is somewhere out there. Crushed beneath a landfill, or floating out in the ocean, or, just maybe, is being used by someone else. It's crazy to think about, isn't it? The history of people's trash. Those both alive and dead have all left their mark in this way. I can't help, but notice how in every single house, down every single street, and in every obscure little corner of human habitation; people are using things, throwing things away, buying new things, gobbling up electricity to heat their homes in the winter or cool them in the summer, ordering take-out, driving their cars, making plans for international trips which involve air travel, or other things they'd like to do which requires enormous fossil fuel energy. In every major city, at every single moment of the day, people go to stores, they shop, they dine out, they go to the movies, they mingle at nightclubs, they go to amusements parks and take in all the lurid sights they can. And all this happens. Every. Single. Day. Year upon year. I mean, just think of how this already has happened for decades now. From Chicago, to Tokyo, to Melbourne, to Toronto. Every single day. Every single night. How in the hell has it managed to go on for this long? With that much energy and resources being used by so many people, in so many places. By rights, it should have all collapsed within a week, yet it's been chugging along for decades now without stopping. Quite the opposite, it's only grown and grown. It makes me realize just how much there is in nature. How much energy to be exploited, how many animals there are to be slaughtered, how many other resources there are to be extracted. And that, as of now, we've squeezed and consumed every last drop out of it. Resources that could have lasted centuries, if not millennia, assuming they were properly managed, with far less people around to need them in the first place (at least less than a billion). Instead, we've taken all of it and stuffed into every belching furnace we could, simply to keep the infernal engine running. Hotels, restaurants, high price getaway resorts, luxury cruises, casinos, and whatever other bullshit you can think of. All so as to keep the lights on and the music booming in every single city across the world, and doubly so for the major ones. Like I said, it's just staggering to me that it's all lasted this long. For better or worse, the world is unknown to me. In my case, I've been a hermit for nearly 15 years. I've never partied, or traveled, or done anything at all except sit quietly in my room. A tidy and well kept dungeon of near perpetual darkness, with garbage bags and thick cardboard taped over every window, leaving me lost behind my own wall of near perfect isolation. All I can do is sit with myself, stewing in morbid self-attention or mulling over any number of other equally dreary topics. Too much time spent thinking about all the things I'd rather not think about. One such common thought would be whether or not anything else will ever make itself known to me, or if all that I've come to realize is all there will ever be. Perhaps hedonism is really all there is. Perhaps matters of pleasure, for whatever form that might take for each individual, really are the only point to life. Sometimes I wonder that, if the world is going to die anyway, you might as well get drunk and party like there's no tomorrow and experience as much as you can before it's gone. If this is true, as I sometimes think to myself, then I suppose I've truly failed in my life. I haven't enjoyed myself and I have nothing, even on the most base level, that could warrant my time spent rotting on this planet. No good memories, no traveling anywhere, no having unique experiences. I've been as good as dead from the day I was born. Everything I've seen outside my window or through my computer screen, might as well be like pictures in a book. A faint two dimensional shadow of something that can never be anything more than what it is. Resting in my imagination only, but not even passing as a figment of the real thing. I'm a pale imitation of life. One that wishes I could have at least gotten something out of all this, as bad as it is, despite knowing in my heart that I never will. ADDITIONAL EDIT BELOW: Thanks for all the info. I hadn't considered some of what was mentioned here and it's given me more to think about. The world is, indeed, a large place and thus affords a copious amount of room for our trash. I'll admit that I wasn't aware of how efficiently garbage can, sometimes, be disposed of. Then again, in a world where a large amount of the air, food, water, and earth is poisoned, I suppose it doesn't much matter in the end how much or how little garbage it is that we actually generate. Well, like I said, it's still staggering to me how long this has gone on for. Consumerism, starting from 1945 and onwards, has been around for a little over 75 years now and, with it, most of our modern conveniences. That's nothing when compared against the rest of human history, let alone the deep time of the natural world, but I don't know. Like I said, it's dubiously amazing to me that it all even lasted a month. The fact that our current arrangements can last longer than a week at most, is even more dubiously amazing. As for myself, I've accepted my lot in life. For what little that amounts to, I suppose. Not everyone has a taste for life, or is cut out for actually living as one would ordinarily expect. It's a sad thing, but as long as humans have been around for, there have been people like me who have puttered about in their dreary existences. Those who've just sort of trudged through life carried by their own prior inertia and fear of death. Tens of millions have come and gone who have found themselves in this predicament and, to this day, there are still those condemned to do the same. I'm just another regrettable example of it. It's not fine, but I accept it. I am what I am and, for better or worse, no one should deny who it is they truly are. Even if who they are only brings them pain and puts them apart from nearly every living thing on the planet. That's how it is, but I guess it doesn't stop me from complaining about it, as I've unfortunately done here, so apologies for that. If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's. Also, for what it's worth, I'm actually a pretty healthy individual. I engage in at-home exercises, have an extremely clean diet, and take Vitamin D and pro-biotic supplements. I do the laundry, I keep my room exceptionally clean, and, along with my mother, I keep our home well kept and decent. Believe it or not, but these are all things I've done for many years now. And you know what? I still feel the way it is I feel. Garbage bags over the windows and everything. Last year, as a matter of fact, I did enough work around this house to have kept at least 3 separate contractors busy for weeks, but, at the end of the day, I was still left with what I otherwise was. I operated a jackhammer and single-handedly cleared away tonnes and tonnes of old concrete that had been blighting our property for years, only to then do the back breaking work of disposing of it as well. I painted our entire fence, I painted and re-sanded our old deck, and I cleaned up the basement, the garage and the shed from top to bottom. It's partly thanks to what I did that we have a brand new driveway now, since I got the ball rolling on it and significantly reduced the cost through my efforts. But, in the end, I didn't do these things because I was ever asked to do them, but to silence the madness in my mind and to briefly make an escape from my isolation. I didn't have to do these things, but I needed to all the same. Anything to make the pain inside my heart/mind stop, if only for a little while. Like modern media before I was stricken with anhedonia, these tasks were essentially a form of escapism for me. An escapism used to briefly evade experiencing my own empty existence. I don't know what's wrong with me, but, whatever it is, it's been with me all my life. Aside from my mother, and occasionally my older brother when he comes to visit, I speak with no one. I have no friends and, frankly, I have no idea how to make them. This is as true for the digital world, as it is for the flesh and blood one. I don't know what to do about whatever it is I am, but, as hard as it's been, I've tried to accept that this might just be who I was always destined to be. Plus, it's been so many years now. So many years of this. You fall down a hole long enough and, sooner or later, you can't imagine any other way to be. Well, again, it'd just been nice to get something out of all this, this whole civilization thing, besides just being a hermit. I guess in the age of COVID, that's what everyone's encouraged to be anyway. It's like Junji Ito's Army of One made manifest. Who'd have ever thought.
Japan's parliament enacted early Thursday a law allowing casino gambling in the country. The law allows casino gambling in "integrated resorts" that include hotels and entertainment facilities.
Japan's parliament enacted early Thursday a law allowing casino gambling in the country. The law allows casino gambling in "integrated resorts" that include hotels and entertainment facilities.
This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 57%.
The law, which was sponsored by a group of lawmakers mainly from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, allows casino gambling in "Integrated resorts" that include hotels and entertainment facilities. Party leader Natsuo Yamaguchi was among the Komeito lawmakers who voted against the bill in the upper house Wednesday after the party allowed a conscience vote. An initial version of the bill cleared the lower house on Dec. 6 but was tweaked Tuesday by an upper house committee chaired by a Democratic Party lawmaker. The Democratic Party attempted various methods to obstruct the bill Wednesday, first submitting a censure motion against the prime minister in the upper house, then filing a no-confidence motion against the Abe Cabinet in the lower house. The motion against Abe was scratched from the deliberation schedule by the upper house's steering committee and the motion against the Cabinet was handily voted down by the ruling coalition's majority in the lower house. Amid prolonged deliberations on the casino law, the LDP extended the Diet session, which had been due to end Wednesday, by three extra days through a motion in the lower house.
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Artist: Run The Jewels Album: RTJ4 Date Released: June 3rd, 2020 Listen YouTube Spotify Tidal Apple Music Artist Background The duo consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, and legendary underground produceMC El-P, known together as Run The Jewels, originally came together as a result of Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco who introduced the two in 2011. After his 2011 album PL3DGE peaked at #115 on the US charts, Killer Mike told Jason that he wanted to make his own AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Jason informed Mike, “If you want AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted modernized, the only producer I know who comes close to the Bomb Squad-level of production is El-P”. The duo’s chemistry was immediate, as El-P went on to produce all of Killer Mike’s 2012 last solo album R.A.P. Music, and Mike featured on El-P’s final solo album Cancer 4 Cure. Mike and El’s respective albums released within a week of each other in May 2012, and the two embarked on a twenty-city US tour in the following months. After returning from tour, the pair had found a friendship growing between themselves, and made the decision to put other projects on hold and focus on the chemistry that had been sparked. Recording at an upstate NY studio beginning in April 2013, the duo re-appropriated the phrase “Run The Jewels” from the LL Cool J track “Cheesy Rat Blues", and released their self-titled collaborative album, for free via digital download, only a mere 2 months later in June 2013. 36” Chain vs. Pistol & Fist Run The Jewels discography currently exists in a distinct pairing. With Run The Jewels as their debut, this record set the group's tone as a light-hearted, braggadocious duo with as much confidence in their abilities as swag in their punchlines. Just over a year later, the sequel Run The Jewels 2 took the foundation set from their freshman effort and dialed the insanity up to 11. RTJ2 pushed the boundaries of their aggression and flows to new heights; with incredible energy in their verses, and absolutely impeccable beats, blending El-P’s signature industrial sound with sharp synth arpeggios, chopped Zach De La Rocha vocals, and absolutely bonkers Travis Barker drums. It was then nearly 3 years before Jamie and Mike followed up their breakout RTJ2, with Run The Jewels 3 being released again ahead of its scheduled release date via free digital download, this time on Christmas Eve 2016. Instead of these two attempting to outdo the pure insanity and in-your-face attitude found in their predecessor, Mike and El decide to evolve themselves as a group. The duo had noticeably pulled back on the swag and dick jokes which made such a splash on RTJ2, instead choosing a more subdued, electronic approach to their beats, as well as a clearly stronger political approach in their lyrics. This change in sound and style is demonstrated in the album cover’s artwork. The first two records featured the distinctive RTJ “Pistol and Fist”, with the fist tightly gripping a chain. The chain, in my opinion, represents the swag and braggadocio that drove the aggressive nature of their first two albums. In RTJ3 the chain is removed, leaving only hands that have transformed from bleeding and bandaged, to a pristine gold. This brings us to early 2020. It’s been nearly 4 years of living in a post-Trump America, and El-P announces that Run The Jewels fourth record has been completed. Mike and El live-stream the first single “yankee and the brave” on Instagram on March 22nd, 2020. Lyrically and sonically, RTJ4 exists as the successor to Run The Jewels 3, with Mike and El again taking the good from their previous effort and launching it into the creative stratosphere. El-P’s beats are again leaning towards the synthetic, electronic side, this time with the intensity dialed all the way up to 11. From a lyrical perspective, RTJ takes the politically-charged lyrics from their predecessor, and again, up the ante, laying down some of the hardest hitting and politically poignant bars either of these two have ever spit. Album Review 2020 was a year that none of us will soon forget. An unprecedented global health crisis kept the majority of us inside for months at a time. RTJ4 was announced on May 12th, 2020, with a release date slated for June 5th, 2020. However, with 2020 as the gift that won’t stop giving, the end of May was highlighted by the unjust killing of George Floyd. The phrase heard around the world, “I can’t breathe” instantly became a rally-cry for the oppressed to finally take to the streets to demand systemic police reform, as Floyd’s death was not the first time this phrase was uttered in an unjust police killing. In fact, a 2020 study by the New York Times showed that at least 70 people have died in police custody after using the same phrase over the past decade. As millions of American’s began organizing protests and demonstrations in the wake of Floyd’s death, Run The Jewels made the decision to release their latest chapter two days ahead of the scheduled release. El-P tweeted, just minutes ahead of the drop, “Fuck it, why wait. The world is infested with bullshit, so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving 2 friends the chance to be heard and do what they love”. In line with all past Run The Jewels releases, the album was made available for free digital download, two days ahead of its scheduled release date, on June 3rd, 2020. THE RETURN (we don’t mean no harm but we truly mean all the disrespect) RTJ4 opens with the first single, “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)”. Using the team names from their respective hometown baseball teams, Mike and El use the opening track to prove that they’re not just a hip-hop duo, they’re brothers, for better or worse. El-P kicks this installment off with rapid-fire, machine-gun esque snares, matching Killer Mike’s aggressive flow and tightly packed rhymes, before El jumps in to trade some dense rhymes as well. Mike and El depict themselves as outlaws, with Mike surrounded by cops with only one bullet remaining. He contemplates suicide instead of allowing the police to take him alive, until El-P jumps back in, offering Mike a way out, with a getaway car waiting outside. This tense situation is depicted lightheartedly in this song’s music video, which was released via Adult Swim and features the duo animated. The trade-off between Mike and El’s short verses are reminiscent of late-80’s EPMD flows, while the production sounds like boom-bap that’s been sent to us from the future. This distinctive blend of old-school rap roots and forward thinking production is what continues to separate Run The Jewels from absolutely all of their contemporaries. While so many artists are continually playing catch-up with the latest trends, RTJ are side-stepping the trendy and moving forward with the mind-bending. FLEXIN’ (ayo one for mayhem, two for mischief) The second single “ooh la la” samples a Gang Star track "DWYCK (feat. Nice & Smooth)" as the basis for the chorus. I say “samples” as that’s how it is credited in the album’s liner notes, however it’s truly an interpolation of Greg Nice’s bar, slowed down slightly, and sung by El-P and Greg Nice himself. El-P is a true old-head at heart, and it’s abundantly obvious in his work, even going as far as to recruit legendary producer DJ Premiere to handle the scratching on the back end of this banger. Out of key piano chords are looped to quickly create an unsettling aura surrounding the track, before El-P’s voice cuts through the infectious piano like a whip. Pounding, up-tempo drums are introduced after the chorus’ first iteration, creating what is possibly El-P’s first danceable beat. Lyrically, Mike and El-P initially seem scattered on this track, however the music video quickly makes their point very obvious.
”we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over. a day that humanity, empathy and community were victorious over the forces that would separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man. this video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. not that people are without but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. that we have somehow solved our self created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. its a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”
The video envisions a society celebrating the fact that the class system we currently exist within has finally imploded. Money is worthless, and we have rejected the desire to bind ourselves to the constraints of capitalism. All creeds and colors unite to burn the system that has so effectively controlled us for over a century. It’s a party, and if there was a song to celebrate the end of the world as it is currently known, “ooh la la” is that song. Mike’s last verse features a few metaphors and comparisons celebrating the destruction of capitalism, saving the most poignant for last:
I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca Helped me understand I'm probably more of a Joker When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smiling Cannibals on this island, inmates run the asylum
Premo’s expertly cut scratches lead us into the equally hard hitting sample flip of “Misdemeanor”, by Foster Stevens as the basis for the beat to “out of sight”. Lending yet another nod to the old-school greats that laid the foundation for RTJ, “out of sight” samples the same track as The D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough”, only adding a bouncy, electronic synth atop the inverted chord hits, and uptempo, industrial drums, to create an absolutely infectious groove for Mike and El’s dynamic chemistry to shine, rapidly jumping between each other’s two line flows in the first verse. “out of sight” shows each MC providing insight into how each of them earned a living and achieved their current status. Mike and El’s opening verse each details themselves robbing people in order to eat. El alludes to the fact that he crossed his accomplices in crime for the whole bag, while Mike details the fact his assailant tells him it’s an “honor” to be robbed by his mother’s only son. While El-P’s production is the obvious stand out on first listen, Killer Mike comes through with one of the most sonically pleasing and technically proficient verses of 2020.
We the motivating, devastating, captivating Ghost and Rae relating product of the fuckin' '80s Coke dealin' babies, never regulating, bag accumulating It would not be overstating to say they are underrating The pride of Brooklyn and the Grady, baby We don't need no compliments or confidence Our attitude and latitude is "fuck you, pay me"
The dense, intricate rhyme schemes smack you in the face, almost distracting you from Mike’s delivery and blistering flow on the verse; flexing his legendary status while paying homage to his drug-dealing past. This absolutely stunning display of technical skill, story telling, and complex rhyming illustrates how RTJ seamlessly integrates the best of both old school and new school hip-hop. “out of sight” also features a guest verse from 2 Chainz, and he continues to lay the braggadocio on thick. Considering Tity Boi’s dedication to trap stylings, his verse feels right at home on the flex track, despite it’s late 80’s tribute sample, a considerable departure from his usual sound palette. Up until this point, I haven’t mentioned any of the El-P’s lyrics specifically. El-P is a great rapper, but Killer Mike… Well, Killer Mike is an incredible rapper. He’s the guy who draws you in. El-P is the one who lays the foundation for greatness and Mike is the show stopper, and that’s generally the case for most RTJ tracks. But on “holy calamafuck”, El-P seems determined to make people stop and ask, “Who the fuck is this?!”. A sharp, yet nearly minimalistic drum kit backing a heavily distorted synthesizer melody lays beneath rhymically knocking cow-bells. This aggressively set stage allows Mike and El to flex as the dynamic duo they are, until the beat suddenly takes a turn for the chaotic. A gnarled, ultra-menacing synth overtakes everything while Mike screams into the abyss, until a distorted snare, enormous 808s, and skeletal hi-hats cut through and launch the beat switch into another dimension. The minimal, yet incredibly dark soundscape allows El-P to snap in a way I have never heard from him previously. His rhymes schemes are reminiscent of an old MF DOOM lyric notebook, while his topics flawlessly combine flexing, psychedelic use, and his well-cemented legacy in the hip-hop community. Cutting and pasting a few of his bars into this review could not convey a fraction of how stunning El-P’s performance on “holy calamafuck” is. Slightly later in the track list, making liberal use of the Ether song “Gang of Four”, “the ground below” samples and loops the sharp guitar riff and adds aggressive, pounding drums as the basis for the beat; this is finally reminiscent of the forward-thinking, stridulous production El-P has built his reputation on. Capitalising on the classic RTJ moment, Mike and El both flex in their own unique ways. Mike compares himself to Godzilla taking on Tokyo, and El-P demands respect for his name as the legend he is, threatening to smack dying children for mispronouncing his name with his middle finger to the world; his complete disregard for human life and confidence in his abilities are summed up at the end of his verse.
You see a future where Run the Jewels ain’t the shit Cancel my Hitler-killing trip Turn the time machine back around a century
SO¢IAL JU$T-ICE (until my voice go from a shriek to whisper...) While the first few tracks aren’t without their social and political themes, the back-end of RTJ4 is where Mike and El start to bust out the heavy topics. “goonies vs. E.T.”. starts off light, with El-P pointing to the irony of how once he finally started to make it “big” in the industry, the world began to descend into chaos due to climate changes, increasingly obvious social injustice, and political madness. He culminates his frustration with our disregard for the Earth with a fantastic quotable.
Fuck y’all got, another planet on stash? Far from the fact of the flames and our trash That is not snow, it is ash, and you gotta know The past got a wrath, it’s a lover gone mad
Mike’s verse takes the light-hearted frustration expressed by El-P, and turns the aggression to the next level. Aiming his sights against the ruling class and their society that’s been designed to oppress people for profit, who have very meticulously painted themselves as celebrities and idols to the American public. Mike accepts that he will be villainized by these people for speaking against them, but he welcomes the nefarious role, knowing that the working class will eventually eat the rich, no matter how much they are stomped into the dirt. And this is just the warmup. If it’s possible for a song to represent a moment in time that captures the absolute shit storm that has been 2020, “walking in the snow” is that song. It’s release coincided perfectly with the protests for George Floyd which were sweeping the nation. Killer Mike’s verse directly references the phrase “I can’t breathe”, the last words of Eric Garner, which also happened to be the last words of Floyd as well. The fact that this verse was reportedly written in November 2019 perpetually underscores the importance of the content and perfectly represents how persistent this problem is. “walking in the snow” is a true encapsulation of both a defining moment in time and an ever-persisting issue. But he doesn’t just stop at the racial injustice. Mike goes on an absolute rant about the American education system; how it’s not designed to teach people, but to discriminate against poor populations, limiting their legitimate opportunities, and therefore disproportionately leading them into a criminal lifestyle. He calls out the media as fear-mongers, and the apathy of the American public in the face of indecency. Fortunately for Mike, by the time we finally had the chance to hear this masterpiece, we were already on our feet, using this album as a war cry to mobilize against a tyrannical government that militarized against its own citizens simply for asking that we recognize systemic racism and demanding change. Killer Mike has the best verse of the year, no doubt in my mind. The only drawback is that Mike’s verse is so fucking good that it completely overshadows El-P’s, which is also amazing. A menacing guitar riff and haunting synths kick the track off into a bouncy groove, where El-P unleashes a flurry of internal rhymes that does not relent for about half his verse. Even adding layers of social commentary within the densely packed bars, El refuses to quit and continues on his political tirade; criticizing ICE’s detainment center practices and the “pseudo-Christians” who support them, with a bar that now lives in my head:
Pseudo-Christians, y’all indifferent, kids in prison ain’t a sin? Shit if even one scrap of what Jesus taught connected you’d feel different what a disingenuous way to piss away existence, I don’t get it I’d say you lost your goddamn minds if y’all possessed one to begin with
The combination of two of the best verses spit by any rapper(s) this year and production help from El-P and long time RTJ collaborator Little Shalimar, create a bouncy, aggressive, deeply truthful banger. “walking in the snow” not only encapsulates the crux of 2020 with lyrics that will become more powerful as they age, but will also forever be associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and the determination to expose continuing racial and societal injustices. The sonic palette of RTJ4 holds an extremely unique place in El-P’s discography. Jamie is the definition of a self-made 90’s hip-hop legend. This is the dude who put New York underground hip-hop on the map with Company Flow, and he did it with his unique flavor of dark, noisy, dense, boom-bap. Whether he was doing it with the help of Rawkus, or completely independently during his Definitive Jux run, El-P has never made music with the intention of becoming famous. Funcrusher Plus, Fantastic Damage,I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, and Cancer 4 Cure are all highly revered as industrial, technical, abrasive, and completely unsuitable for the radio or a party. The fact that three songs on RTJ4 could easily be heard on the radio, at a party, or in a TV series credits scene is frankly, astounding. In a 2002 interview/documentary on El-P’s budding record label Def Jux, he stated that his friend bet him $500 that he could not make a beat that was “happy”. At the time of the interview, El-P said that he had not won that bet yet. While I might not qualify the beats on RTJ4 as “happy”, if you showed El-P the beat for “JU$T” in 2002, I believe he might have won that bet. Pharell opens “JU$T” with the pre-chorus, spitting varied examples of how we’re all slaves to our current system throughout the track, over echoing snares and bouncy 808s before bright synth chords and up-tempo hi-hats burst in while Killer Mike delivers the chorus, pointing to the fact that the majority of the people featured on American currency owned slaves at one point in their lives. Mike’s verse touches on the fact that he has committed crimes to get where they are today. Mike is publicly open about his past as a drug dealer. So why is he a criminal, but Benjamin Franklin isn’t? These are the people who built our country, and they built it on the backs of slaves. He illustrates this theme with a more recent examples:
You believe corporations runnin marijuana? Ooh (how that happen?) and your country gettin ran by a casino owner (ooh) pedophiles sponsor all these fuckin’ racist bastards (they do)
When corporations are able to sell cannabis legally, but the government continually incarcerates people who trap, our president is a notoriously fraudulent businessman, and the people who helped put him in power run a pedophile ring, yet none of them face consequences and are allowed to continue to profit and remain in power while people suffer; well, we might be closer to slaves than previously imagined. Rage Against The Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha also makes his mandatory feature appearance at the end of “JU$T”. As the only artist to feature on three Run The Jewels albums, Zach is essentially an unofficial member of the group at this point. His fiery verse is spit with the same “Rage” energy that set him apart in the mid-90’s, ending the track questioning his place in a capitalist society as a recipe for his inevitable demise, since his “breath”, or art, as his weapon to express himself is still being exploited for other’s profit. Continuing with RTJ4’s heavily synthetic sonic palette, “never look back” features wavering synth leads resting above the slow-jams snappy snares and thumping bass, while a haunting voice echoes in the background. This unsettling aura provides additional gravity for Jamie and Mike to continue self-reflecting on defining moments in their childhood, and as well as how far they’ve come from those moments. Mike and El are both self-made men, and while they have a certain fondness for those gritty moments that defined them, moving forward in life is undoubtedly more important. Skeletal drums reminiscent of a slowly pounding heart opens “pulling the pin”, before rhythmic hi-hats and textured, watery synths fluttering in the upper register resting above a bouncy synth lead, and punchy 808s, burst in. The track digs itself into a slower, marching groove and shows the duo figuratively doing exactly what the title implies. Painting a portrait of a society that has turned on itself, Mike and El are ready to pull the pin and start over. The duo both detail their despise for the ruling class, pointing out multiple examples of how the elite have designed our society to keep poor people in their class. Simultaneously recognizing their own hypocrisy for profiting in a system that inherently discriminates; Mike reflects on his own success, knowing that living the lifestyle he enjoys is one built on oppression, and expresses the guilt that has caused him. El-P opens with a brutal metaphor for police, implying that they’re the root cause of the “wretched state of danger” our society exists within, and that the only effective corrective action is to numb yourself with drugs. Despite his advice, Jamie knows this is not a permanent solution, but one that causes more self-inflicted wounds. The final piece of the puzzle that is RTJ4, “a few words for the firing squad” begins to close the album with ever crescending strings, and loud, thunderous drums which never seem to resolve, continuing throughout their verses. While the drums that lead to nowhere can be sonically unpleasant, the unresolved melodies are intentionally representative of their current mindsets. Their verses are reflective and grim, but simultaneously optimistic and envisions a world where tragedy is a less common occurrence. El is grateful for what he has now but recognizes his entire life has been skewed by traumas, so out of place feels normal for him. He reflects on his current success, noting that the worst people tend to end up with the most, which makes becoming “rich” something not as desirable as it once was. Mike opens up about the death of his mother who died while he was on an airplane, admitting his struggles to not cope with his trauma with opioids. However, his wife provides him the most important reason to stay clean “but my queen/say she need a king/not another junkie rapper fiend” while a heartbreaking saxophone solo highlights the gravity of his lyrics. The track ends with what sounds the like wrap-up voiceover to a TV show, a conceptually satisfying ending, as the opening track “yankee and brave (ep.4)” began with El-P stating:
”This week, on Yankee and The Brave”
This voiceover paints the duo as brothers on the run from the law and crooked cops, and while this does close this “episode” out as intended, the critic in me is bothered by the slightly kitschy outro to such a spectacular album. The voices singing over and over, “Brave, brave, braaaaaave, Yankee and the Brave” would be, simply put, better left on the cutting room floor. The ending of this track alone is what knocks my score of this album down a few points. Despite its stellar lyrical content, with drums that never seem to reach that “holy shit!” moment, and the easily skippable outro, it’s upsetting to me that an album this great ends on such a low note. Overview RTJ4 is by far my favorite album of the year. El-P’s cutting edge approach to their sound, blended with lyrical content that continues to be more relevant by the day, the duo have come together with what is objectively their most accessible album to date. RTJ4 is the natural evolution of sound and subject matter for the duo; taking the foundation set by Run The Jewels 3 and evolving it into a more concise, more accessible, and more conceptual album. While I still personally prefer the “fuck the world” intensity and experimental nature of Run The Jewels 2, RTJ4 opens themselves up to a whole new world of exposure, and when you’re as talented as these two, you know they’re going to capitalize on it. RTJ is currently at their apex, and they’ve created an album that will make many new life-long fans going forward. 9.2/10 Discussion Points
How does this compare to other RTJ releases? How about in comparison to the member’s solo works?
Does the overwhelmingly positive critical reception of this album surprise you?
Lost in the Sauce: Trump, Cruz, and Gohmert team up to incite election-related violence
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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Election shenanigans
I put the latest info on Trump's phone call to Raffensperger in this comment.
According to experts, Trump’s conduct has potential criminal exposure:
A federal statute makes it a crime when one “knowingly and willfully … attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by … the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.” A Georgia statute similarly provides that a “person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.” …The hard part for prosecutors would be proving Trump’s state of mind, because the statutes require proof of knowledge and intent. Prosecutors would have to show that Trump knew that Biden fairly won the election, and Trump was asking for Georgia officials to commit election fraud. And it’s not clear prosecutors could make that case.
At least 12 Republican senators plan to challenge Biden’s Electoral College win on Jan. 6, when Congress is set to officially count the votes. The effort is being led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and includes Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.), as well as new Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). Separately, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) is pursuing a similar plan.
"Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed," the senators said in a joint statement. “Accordingly, we intend to vote on Jan. 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed."
Their plan is not going to succeed in preventing Biden from taking office, as majorities in both the House and the Senate would need to support a challenge against a state’s electoral votes. For an objection to be made, at least one member of both the House and Senate would need to submit it in writing. Then, the House and Senate separately convene to consider the issue. Debate is limited to two hours for each objection. After debate concludes, the House and Senate vote to uphold the objection and throw out the state’s votes. If the majority of the House AND the majority of the Senate does not uphold the objection, the state’s electoral votes are counted as cast.
Vice President Mike Pence’s role is simply to preside over the joint session, opening and presenting the certifications from each state. In his absence, the Senate pro-tempore Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) will lead the session. At the end of the process, the presiding officer announces who has won the majority of votes for president and vice president.
The most immediate danger from Trump and Cruz’s doomed election gambit is rightwing terrorism and general violence: Trump, in particular, is inciting his supporters to swarm D.C. on Jan. 6. “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!” Trump tweeted last week. Four rightwing rallies are scheduled, including one headlined by George Papadopoulos and Roger Stone. The Proud Boys and other extremists are planning to attend the rallies and may set up an “armed encampment” on the National Mall, according to the Washington Post. On social media platform Parler, the leader of the Proud Boys said that members will be there “incognito” and may “dress in all black” to impersonate leftwing protestors.
Enrique Tarrio: "The ProudBoys will turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but this time with a twist...We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams."
Rep. Louie Gohmert has more explicitly tried to incite violence, saying the failure of his legal challenge to the election means “you gotta go the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.” (clip)
At the same time, pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood suggested that Pence could “face execution by firing squad” for “treason” if he doesn’t go along with the attempt to subvert the election.
Obstructing the transition
Biden’s transition director has accused the Office of Management and Budget of stonewalling the incoming administration’s team. OMB Director Russ Vought is not allowing key staff to meet with the transition team to help prepare the president-elect’s first annual spending plan, a move that could delay major proposals. Vought pushed back on the charges, saying that his agency needs to focus on finalizing the Trump administration’s regulations before the president leaves office.
“OMB leadership’s refusal to fully cooperate impairs our ability to identify opportunities to maximize the relief going out to Americans during the pandemic, and it leaves us in the dark as it relates to Covid-related expenditures and critical gaps,” [Biden transition Exec. Dir. Yohannes] Abraham said.
Earlier last week, Biden himself said Trump officials are not cooperating with his team, singling out the Defense Department for obstructing information on crucial national security issues. “Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” Biden said. The Defense Dept. finally scheduled meetings with the incoming team this week, after not briefing the transition for weeks.
The timing of the resumption in meetings is notable because it comes after the one year anniversary of the U.S. assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3. NATO officials are reportedly worried about the lack of coordination from the Trump administration: "We need the incoming Biden administration to be fully briefed and ready to deal with these very dangerous issues facing NATO's security."
Sabotaging the Biden Administration
U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack is taking steps to keep control of Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia during the Biden administration. As chairman of the boards of Radio Free Europe and Asia, Pack and his fellow members have added binding contractual agreements that will make it impossible to remove him or other pro-Trump allies from the board in the next two years.
In other words, although President-elect Joe Biden has already signaled he intends to replace Pack as CEO of the parent agency soon after taking office in January, Pack would maintain a significant degree of control over the networks.
The State Department is likely to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism “as an 11th hour effort to create hurdles for the incoming Biden administration.” The label, which requires the approval of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, would undo a major accomplishment of the Obama administration. To take Cuba back off the list, the Biden team would need to conduct a formal review, a process that might take several months.
Such a designation would impose restrictions on US foreign assistance, a ban on defense exports and sales, certain controls over exports and various financial restrictions. It would also result in penalization against any persons and countries engaging in certain trade activities with Cuba.
The Trump administration has been rushing to finalize a myriad of rules before Biden’s inauguration. Since Election Day, the Trump administration has issued about three to four times as many new regulations as it did during other periods of Trump’s presidency. Rules that haven’t been finalized or taken effect can be suspended by an incoming president, which Biden has said he intends to do. By contrast, rules that are finalized can take months, or even years, to undo.
“As a general rule, it takes at least as much process to undo or modify a rule as it does to put the rule in place,” said Jonathan H. Adler, a professor and an administrative law expert at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. “The Trump administration is magnifying that challenge for the Biden administration.”
Trump loyalists are urging the president to stymie Biden’s efforts to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are working to get the agreements submitted to the Senate for ratification, requiring a two-thirds vote, with the goal of failure. While such an outcome wouldn’t prevent Biden from rejoining the accords, Cruz and Graham hope it would make their resurrection more problematic.
A vote against them would signal GOP opposition to the world and, they hope, undermine any unilateral action by Biden to rejoin the agreements. One senior congressional aide told RCP that sending them to die in the Senate “would be the final nail in the coffin.”
Further reading: “Biden To Be Saddled With Trump’s Payroll Tax Deferral Mess,” Forbes. Further reading: Biden will inherit a backlog of tens of thousands of visa requests from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and a bureaucratic tangle that refugee advocates say President Trump ignored or made worse.
Trump money and properties
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is employing forensic accounting specialists to examine Trump’s finances and business operations. Vance is looking “for anomalies among a variety of property deals” and trying to determine “whether the president’s company manipulated the value of certain assets to obtain favorable interest rates and tax breaks”.
The analysts hired by Vance probably have already reviewed various bank and mortgage records obtained from Trump’s company as part of the ongoing grand jury investigation, and they could be called on to testify about their findings should the district attorney eventually bring criminal charges
In yet another shady business deal connected to Trump, the United States sold the ambassador’s residence in Israel for more than $67 million. The person who bought the residence is none other than Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. The property only became available due to Trump's controversial decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem. Furthermore, State Dept. representatives reportedly lied to Congress about the sale, perhaps to hide that Adelson purposefully overbid.
For now, there is no alternative residence for the ambassador, David Friedman, Trump’s former lawyer, who currently uses a suite at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel or rooms at the former Jerusalem Consulate General when he spends nights in Jerusalem… As a result, the United States appears likely to end up leasing the residence it has owned since 1964 from the GOP-affiliated casino mogul. “It is very strange that we are now paying Sheldon Adelson,” a congressional aide told The Daily Beast. “It is not above board. We have a number of questions. Did they get two independent appraisals? Was it a sweetheart deal? Was Adelson the highest donor? Was there a reason to sell it now?”
Trump’s businesses have taken in $10.5 million of donor money over the course of his presidency. $8.5 million came from the Trump campaign and related entities that Trump controls directly; $2 million came from other Republican candidates and committees. The biggest beneficiary was Trump’s NYC hotel, taking in $3,039,979 over the four years of his presidency, with $891,003 of that in just the final four months of the campaign. Trump’s DC hotel is ramping up room prices and requiring a two-night minimum stay for two key events this month, as the president tries to squeeze more profit out of his office. On Jan. 6, when Congress is set to formally count the votes cast by the Electoral College, room rates are listed at over eight times the price of surrounding dates. Trump is encouraging his supporters to attend a protest of Biden’s win on the 6th. A room during the inauguration costs five times the normal rate, at $2,225 per night. Trump’s Turnberry Resort in Scotland posted a £2.3 million ($3.1 million) loss in 2019, marking the sixth year in a row it has failed to turn a profit under his ownership. Since Trump took over the historic property in 2014, its losses now total nearly £45 million ($61.5 million).
The fact Turnberry remains in the red comes in spite of significant tranches of payments it has received from the US government during Mr Trump’s single term in office… the US Secret Service spent nearly £25,000 to accommodate its agents at the resort during business trips by Mr Trump’s son, Eric, an executive vice-president of the family firm. Since Mr Trump’s election, the property has received close to £300,000 from the Secret Service, US State Department, and US Defence Department
A Florida state lawmaker is calling for Mar-a-Lago to be penalized - and possibly shut down - for flouting coronavirus restrictions during a New Years Eve party. While Trump and the first lady did not attend, son Don Jr., attorney Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Fox News personality Jeanine Piro were captured on video among the maskless crowd. Guests paid as much as $1,000 for access to the ballroom to be entertained by Vanilla Ice.
State Rep. Omari Hardy: “My constituents are not snowbirds like @DonaldJTrumpJr & @kimguilfoyle. My constituents live here. This is their home, and they're going to have to deal w/ the consequences of a potential super-spreader party at Mar-a-Lago long after Junior & wife leave here on their private jet.”
Are you ready for a Donald J. Trump Airport? According to the Daily Beast, Trump has been asking aides about the process of naming airports after former U.S. presidents. Further reading: “Jared Kushner’s family real estate business wants to raise at least $100 million in capital through Israel’s bond market… Kushner has helped spearhead a series of moves that have been applauded by the conservative pro-Israel community, including moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognizing Israeli sovereignty in disputed areas such as the Golan Heights. Kushner also has close ties to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Miscellaneous
The Census Bureau missed it’s end-of-year deadline to produce numbers that determine representation in Congress and the Electoral College for the next decade. The agency is working toward Jan. 9 as an internal target date for completing the current stage of processing records. "If we miss Jan. 9, it's hard to envision that we would get apportionment done before inauguration," a Census employee told NPR.
The final timing of the 2020 census results' release could undermine President Trump's efforts to make an unprecedented change to who is counted in key census numbers before leaving office… If the first census results are not ready until after Trump's term ends on Jan. 20, it would be President-elect Joe Biden, not Trump, who would get control of the numbers, which are ultimately handed off to Congress for certification.
A state agency that works toward equality for women and girls issued a blistering report Monday outlining the ills associated with casinos, particularly as they relate to the sex trade...“Casinos bring more than just revenue. They bring a bachelor party culture,” said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women...
Nationally, a person being sex trafficked in a hotel/resort setting is forced, coerced, or intimidated to perform sex acts on an average of 5 to 10 customers per day. (p. 2) Sex trafficking is distinct from prostitution: sex trafficking is the means, prostitution, pornography and stripping are the ends. Both are relatively new problems in Hawaiʻi that became systematic after Western contact. (p. 2) According to law enforcement (Spotlight) data compiled by The Avery Center, there (is an estimate of) a total 18,375 sex trafficking victims in Honolulu...(that's a total of)...23,887,812 commercial sex acts per year performed by sex trafficking victims in Honolulu. (p. 3)
When police charged New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft with soliciting prostitution, the press said the police rescued sex slaves. "They were women who were from China, who were forced into sex slavery," said Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. We're told this happens all the time. It's bunk, says Reason Associate Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown. In the Robert Kraft case, she points out, "They had all these big announcements at first saying they had busted up an international sex trafficking ring, implying these women weren't allowed to leave.” But now prosecutors acknowledge that there was no trafficking. The women were willing sex workers... Politicians tell us that thousands of children are forced into the sex trade. "Three-hundred thousand American children are at risk!" said Rep. Ann Wagner on the floor of Congress… ...celebrities...perpetuate the myth that sex slavery is rampant. "You can go online and buy a child for sex. It's as easy as ordering a pizza," says Amy Schumer. "Thousands of children are raped every day!" says comedian Seth Meyers...
There is something familiar about the tide of misinformation which has swept through the subject of sex trafficking in the UK: it flows through exactly the same channels as the now notorious torrent about Saddam Hussein's weapons. In the story of UK sex trafficking, the conclusions of academics who study the sex trade have been subjected to the same treatment as the restrained reports of intelligence analysts who studied Iraqi weapons – stripped of caution, stretched to their most alarming possible meaning and tossed into the public domain. There, they have been picked up by the media who have stretched them even further in stories which have then been treated as reliable sources by politicians, who in turn provided quotes for more misleading stories...
President Barack Obama has famously declared that "human trafficking" is "modern-day slavery." He's also said that it "is a crime that can take many forms." The second definition is a good deal more accurate. "Trafficking," in practice, is less a clear-cut crime than a call to moral panic. The vagueness of the definition allows or even encourages governments, organizations, and researchers to claim that there are tens of millions of trafficking victims worldwide on the basis of little more than hyperbolic guesses... According to Alison Bass, author of Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, "trafficking has become a new name for an old problem, which is largely teenage runaways." Young people who run away from abusive situations at home, and who sell sex to survive, are considered trafficking victims by default under many federal and state laws. This, despite the fact that hardly any teen runaways have pimps or traffickers, according to a John Jay College of Criminal Justice study. Most see sex work as the best way to support themselves on the street, given the limited legal and social service options available for children who run away from home. And most, Bass told me, do not travel out of their own town or city, much less out of the country...
[Let's Build] Attractions in a demon pleasure palace that aren't sexual
My players are going to be visiting the palace of a demon lord of pleasure who's more CN than CE. I want to show that despite his title, he represents all forms of pleasure and good feelings, not just sex. Also space in his realm doesn't work the same way as it does in the mortal plane. He essentially has an infinite amount of space to work with and can customize it as he pleases, so there are no size constraints.
A casino to feel the thrill of gambling.
A dining hall with an endless buffet that visitors are allowed to eat as much as they wish.
An idyllic beach with perfectly white sand to relax or play on.
An arena where gladiators brawl it out against each other. The point of it isn't to kill each other as much as make the battles look stunning to the audience.
A hotel with the most comfortable beds possible. Here anyone with enough money can enjoy a good rest after all the excitement.
A beautiful and well tended garden filled with aromatic flowers and sweet fruits.
A vineyard where exquisitely-aged wine can be produced just by pressing the grapes. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
A petting zoo full of the babies of dangerous creatures. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
An opulent concert hall where the best musicians of the realms perform (u/_SovietMudkip_)
A small, cozy looking wooden library, with a cushioned bay window where rain gently scatters against the glass and a cup of some hot liquid gently rising with steam. (u/QuietOracle)
An owl-bear hugging zoo. Go to sleep in the embrace of their soft down. (u/QuietOracle)
The room of sensory experiences. The room itself is fairly plain, with the main feature being long tables running the length of the room. On closer inspection there are fist-sized carved holes, each one holding a small round crystal... (u/QuietOracle)
A room with dozens of sacks filled with beans, lentils and grains where visitors can put their hands in and let the contents run through their fingers. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
A hag (or any other long nailed creature) giving visitors a scalp massage. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
A museum of little-known or long-forgotten art pieces, sculptures, and history. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A festival full of colors, music, and drinks. Everyone seems to love you, and you can’t stop laughing. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A hallway of endless doors. In each room is someone you know, complimenting you endlessly, sharing every positive, even begrudgingly jealous thought they ever had about you. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A hot spring/spa, with fluffy towels, those showers that are like rain with perfect water pressure, mud baths, and refreshing food and drink. (u/lionesslindsey)
A room full of people that constantly give you validation and laugh at all your jokes. (u/CountryJeff)
Never-ending line of gold chalices, crystal vases, silver artwork, and other valuables. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
People who are “better” than you are marched in a stripped of their superior qualities. Beautiful people are disfigured and turned ugly. Wealthy powerful people are ruined and made to beg you for pennies. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
Mass groups of people enter the room and tell you how they admire you and how wonderful you are. They stroke your ego and inflate your pride. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
Servants do everything for you. Feed you, give you drinks, wash you, wipe your arse, etc. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
You are given a wickedly barbed leather whip. A slave creature is bound to a post and you can whip this creature to inflict your wrath upon them as much as you desire. If the poor soul dies, another is brought in to replace them. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
'Knight for a day'. The full experience; lance, shiny outfit, a squire, a trusty stead, a dragon and a princess/prince to rescue. (u/mr_earthman)
The magical equivalent of a holo deck (u/cyber-viper)
Wide, flat plain with the fastest vehicles in the multiverse (a good place to use the Avernus vehicles) (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A selection of cities and villages for you to destroy with war machines or your own magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A collection of wand that allow you to test out powerful magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A magical version of a movie theatre, allowing you to watch all manner of stories, true and legendary. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A moderately large pool where small battleships with tiny animated crewmen can be deployed in teams to shell and board each other for the audience's amusement. Honored guests can put their strategic abilities to a test against other players by directly giving orders to their ships, and in certain hours guests may even swim in the pool to live out the power fantasy of being a sea monster. (u/VIixIXine)
A colorizer-device that transforms any clothes/armoweapons/other gear to any desired hue you wish (as long as it doesn’t affect the workings of the gear) (u/PaigeOrion)
A grand screen, showing a nearly infinite number of (screen)plays from all space and time, including the show with the disgraced human paladin delivering a green baby gnome back to his home land through incredible odds. (u/PaigeOrion)
A tiara that allows you to experience the sensory experience of a black cat as long as you wear it and close your eyes. (u/PaigeOrion)
A plethora of small, multicolored blocks that will magically interlock with one another to render almost any architectural structure imaginable. (But don’t step on them barefoot!) (u/PaigeOrion)
A band of musicians who are the perfect musical backup for any performances. Alone, they are more low key, but no less skilled, playing haunting melodies of unknown origin. (u/PaigeOrion)
A massive walk-in closet where you can try in any clothes in any fashion you like. (u/Tezla44)
A "schadenfreude" theatre, with shows that rely on slapstick and cringe comedy. (u/Martinus_XIV)
A room designed to give you closure. When you enter this room, someone you loved and lost is there, sitting in a couch. The room feels vaguely familiar, but you can't place why. If Detect Magic is used, the room is full of magic (divination, transmutation, illusion) but the person seems like a normal person. You can chat with them for as long as you like. They behave just as you remember them, with the good and the bad. (u/ohsurenerd)
A theatre performing the most magnificent tragedies. When you watch the performance, you find yourself completely enraptured: you cheer when things go right, scream when something terrifying happens, and moan and weep at the inevitable horrible ending. When you leave, it feels like removing a backpack full of lead that you'd been carrying for so long you'd forgotten it was there. (u/ohsurenerd)
A room where there's a button, there's someone outside and it explains that if you enter there's a 50/50 chance of you dying or not, the room won't actually kill you and it's there just to make you feel the pleasure of near death experience. (u/SupremeGodDictator)
A massage parlor with the universes best staff pampering your every need as you receive the most relaxing massage of your life whether it be scalp, back, foot, full body, etc. Has the worlds fluffiest towels and robes to luxuriate in while you wait or if you simply want to sit in a comfy chair and enjoy your ache free muscles. (u/Blue_Mando)
An arena where you and your opponents heal near instantly, and you can fight endlessly (u/ellen-the-educator)
A reenactment of your greatest failures in life, but this time they turn into your greatest achievements. (u/CountryJeff)
A room with the world's finest works of art.... and a myriad of implements you can use to destroy them. (u/redrosebeetle)
A torture chamber with mages on hand to create illusions of the people you wish to torture. Or increasingly realistic versions of them, depending on the level of magic you wish to implement. (u/redrosebeetle)
A room full of gold and jewels you can roll around in, ala Scrooge McDuck. But woe betide anyone who tries to take a souvenir.... (u/redrosebeetle)
As you're walking through the gardens, a person comes up to you. They introduce themselves as an adventurer who's also here on a quest. They seem to be the same class as you, and they're incredibly attractive-- almost exactly your type. You immediately click and end up spending the day together, talking about everything and anything. You tell them things you've never told anyone else before. They understand everything you tell them, almost innately, but they're still impressed by your feats and your stories. The two of you find an empty bedroom and close the door behind you. It's perfect in its imperfections. In the morning they're gone. No matter where you look, you can't find them. (u/ohsurenerd)
A room lined with shelves and shelves of bottles and vials containing a crimson liquid flowing slowly (like a syrup), all with small labels on them. As you inspect the labels, you realize they've all got names on them: famous adventurers, kings and queens, great sages. If you drink one, you experience a selection of their memories as they experienced them: battles won, discoveries made, historical alliances and friendships being forged or broken... (u/ohsurenerd)
A room that turns anyone that enters it into a child. It is full of every toy imaginable (u/arual_x)
A tour of a chocolate factory. Kobolds work there, and the owner, who gives the tour, is a Metallic Dragon in Humanoid form. (u/arual_x)
A fortune teller who has a Deck of Many Things with only the good cards. If you in any way offend them, they will sleight of hand vs perception check slip you a bad card instead. (u/arual_x)
An island theme park of reanimated dinosaurs. The owner is a level 20 Necromancer called Hamm Johnand. (u/arual_x)
A Virtual Reality style game that allows you to battle horrible monsters over and over again without risk of injury physical. But still allows you to gain XP... (u/arual_x)
A perfect expanse of thick snowy ground. There is constantly a snowball fight going on. (u/arual_x)
A giant room full of mattresses where everyone immediately gets a wonderful massage. (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A room full of gold and exquisite things, from beautiful furniture to magic weapons (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A seemingly endless room where adventurers can drink a potion to grow wings and flit about to their hearts' delight (u/iriedashur)
An ordinary classroom containing the adventurer's childhood friends, enemies, and their most hated teacher. Upon entering the room, the adventurer discovers that they are invisible, and free to pull pranks as they wish (u/iriedashur)
A brightly colored room piled high with wrapped gifts, large and small, for the adventurers to open endlessly (u/iriedashur)
A purple and black dragon named Ace who cooks you garlic bread and cake. (u/sanorace)
A magic pair of goggles/glasses that simulate any “What if” question you pose to them. (u/lewiscann)
A magical weather room where you can ask for any weather for your pleasure (I love listening to rain) (u/lewiscann)
A room full of lounges with a floating slow burning piece of wood that warms the whole area, the piece of wood is so large you can see the flame spread through this piece of wood forever (u/lewiscann)
A room where you can bite your fingernails and they grow back instantly ( so you can bite them some more )(u/razenastie)
A room with incredibly weakened versions of powerful monsters. (u/Your_InsideMan)
A vast room on wooden sculptures, oil, and torches. (u/Your_InsideMan)
A booth that will remake your face whilst in the palace (ostensibly to make you more beautiful but it could be used for anything) (u/Paralytica)
A magic chair that gives really good back massages (u/TenNinetythree)
A playground where the slides and carousels are for adults (u/TenNinetythree)
A room where you become a giant and can destroy cities and fortresses kaiju style. (u/Paralytica)
Drug Olympics. A room with every drug imaginable to try. Leaving the room cleanses you of their effects. (u/Skitsafrit)
No Pauses. A room that has the effect of making all conversations flow perfectly. No silence stretches too long, no one mishears you, and every topic segways perfectly into the next. (u/Skitsafrit)
Deprivation Room. The room is so absolutely featureless and quiet, that you can meditate magnitudes better here than anywhere else. (u/Skitsafrit)
A games room where you play against your perfect match (u/Nesurame)
Similar to the previous, a games room where you're matched against nothing but weaker opponents (u/Nesurame)
A heist simulator where you always get away with the big diamond, chest, etc (thrill of theft) (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
A sauna room with a central pillar. Inside the pillar is a chamber containing a magic stone which can detect the exact temperature preferences of those inside, and making each person feel said preference. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
An oval-shaped room with countless glass lotion bottles, with each smelling better than the last. If you look for a specific scent (no matter how rare), you'll certainly find it with the help of a goblin near the back of the room. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
A room that consists of A bunch of mortals so utterly jaded from years of plesure seeking that they need the hardest of drugs and the wildest of sensations to feel anything,with lesser demons feeding on their pursuit of euphoria. Think the emperors children from warhammer 40k. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
A buffet of the lids of yogurt/pudding cups to lick. (u/Hunter37594)
An olfactory room that reads your memories and replicates smells that remind you of your most joyous moments. (u/lecorbusianus)
A wildlife reserve for Druids to find new and exotic wild shapes. (u/lecorbusianus)
A room with musical instruments that you're able to master immediately. (u/lecorbusianus)
A cooking class taught by a master chef that always seems to have enough time to guide you one-on-one. (u/lecorbusianus)
An enchanter who allows you to relieve the best moments of your life over and over again. (u/lecorbusianus)
An illusionary room that brings up past experiences and let’s you make different choices to fix mistakes or win arguments. (u/The_Rhibo)
A murder simulator to allow an individual to live out the fantasy of killing that special someone. (u/Brann_The_Kid)
A library full of blackmail and secret knowledge regarding historical and political figures. A conniving, plotting character’s dream! (u/MoonlightMancer)
A room with a creature in a dark robe sitting at a table covered in maps and dice. He helps you play a strange game where you and your party make up characters that go on adventures while the robed creature acts as all of the other characters and determines new events. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
2/9/21 Update: Additional info posted here Funko is a good company with solid performance that is still trading at a reasonable price. Check out my DD below: Funko (FNKO) Share Price (1/28/21) : $11.97 Share Price (09/16/19) : $27.86 Short Interest (1/26/21) : 14% Next Earnings Release: March 2021 Funko Inc. is an American company that manufactures licensed pop culture collectibles, best known for its licensed vinyl figurines and bobbleheads. They have over 1,000 licenses across music, video games, film, TV, sports and many other pop culture properties. Some of their most popular licensed brands include Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, Pokemon, Fortnite, NBA, NFL, MLB, DC Comics, and a variety of anime properties. Several points below support the belief that Funko’s revenue grew during the 2020 holiday season and could continue well into 2021: · Increasing search traffic for Funko products · Direct sales growth is driving increased revenue and profitability · Parents are buying more gifts for their kids due to COVID · People have more disposable income from staying at home and not going out · Expansion of new products and licensees continuing through 2021 · Collectible investments like Funko POP! figures are exploding in value and popularity · Recent analyst commentary, valuation, and financials are positive FUNKO’S SEARCH TRAFFIC REACHES AN ALL-TIME HIGH IN Q4 2020 “Funko” google trends search traffic was up 20-30% in Q4 2020 (vs. Q4 2019) Searches for “Funko” were up 2x in December vs the beginning of November 2020 After falling in December, “Funko” searches are trending back up to all-time-high levels FUNKO’S DIRECT SALES INITIATIVES DRIVING HIGHER REVENUE & MARGIN Funko Direct Sales (B2C) grew significantly in Q3 and likely to continue into Q4 · B2C business as a percentage of sales increased to 8% in Q3 2020 from 4% during the prior year. · Funko’s e-commerce site grew over 150% vs. the prior year in Q3 2020 · The number of SKU’s on Funko’s e-commerce site rose tenfold since June 2020 “We went from only 200 of our own products [on our website] as late as June this year, to now well over 2,000 products available on our website.” – Funko CEO, Brian Mariotti Funko’s first ever Selena Pop! sold out online in just 40 minutes. Funko’s Q3 2020 Gross Profit % and Operating Margin % were near all-time-highs for the company · Funko’s Q3 Gross Profit Percentage of 38.6% was its second highest ever (behind only Q1 2020) · Funko’s Q3 Operating Profit Percentage of 10.8% was its second highest ever (behind only Q4 2018) · As Funko continues to grow it’s B2C e-commerce sales in Q4 and beyond, it is possible that gross profit and operating profit percentages could rise as well Retail customers were able to shift their Brick & Mortar inventory to their e-commerce channels to Funko unit sales · Funko resellers who didn’t sell online were severely impacted by Brick & Mortar closures during COVID stay-at-home orders. As 2020 progressed, some of these retailers were able to create online stores (e.g.- Shopify, Amazon, eBay, etc.) through which they could sell their Funko inventory. · Larger retailers that already had an omni-channel presence were able to shift their sales inventory from their Brick & Mortar stores to online fulfilment. Funko has also created a mini-Pop! factory at its headquarters where customers can make their own custom Funko at a price of $25 each · According to Funko, you can customize your Pop! using thousands of combinations. It’s “Think Build-A-Bear meets Funko Pop!” according to CEO Brian Mariotti. · With a $25 price point, the margins are likely higher than the average Pop! figure that retails for between $10 to $15 PARENTS BUYING MORE GIFTS FOR THEIR KIDS DUE TO COVID Parents likely splurged on their kids out of guilt of having shelter at home because of restrictions and to keep them occupied while they had to work at home. · “Faced with rising transmission of the virus, state restrictions on retailers and heightened political and economic uncertainty, consumers chose to spend on gifts that lifted the spirits of their families and friends and provided a sense of normalcy given the challenging year. We believe President-elect Biden’s stimulus proposal, with direct payments to families and individuals, and further aid for small businesses and tools to keep businesses open, will keep the economy growing.” NRF President Matthew Shay · “2020 was an unprecedented year for the U.S. toy industry. The growth we’ve seen in the toy industry speaks to the fact that parents are willing to put their children’s happiness above all else. The industry’s resiliency is very much underpinned by the reality that, in times of hardship, families look to toys to help keep their children engaged, active, and delighted. Put simply, toys are a big part of the happiness equation.” Juli Lennett - VP, U.S. Toys at NPD Toy sales were strong in 2020 as US retail sales of toys was up 16% vs 2019; driven by pandemic spending · According to NPD, “Much of the growth in 2020 was directly correlated to the COVID-19 pandemic and the changing consumer behavior associated with widespread lockdowns and school closures, the disposable income diverted from other types of entertainment to toys, as well as the onset of federal stimulus checks.” Consumer spending on toys increased measurably due to lockdowns; with strong performance continuing through the holidays · Per NPD, “While toy sales through mid-March 2020 were flat vs. 2019, widespread lockdown measures led to an abrupt increase in sales. This was further amplified by the distribution of stimulus checks beginning in April, resulting in the strongest month of growth for the year in May (+38%). Toy industry growth peaked again in October with an increase of 33% when the holiday season kicked off with Amazon Prime Day along with other retailer deals the same week.” Key retail sources reporting significant sales growth during Q4 2020 suggest Funko sales performance was strong · Target Q4 sales were fantastic showing signs of retail strength with a consumer that overlaps well with the Funko > Overall comparable sales were up 17.2% > Comparable digital sales were up over 100% > Store-originated comparable sales were up 4.2% > Store traffic was up 4.3% > Average ticket size was up 12.3% · GameStop Q4 sales were solid; showing additional potential for Funko sales > Same store sales were up 4.8% in Q4 2020 > Online sales increased 309% in Q4 2020 · According to the NRF, 2020 Holiday Retail Sales were up 8.3% compared to the prior year despite the pandemic > A surge in online shopping drove the increase (rising 32% vs. 2019) > The increase of 8.3% was over double the average increase of 3.5% that the industry had seen over the last five years. MORE DISPOSABLE INCOME TO SPEND AT HOME BY NOT GOING OUT The National Retail Federation (NRF) says that strong retail performance has been driven by consumers with stimulus checks and extra savings from not going out or traveling · “There was a massive boost to consumer wallets this season. Consumers were able to splurge on holiday gifts because of increased money in their bank accounts from the stimulus payments they received earlier in the year and the money they saved by not traveling, dining out, or attending entertainment events” – NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. Spending on “experiences” fell significantly in 2020 · The US Travel Association forecasts that spending on travel fell $500 billion in 2020 from $1.1 trillion in 2019 > The industry has lost about 40% of its direct travel jobs (about 3.5 million jobs) in 2020; driven by a reduction in business travel > Foreign visitors to the US fell about 75% in 2020; driving a $119 billion reduction in travel spending · Concert spending is down dramatically > Live Nation reported a 98% decline in concert revenue in Q2 2020 and a 95% decline in concert revenue in Q3 2020 > About 5.2 million tickets were refunded in Q3 2020 and 23.3 million tickets had been refunded so far in 2020 (as of the end of Q3) · Movie theater attendance is down substantially > AMC theaters saw a 97% decline in attendance and a 91% decline in revenue in Q3 2020 > Cinemark saw a 96% decline in revenue > Marcus Corporation (which also owns hotels and restaurants) saw a 84% decline in revenue > Studio Movie Grill filed for bankruptcy · Other anecdotal information points to more stay-at-home activity decreasing recreational spending > Chuck E Cheese’s declared bankruptcy > Dave & Busters is considering bankruptcy and plans layoffs of +1,000 > CiCi’s Pizza declares bankruptcy > Starbucks saw fewer customers, reduced store hours, increased store closures, and a 5% decline in revenues in Q4 2020. This has led them to plan a shift to more “to-go” formats > Many Las Vegas Hotels and Casinos have decided to close “part-time” during the week due to lower attendance and travel. These include Encore, Rio, Linq, Planet Hollywood, Mandalay Bay, Park MGM, and Mirage The majority of food buffets at the major hotels and casinos have been shuttered for the time being Stimulus checks and other government programs to support consumer spending provide tailwinds for retail activity · The US government authorized more than $10,000 per person in stimulus spending in 2020 over the course of five relief bills totaling $3.5 trillion · More stimulus spending is expected; including a potential $1.9 trillion package that could include an additional $1,400 in stimulus checks MORE SKUS / LICENSES ARE GROWING AND EXPECTED TO CONINUE STRONG Active properties continue to rise and are expected to grow well into the future · The number of active properties in Q3 2020 grew 15% over 2019 · Active properties grew from 644 in Q2 to 715 in Q3 2020 · The potential universe for Funko Pops! is limitless as new films, tv shows, musicians, anime characters, sports stars, and other media properties are created every year. Some of the hot properties for this year and beyond · Star Wars: Baby Yoda, Mandalorian, Rey, Valentine’s Day, etc. · Marvel: WandaVision, Deadpool, Lucha Libre, Spiderman, Venom · Anime: Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bakugan, My Hero Academia · Films: Harry Potter, The Goonies, The Mummy, Fast & Furious · TV: The Office, Umbrella Academy, The Queen’s Gambit, The Simpsons · Sports: NFL, NBA, MLB, WWE · Others: Disney, Pokemon, etc. Retail exclusives can grow the potential universe of licenses and increase retailer buy-in · For example: A retailer like GameStop could lobby Funko to make a GameStop exclusive of the WallStreetBets Kid like this person suggested here. (The exclusive Pop! would be made into a limited edition and sold only to GameStop to sell at their stores) COLLECTIBLE INVESTMENTS ARE GROWING IN VALUE & POPULARITY · Funko: The average Pops! Figure has a retail price from between $10 and $15 which allows most people an affordable entry point into collecting. Over time some Pops! Figures increase substantially in price; from $50 to $100 to even several thousand dollars. While some collectors buy Pops! as primarily an investment, many more buy them as a way to show their fandom. Whether they are avid Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pokemon, Sports, or Anime fans; collectors build large collections and show them off to friends. · Sports Cards: To those paying attention, sports cards have been on a massive run with some cards worth more than your parent’s house and your sister’s car. Since the pandemic started, the demand for sports collectibles from basketball to football to soccer (and many others) has skyrocketed. Countless videos of box-breaks and pack openings have become the norm on social media. Some of these boxes are being purchased for tens of thousands with “hits” ranging from several hundred to hundreds of thousands. · Collector’s Universe: This company that grades sports cards and other collectibles has tripled in value since June 2020. The number of sports collectors grading cards has exploded as demand rises. The popularity of grading sports cards is expected to maintain as prices continue to rise and the hobby becomes more mainstream. ANALYST COMMENTARY AND FINANCIALS ARE A POSTIVE FOR THE STOCK Piper Sandler: Upgraded Funko from “Neutral” to “Overweight” (raising their price target from $6 to $12). · Analyst Erin Murphy sees evidence of “subsequent revenue pillars” with their recent launch of Snapsies at 800 Target stores; along with an expansion into board games and its digital efforts, which include a newly launched website in six European countries. Valuation Comparison: Market Cap / Revenue (TTM) · Funko: MC - $604 million / Rev - $640 million (0.9x sales) · Mattel: MC - $6.27 billion / Rev - $4.43 billion (1.4x sales) · Hasbro: MC - $13.13 billion / Rev - $5.17 billion (2.5x sales) Key Financial Trends For Funko · Q3 2020 EPS (Adjusted) = $0.31 > Third highest ever (only Q4 2018 & Q3 2019 were higher) · Q3 2020 Revenue = $191 million > Fourth highest ever (only Q4 2018, Q3 2019, and Q4 2019 were higher) · Q3 2020 Revenue increase vs prior quarter of 94% > Q1 and Q2 2020 saw significant declines due to COVID > Q3 2020 only down 14% vs Q3 2019 despite Q2 2020 being down 49% > Q3 2020 strength driven by Funko adapting quickly to online in the US market. (Q4 2020 revenue growth could be aided substantially by Funko’s development of their e-commerce shop in Europe.) · Q3 2020 SG&A was reduced 20% vs. the prior year as Funko rationalizes costs and adjusts to focus more on D2C e-commerce TL;DR After a tough summer, Funko sales have rocketed back in Q3 to near where they were pre-pandemic; setting up a potentially historic earnings for Q4 2020. Google search activity suggests that Funko is as popular as ever and is set up well for a strong year in 2021. People are spending less on “going out;” instead buying things to use at home and presents for their kids. As time passes, Funko’s status as a popular collectible only continues to gain momentum. Their direct sales initiative allows Funko to capture additional margin by sidestepping traditional brick and mortar retail to reach their customers. Investments in collectible products like Pops! and sports cards continue to increase in popularity and price. And the company continues to release even more products beyond Pops!; including games and apparel. While some Wall Street Analysts have already begun to take notice, a strong Q4 earnings announcement can drive even more attention to the stock. Positions: Long Shares & Calls Disclosure: I am long FNKO. This is not investment advice. I reserve the right to buy or sell FNKO without updating this thread. Do your own research and share (or not share) with the community in this thread. Thank you to the others on Reddit that shared this idea earlier. Feedback: If you have any additional information, ideas, or critiques please make sure to comment. It is great to get the perspective of others when making an investment. Also that information can be incorporated into future posts and updates. Previous DD:Herman Miller
Feb/4/2021: (1) Armenia will grow weed (2) Colonel charged w/bribery & tampering w/draft during war (3) Education reform: grading, curriculum, preschool (4) Bill: treason, disability ranking, media (5) Diplomacy (6) Rumors & rebuttals (7) Cancer stats & free treatment (8) $750M bond (9) in-out stats
Your 14-minute Thursday report in 3497 words. Part 1.
anti-corruption: Defense Ministry official busted with bribery & tampering with draft during war
NSS report says: a Colonel, who had oversight over subdivisions, received a ֏975K bribe from a conscript to transfer him to another location on Sep-13-2020. Part of the bribe was transferred to his online gambling account. When the war began, a draft was declared and recruits began training at a location in Armenia. The Colonel took a ֏1.2M bribe from a soldier in exchange for not sending him to the front lines. During the winter draft, the Colonel took a ֏5.2M bribe from another conscript and used his connections to send him to the desired service location. A similar ֏1M bribe was requested on January 6th from another recruit. The Colonel took another ֏1.4M bribe to help promote a conscript and allow him to work at a hospital instead of regular service. On October 22nd, during the war, the Colonel decided to help a friend move from bordering Khndzoresk (Syunik) hospital back to Yerevan. As a result, the clinic became understaffed and couldn't fulfill its duties. Moreover, the Colonel then helped the same friend not to be deployed on Syunik borders as a soldier and instead to handle tasks in the rear, on October 26th, in exchange for a ֏300K bribe. On October 13th, during the war, the Colonel and his accomplices wanted to help a soldier to leave Artsakh. When they learned that the latter was already on the "deserted" list, they took steps to remove him from the list. Then, he learned that his friends' sons received a draft notice, and use his connections to remove them from the draft list. After the war, on Dec-13, a friend asked the Colonel to make sure that his son, who was serving in Lusakert, wasn't sent to the front lines. The Colonel contacted the Lusakert facility but learned that the soldier was not among those who were supposed to be sent to the front lines. Nonetheless, the Colonel decided to defraud his friend by claiming that "he took care of it", and received a ֏200K bribe. The colonel and over a dozen others were arrested. Illegal weapons were found under their possession. The investigation continues to expose other possible suspects. https://youtu.be/ifo13WJLpsU https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042334.html
bill: harsher punishment for treason, spying, espionage
BHK MPs drafted a bill to increase punishment for traitors, spies, passing of state secrets. They want to raise the maximum punishment from 15 years to 20-life. The authors explained the move by citing many media reports about alleged "treason" incidents. The bill was discussed at a relevant Parliamentary committee. The chairman QP MP Vladimir said he supports life imprisonment as the minimum punishment. However, during the discussion, they agreed to settle on 15-20 years plus property confiscation, or a life sentence. The committee found the espionage punishment too harsh and asked the bill author to reduce it from 15 to 12 years. The BHK author agreed. The bill was approved unanimously and will be debated/voted on the Parliament floor later. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042354.html
Jalal is back with another position
The wounded ex-Artsakh army commander Jalal Harutyunyan will serve as the Republic of Armenia's Defense Ministry's Head of the Military Control Service. He will replace General Movses Mosi Hakobyan who quit on November 18th. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042353.html
Russian-Turkish ceasefire monitoring group begins operations
ECHR received Armenia's complaint against Azerbaijan regarding 228 POWs / Azeris counter-claim for 13 POWs
Armenian families submitted a petition to ECHR to require Azerbaijan to provide information regarding 228 individuals. Azeris want to know data about 13 people. (From the language it is unclear to me whether the petition is for confirmed POWs, or it also includes families of missing soldiers who want to know whether their relatives are POWs. Likely the former.) https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042406.html
Russia removed tomato import ban on 13 Armenian firms
Russian regulator will allow 13 Armenian sellers to export tomato and pepper to Russia again after earlier finding a food virus in them. A similar ban was implemented against Azeri tomatoes. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042433.html
US Congressman demands an explanation from the US ambassador to Azerbaijan over "congratulatory" statement
Rep. Bred Sherman wants to know why the US ambassador to Azerbaijan Lee Litzenberger congratulated Azerbaijan's Economy Minister with "de-occupying territories and US's willingness to aid Azerbaijan with rebuilding those territories". He reminded the US officials that the US is a member of the Minsk Group and should take steps to ensure Artsakh's safety and prevention of a new war. Bred Sherman praised Biden's appointee Anthony Blinken for stating that the US will review its military assistance to Azerbaijan after the latest war in Artsakh. Artsakh MFA yesterday released a statement urging countries, officials, and organizations to refrain from such "congratulatory" statements. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042370.html
de-occupy Hadrut NGO
... aims to help 13,500 Hadrut residents who lost their homes during the war. It was founded during the war by activists who held protests in front of various embassies. In the early days, they received aid from President Sarkissian's office. The latter gave shelter to 25 families. Today the NGO aims to help refugees with employment, while simultaneously lobbying for Minsk Group to de-occupy Hadrut so residents can return. "I hope that one day our NGO will shut down because Hadrut is no longer occupied," said co-founder Meri Davtyan. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042286.html
govt session: financial aid for Syunik border villagers
The government approved a new aid package for residents of Syunik's Shurnukh and Vorotan villagers. Those who lost their homes will qualify for the same aid package as Artsakh refugees: one-time ֏300K payment plus monthly ֏65K payments for 6 months. There is another pending aid package to build new houses for them. Context: Two dozen houses in Vorotan and Shurnukh went under Azeri control because they were built on the Azeri side of the internationally-recognized borders. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042362.html
bill: disability ranking to be replaced with degrees of functionality impairment
The government approved a bill, yet to be approved by Parliament, to reform the disability system. The disability assessment process will analyze the person's level of functional impairment while taking into account surrounding conditions. "Today, the system is run under a 1993 law that does not do a comprehensive assessment of the surrounding environment, person's ability to function in public life," says the govt. The draft bill will repeal the 1-3 Categories and Disabled Child category. A person's functionality impairment degrees will be light, medium, heavy, or deep. Disability will no longer be considered a permanent health problem. The assessment will be based not only on the factor of health problems but also on the environmental factors of the person's activity and participation in public life. Healthcare and Social Ministries, NGOs, the UN, and the EU worked together to create and test an assessment methodology. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042365.html Tags: #DisabilityLaw #disabled
bill: require unknown Telegram/Facebook media channel owners identified before "linking" by mass media
QP MPs want to require social media channel operators identified before a "mainstream media" can link to them. It doesn't restrict citing "anonymous sources", however. It also requires outlets to disclose sources of revenues for transparency. Read yesterday's news for context and arguments in favor or against it.. The debate continued today. QP MP Arthur: For example, a legitimate news organization with an editorial staff of 30 people generates information, holds interviews, etc., while a Telegram channel that we do not know where it is managed from and by whom, begins to disseminate sensationalized information and over time becomes more "legitimate" than real media outlets because media outlets "advertised" them. This is also a national security risk because it is very possible that such sources are being operated by an adversary country to spread instability and an atmosphere of fear in the country. // The co-author criticized the critics who "claimed that the bill intends to ban anonymous sources. That's not true. This also won't affect the protection of journalists' source secrecy." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042357.html If you're interested in more debates: https://youtu.be/MTHwRa4YjgY , https://youtu.be/ThDNVwZYEp8 , https://youtu.be/S6C_NocS9N0 , https://youtu.be/3_-i2Z23ubI , https://youtu.be/wiPnmfeLNJ8 Tags: #MediaLaw #TelegramLaw #FreeSpeech
rumors and rebuttals: Artsakh army isn't being dissolved
Serj's won-in-law Mishik earlier circulated rumors that were denied by state officials. Today, Kocharyan-ally Vitali Balasanyan, who serves as Artsakh's Security Council chief, confirmed that the army isn't "disintegrating." After the restructuring process, there will be subdivisions with professional contractors, he said. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042344.html
rumors and rebuttals: Azeri flag won't fly over Artsakh govt buildings
rumors and rebuttals: Azeri families won't resettle in Stenapakert / none are shopping in market
Vitalik Balasanyan said there are false rumors about two districts in Stepanakert being populated by Azeris, and Azeris allegedly freely shopping in Stepanakert market. "Dear citizens of Artsakh, on behalf of the authorities of the Artsakh Republic, I assure you that despite the irreparable losses inflicted on us as a result of the war, the state is always committed to fulfilling its responsibilities to ensure the security and normal life of the population. Accordingly, I urge you not to pay attention to the false news. Everything is being done to create and expand the necessary conditions for a dignified life of the people of Artsakh." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042344.html
rumors and rebuttals: Artsakh envoy won't stop operating in Russia
The Permanent Representation of the Artsakh Republic in Russia will not be terminated, said the Artsakh govt in response to rumors. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042367.html
rumors and rebuttals: no single currency in EAEU trade bloc
There is a district called Hollywood in Yerevan, Armenia. Gamblers were caught running an underground casino in there. This is the second such bust in the past few months. The police say ֏5.5B in damages was done to the state. https://youtu.be/sp0Sb--e_ms?t=60 https://factor.am/335320.html
anti-corruption: prosecutors charge education officials with ֏1.2B auction shenanigans
Prosecutors said: State Oversight Committee (SOC) audited the "National Center for Educational Technology" government-affiliated agency's finances between 2013-2020. Every year, the agency submitted a report on the work done by them towards servicing the education system. The bill was ֏700M annually. It was revealed that between 2012-2015, they granted an auction-based contract to the same company. It received a combined ֏2.8B in funding. The law requires the auction-holding officials to examine the market and take other steps before the auction. They failed to do so. Later, during 2017-2019, the same company was selected to do the job, but this time it was only paid ֏300-400M annually, far lower than during the previous years. ֏1.2B in damages was done to the state. A felony case is launched. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042389.html
re: Armenia's $750M eurobond sale / lowest % in history / $3B demand by investors / economy news
Read yesterday's news for context. Pashinyan: The issuance of $750M eurobonds is a strong positive signal for the start of the economic year. The issuance was done under the most favorable conditions in the history of our republic, with the lowest 3.8% percentage rate. Our previous record was in 2019 at 4.2%. The demand was for $3B but we decided to issue only $0.750B. First, it provides a guarantee of macroeconomic stability. Second, this is the first serious signal of overcoming the post-war economic shock, which shows that international investors have confidence in the economic future of Armenia and the policy pursued by the government. // Economy Minister Janjughazyan: this was part of our long-term plan and we had planned to do it while drafting the 2021 budget. We planned to issue fewer bonds but decided to add $250M because of favorable terms. We plan to use that extra cash towards the stabilization deposit, as a safety pad, to be used throughout the year if necessary. As long as our budget has a deficit we will have to borrow. But this is only part of the story; the country's overall debt burden is calculated based on various indicators. So far Armenia has been rated as a country with a lower debt burden. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042351.html, https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042352.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042363.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042393.html
how many people did leave and arrive after reopening air traffic with Russia?
The governments of Armenia and Russian worked on an "app" to allow mutual travel after taking a test. By February 15th, there will be 4-route flights in 2 directions. There were several flights in the past few days. 3900 left and 3400 arrived. 1423 Armenian citizens left and 1263 Armenian citizens arrived. "More people were willing to leave in December than today," noted Diaspora Committee chief Sinanyan. "Some people flew to Russia but had to return due to a problem. This wasn't due to the COVID app implemented by us. Preliminary data shows that they went to Russia with a paper QP code which raised the suspicion of Russian authorities. We will work with them to resolve this," said Deputy PM Mher. (say what??) "We need to better inform the public about the existence of this app. Restoring routine flights will help the tourism industry," said PM Pashinyan. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042358.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042383.html
Pashinyan about the suspended Amulsar gold mining project
He repeated his earlier position that "Decisions must be made that take into account Armenia's best interests." "The mining industry plays a very important role in the development of Armenia's economy, including in the security context." "We must make decisions to make investment programs acceptable for the Armenian public while taking into account interests of Republic of Armenia." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042368.html
COVID stats
1829 tested. 147 infected. 352 healed. 11 deaths. 4637 active. "We're negotiating for vaccines via COVAX global initiative. Separately, we're negotiating with Russia for Sputnik-V. Vaccines should be available in March. It will be targeted at specific groups. It won't be mandatory," said Healthcare Minister Avanesyan. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042341.html , https://youtu.be/vXz3pHx1BlM?t=92
the consumer market price increase in the past 12 months
Armenia's consumer market inflation was +4.5% from January to January. Food +6.4%. Alcohol & tobacco +10.8%. Clothing +2.6%. Utilities +0.6%. Appliances +5.8%. Healthcare +5.6%. Transport +5.7%. Telecom +0.5%. Leisure & culture -0.8%. Education +2%. Dining +1.6%. Misc +3.5%. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042323.html
Parliament MP stops a citizen's suicide attempt
Someone tried to jump from Kievyan bridge. QP MP Gor Gevorgyan was nearby and stopped the attempt. The police took the distressed person to a station. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042329.html
psychological support will be provided to war participants and the public
Emergency Ministry says 15-30% of people have PTSD after the war. Today the government approved a plan to provide psychological aid to war participants and others. The target group includes families of missing people, POWs and their families, those who received disabilities, families of those who died, those who fought in the war, IDPs, civilians who were affected in any way. The program will work in Armenia and Artsakh. The government will purchase services from experienced mental health service agencies. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042403.html
Armenia will grow industrial marijuana on mass industrial scale / incentive to boost land utilization
Hemp is a type of weed that contains less of the substance that makes you feel high. The government wants to grow industrial hemp on a mass scale to boost mood land utilization and revenues. Pashinyan: this is going to open room for many speculations. It's important to present the project in detail so the public will have a full understanding of what is being done. Unfortunately, "hemp" is interpreted as something else, while in reality, it is a very important industrial raw material. The growing process has risks but there are oversight mechanisms that have been tested in many countries. Deputy PM Avinyan: the US, Russia, and China have a great experience with industrial hemp production. The practice was examined by the Economy Ministry. We're talking about industrial production only. It will significantly activate agricultural land utilization. Today, 40% of lands are gone unused. This is part of our plan to boost the production of high-value agricultural products. https://youtu.be/ssZgr2DR3DM?t=7 https://www.healthline.com/health/hemp-vs-marijuana#marijuana https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042372.html
Education Minister says the "controversial" parts of Church/History merger were "resolved"
Education Ministry wants to merge the school subjects "Armenian Church History" and "Armenian History". Critics said it will shrink the church-related materials too much, others called it treason, while others supported the decision, stating that it's all part of our history and having a separate class is inefficient. Education Minister Dumanyan says he met colleagues at the National Academy of Sciences and they resolved the conflicts "that caused a noise earlier." He will reveal details soon. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042379.html , https://youtu.be/V0sC3dx-gzU
Major education reforms: "education alone will not solve all problems, but there is no problem that can be solved without an education"
... said PM Pashinyan during a govt session while discussing education reforms. Kids in 1-5 grades will no longer receive grades; tt will be pass or no pass (still needs Parliamentary approval). "There will be a criticism. How can you not grade? But this is a comprehensive program that emphasizes the student's needs and preferences," said Pashinyan. "We need to pay attention to how the time is spent in schools and what skills are being taught in school hours. It will reflect in our society 15-20 years later. It will define whether we have a technological product or not. What we were doing in 12 years (school length) can be done within 9 years, but a 9-year school isn't the solution. Instead of shortening the school, we're trying to fill the gap in a way to have a 50% higher efficiency by the end of the 12th year. In developed countries, education starts not from school but from preschool. The lower the education entry age the more developed the countries are," said Pashinyan. (the govt has a plan to make sure 70% of kids attend preschools by 2023) https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042394.html
cancer stats in Armenia / annual rate / drops among children / fewer abandon treatment
world 9.6 million people die from cancer annually. 1/3rd is possible to prevent. Another part can be cured with the help of early detection. Armenia Cancer was the 2nd leading cause of death in 2020. It has increased in the past 10 years but at a small rate. Lung cancer is more common among men, and breast cancer among women. First time diagnosis by year: 2018 - 8762, 2019 - 7908, 2020 - 7050. Deaths by year: 2018 - 5199, 2019 - 5434. 2020 - unavailable. (55% men, 45% women) The cancer rate went up by 1.5x compared to 1990. However, it declined by 2x among children under 14yo. Fewer people abandon treatment. 3 years ago 53% of lung patients did so, today it's 40%. Breast cancer treatment abandonment went from 47% to 22%. (I translated the word բարձիթողության as "abandonment". Correct me if it refers to something else.) Artsakh The number of cancer cases has decreased in Artsakh: from 345 to 260 YoY. prevention Oncologist Safaryan says the early detection helps to avoid complications and save lives, even if it's the type of cancer that is known to reappear. There are many patients who defeat cancer. "Smokers should get a lung x-ray twice a year. Those working in chemical plants should get a frequent screening. Do not ignore symptoms and չգցել ականջի հետև. You can defeat it more easily when it's at 1-2 stages. It's a lot harder when it advances to 4." Preventing cancer isn't easy. The causes of this disease are many. Genetics, bad habits, obesity, surrounding environment. A genetic test can reveal the likelihood of suffering from illness. Some women choose to undergo a mastectomy to prevent possible breast cancer in the future. "I decided that if 1-in-100 is destined to be cured, I will be that one," said Ashkhen, a woman who recently defeated cancer. More: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042291.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042364.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042405.html
cancer diagnosis, surgery, and radiotherapy are free
The treatment was made free recently. The Oncology Center urges the public to get screened as part of an early-detection initiative. The pilot program began in Vanadzor; 307 women were screened. Cancer diagnosis, surgery, and radiotherapy are free, while the medication has a co-payment. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042423.html
Artsakh president Arayik met donor Alec Baghdasaryan and thanked him. "Only with the joint efforts of the Armenian people is it possible to quickly overcome the difficulties and to plan development programs." Alec plans more charity programs relating to education. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042326.html
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