<[Event "Boylston CC Championship"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1999.10.06"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Stancil, Kimani A"]
[Black "Orsher, Ilya"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C55"]
[WhiteElo "2106"]
[BlackElo "1996"]

<Donald Trump's contention that he can legally fire anyone employed by the federal government despite a 90-year [sic] Supreme Court ruling could be validated by the current conservative majority on the court which would be "disastrous" according to one court watcher.

According to a report from NPR, a collection of lawsuits appear to be headed to the nation's highest court that will allow then to reconsider the landmark Humphrey's Executor v. United States ruling that denied President Franklin D. Roosevelt the power to "fire members of independent boards or commission" unless it was for "cause, such as inefficiency, malfeasance or neglect of duty."

As NPR's Andrea Hsu is reporting, "the court's current conservative supermajority has been chipping away at that precedent, so the Trump administration could prevail if this gets to the Supreme Court."

The report notes that Trump's acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris has already been paving the way for just such a claim in a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) where she asserted, "To the extent that Humphrey's Executor requires otherwise, the Department intends to urge the Supreme Court to overrule that [CFPB] decision, which prevents the President from adequately supervising principal officers in the Executive Branch who execute the laws on the President's behalf."

According to Jared Davidson, counsel for legal advocacy group Protect Democracy, "These agencies need to be able to operate with a level of independence so that they can do the work for the American people and not be puppet masters," before adding "It would be absolutely disastrous for the American people if the court decides to give the president carte blanche to ignore the clear mandate of Congress and turn these independent agencies into essentially groups of political cronies.">

<[Event "Boylston CC Championship"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1999.10.20"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Desmarais, Chris"]
[Black "Godin, Eric J"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "E91"]
[WhiteElo "2105"]
[BlackElo "2200"]

<President Donald Trump is dominating the political scene in Washington, D.C., and the news and developments around the country and the rest of the world. Probably not since Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 has an incoming president made such an impact so quickly.

But these “Trump times” are providing tough times so far for MAGA investors.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January, shares in the president’s stock-market vehicle, Trump Media & Technology Group have plummeted. The $Trump and $Melania cryptocurrencies have collapsed. And Elon Musk is currently counting the cost of his close association with the Trump administration and MAGA Nation: Tesla’s stock price has nearly halved since the inauguration, costing Musk, the company’s CEO, nearly $100 billion.

Ouch.

“Buy on the rumor, sell on the news,” as they say on Wall Street, and when it comes to Trump financial bets, that’s definitely been the profitable trade — so far, anyway.

Take Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns the president’s Truth Social, a rival to Musk’s X. Donald Trump is using the platform to make announcements and comments, but that’s not helping outside investors. The stock price has halved since the inauguration, from $40 to $20. If you bought the stock on Election Day, you’ve now lost more than 40% of your money. Actually, you’re in the red if you bought the stock at almost any point in the past year.

‘DJT’ became public through a reverse merger: Effectively, Trump merged his Truth Social operation with a paper “shell” company that was already on the stock market. If you bought this stock after Trump won the Iowa caucuses in January last year, when its price hit $50, or when the merger completed in the spring, when it hit $66, you are right out of luck.

The smart move was to buy the stock before Trump won the Iowa caucuses, when the share price was $17, and sell it immediately afterwards for a fast 200% profit. Your correspondent (who is not allowed to make speculative stock-market bets with his own money) has kicked himself for not writing that story ahead of time.

It would also have been a smart move to buy the stock during a lull in March, when it was as low as $36, and then sell during the frenzy at the end of the month when the merger was completed and the ticker changed.

There was also a chance to make money buying the stock following the presidential debate in September, when Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was ahead in the polls and the Trump campaign seemed to be in the doldrums.

But in each case, you wanted to cash out when the good news hit — Trump winning the Iowa caucuses, winning the election, getting inaugurated.

You had to be even nimbler to make a buck from the cryptocurrencies, or meme coins, launched by the president and the first lady. Both were launched on the weekend before the Monday, Jan. 20, inauguration. According to price data monitored by cryptocurrency website Coinmarketcap.com, in both cases you had to buy the coins and then sell them again within hours to make a buck. By the time Trump took the oath of office, they were already in free fall.

Oops.

As for Tesla: The collapse in the stock price has wiped nearly $600 billion off the company’s market value since Jan. 20.

The stock is now back to where it was just before the election — and where it was when Trump left office in January 2021, for that matter.

Tesla’s stock boomed after last fall’s presidential election. You have to assume plenty of buying came from MAGA Nation. What else had changed? Elon Musk had been one of then-candidate Trump’s biggest cheerleaders and had already been tapped to join the administration to run the budget-cutting “DOGE” team.

The stock went from $213 before the election to $480 by mid-December.

It should have been painfully obvious that Musk’s Washington, D.C., adventure posed enormous business risks for the company. On a Venn diagram, there is very little overlap between “people who buy electric vehicles like Teslas” and “people who vote for Donald Trump.” Meanwhile, how many things can Musk do at the same time?

Tesla now risks becoming the Bud Light of the left. The beer brand cratered two years ago when a marketing tie-up with transgender TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney sparked a boycott by conservative beer drinkers....>

<....Turns out “people who buy Budweiser beer” and “people who are enthusiastic followers of transgender influencers on TikTok” is another Venn diagram with very little overlap.

Maybe Musk can build up the Tesla brand among MAGA Nation by entering Teslas in Nascar races, or Cybertrucks in a demolition derby. Recent news about the Cybertruck may make you wonder how that would work out. But I bet a lot of people would watch.

Tesla is especially vulnerable because it is such a “growth” stock. Unlike so-called value stocks, such as Bud Light parent Anheuser-Busch InBev Tesla’s stock-market valuation depends overwhelmingly on hopes for the future rather than profits in the here and now.

Tesla’s stock still sells for an eye-watering 80 times forecast annual earnings, even after the fall in the stock price.

Anheuser-Busch shares, by contrast, sell for just 16 times forecast annual earnings.

“Elon Musk,” jokes a Wall Street friend, “is now the Rudy Giuliani of electric vehicles.”

Former New York Mayor Giuliani, once a national hero, is among those counting the cost of his close association with Donald Trump.

It should be noted that not everyone has lost out from these ventures. Trump and his family members have a cost basis of effectively zero in his stock and cryptocurrencies, meaning every nickel of remaining value is profit. Trump’s 115 million ‘DJT’ shares are still worth about $2.3 billion, even at today’s stock price. His 80% share of all outstanding $Trump “coins” is valued at around $1.8 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data. The residual value of all $Melania coins is about $380 million.

Meanwhile, if you are a fan of ironies, Anheuser-Busch InBev, which collapsed after MAGA fan Kid Rock launched the boycott two years ago, is now booming. It’s up 30% since Jan. 20.>

<A small town in Maine has found itself inadvertently at the mercy of Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war with Canada - and it’s the parking that is suffering.

The town of York initially ordered 17 kiosks from MacKay Meters, a Quebec-based company, but has been forced to reduce the order to 13 due to the 25 percent tariff on Canadian imports threatened by the president. The result of the tariffs is a $20,000 increase in the cost of each kiosk.

Last week, a White House spokesperson confirmed the 25 percent tax on all steel and aluminum “for Canada and all of our other trading partners” would be implemented without exception, though Trump backtracked on his vow that the levy would be raised to 50 percent.

In Maine, the town is already feeling the squeeze that economists warned would come with Trump’s tariffs. Goods such as toys, lumber, syrup, cars, and home-building supplies are all at the mercy of price hikes thanks to tariffs.

In York, it's their efforts to create revenue that first got hit.

Foster’s Daily Democrat reported that assistant town Manager Kathryn Lagasse previously informed the town’s Selectboard that the estimated costs for the meter order would increase by $18,469 overall if the tariffs were implemented.

“I’m aware that the tariff on general imports has been delayed for at least 30 days,” Lagasse told the Selectboard on March 10, per the Daily Democrat. “After speaking with our representatives at MacKay, they’re not confident that we won’t face some type of increase.”

According to a memo from town staff, seen by the outlet, the Selectboard has access to $88,000 in contingency funds and $200,000 in supplemental contingency funds. That led to the decrease in orders from 17 to 13.

It is now considering looking for additional funds to cover the potential cost added by the kiosk manufacturer - thanks to the tariff-fueled price hikes.

In prior years, town officials have begun efforts to reduce the number of parking kiosks as part of a transition to app-based parking payments. The shift was also influenced by the maintenance costs and challenges of the kiosks.

Selectboard member Marla Johnson told the Daily Democrat that the kiosks still serve a purpose, especially for out-of-town visitors. “I think the more options we give the visitors the better,” Johnson said.

The Independent has reached out to York town officials for further comment on the kiosk order.

Last week, in response to Trump’s universal steel and aluminum tariffs, Canada announced new retaliatory levies on $21 billion worth of U.S. goods, following similar measures taken by the European Union.

Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said that the tariffs – that took effect earlier this month – would cover steel and aluminum, as well as other items including computers, sports equipment and cast iron products. The latest duties imposed by Canada are on top of the 25 percent counter-tariffs already implemented by the province of Ottawa on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods on March 4.

The Canadian countermeasures remain in place, even though Trump issuing temporary exemptions for some of his tariffs on March 6 after the U.S. stock market tumbled.

Despite this, the president is expected to hit Canada with another round of tariffs on April 2.>

<[Event "19th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1991.07.??"]
[EventDate "1991"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Anderson, Renard W"]
[Black "Mayer, Steven F"]
[ECO "C16"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]