Show Chatter

 I noticed this story over the weekend, and spent some time reviewing what people had said.

So, there's this show on American TV....called "The View".  The best description of the show is that it slices up politics and American trends, then does the best to draw you the viewer (usually females) to a left solution/position.

About seven months ago....their top (maybe the only) conserative figure on the show (Meghan McCain, who'd I consider marginally conservative), packed up and left the show. 

From what most folks said....she'd done this enough....was fed-up with the rest of the crew, and wanted something new.

So the producers for the past seven months.....have been out looking for a replacement.  Various people have come....for a week or two.....then left.  No one has gotten a contract deal.  It also appears that those who did come and serve a while....weren't up to the argument level required (at least some on social media suggest that).

The fact that the 'other' left crowd on the show....don't want a professional conservative on the show?  Well....that dynamic does fit into the whole discussion.  A Candace Owens type person.....would blast the liberal ladies daily and swing the arguments in a different direction.

So they need a loser-type conservative gal, who does a marginal job on political arguments.  For the producers?  The recruitment drive just isn't working.  

It's almost a comedy now with this show.    

What is the Greater Idaho Concept?

 Well....first, there are two states that have a fundamental difference between themselves....Idaho and Oregon.

Oregon, with a population of 4.29-million people....of which, the bulk reside in the vicenty of Portland, Eugene, Albany, and Salem area (roughly a 50 by 100 mile area on the NW side of the state).  If you did the numbers....around two-thirds of the entire state live in that 50 by 100 mile area....which means the rest of the state (mostly rural areas and small towns) is fairly unpopulated.

Here's the significance of this....urbanized Portland/Salem votes heavily Democrat and the rest of the state has little influence over the laws or political direction of the state.

So this group (roughly 80-percent of the state land mass) wants 'out', and they think that they can establish some 'path' that leads to adding their mass to Idaho.  

Odds of this?  Well....it's never been done.

If this were to occur?  Greater Idaho would rank in size after Texas and Alaska.....just on square miles.  

On voting aspects?  If you lived in what remained in new Oregon?  It'd be a 90-percent Democratic vote state, which no one really argues much about.  For Idaho?  It'd probably guarantee them as a Republican state for eternity.

Here's the thing....once you open this door....what hinders things from occurring in other states?  Could one-third of Alabama vote to move itself to Florida?  Could the city of Chicago be edged out and made into a state by itself?  Could California be broken up into five states?  

I doubt seriously that anyone in Washington DC wants this to play out because it creates a mass 'unknown'.

Observations

 1.  President Biden took for the Christmas holidays, and went to Delaware....to his beach house.  So, he and his wife.....fully vaxed and boostered....were seen out on the beach walking around....masked-up.  

I read through the piece....probably no one else but Secret Service for at least half-a-mile, yet wearing masks.

2.  Home prices in 2021, went up on average of 18-plus percent.  In a bubble like 2008?  I would suggest that.

3.  Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) did an interview and said that the Democratic Party is searching for some way to reform the filibuster process.  It'll probably be discussed in 2022, and some new phrase/word will be invented, but I seriously doubt that it goes away.  

Explaining NFT's In Simple Terms

 NFT (non-fungible token).

So you go out to Ford, and ask them to design a totally unique digital Mustang (it's not real, just digital), and it has a digital V8/1,600 HP, with a size that is one-third longer-thicker than the normal Mustang.  

They agree, and produce one-hundred of these digital Mustangs, which they promise never to produce these again.  You buy the hundred for $1.5-million.  

You store them on Blockchain (a digital 'bank').  Five years pass, and you start to sell your digital Mustangs to Meta (Facebook) people, who drive them in this virtual  world.  

You sell the first ten for $50,000 each.  

A year passes and demand creeps up, and the value is now $100k per digital Mustang, so you sell another ten.

Another year passes....higher demand, and the value is assessed at $150k per digital mustang.  You sell another ten.

At this point, you've made $3-million off your original investment of $1.5-million. Then finally in the tenth year of ownership, you dump the digital Mustangs on the market for $200k each (seventy of them).  

You would argue (logically) that a digital item is worthless (like digital swords, digital horses, etc).  Yet in this crazy world we live in....some idiot is willing to spend $50k on a totally ultra-modern and well-designed fantasy Mustang.  

Digital artwork, digital houses, digital girlfriends, and digital actors?  All coming within twenty years?  Probably. 

You will be able to design your movie....with various fantasy characters, and probably go out to buy some digital actress as some NFT product.  

Nothing makes sense, if you ask me about this whole way of living. 

Democracy Chatter

 I sat this morning and tried to watch a VP Harris interview done with Margaret Brennan.  My suspicion is that someone on Harris's staff felt she needed to show/demonstrate national policy chatter.

So the question of national security threats come up.  

VP Harris then starts some odd comment: "​Frankly, one of them is our democracy. There is,​ I think, no question in the minds of people who are foreign policy experts that the year 2021 is not the year 2000​.” 

It was an odd way to start this comment, and for a couple of minutes.....you get some chatter that reminds you of a first-year college student and nothing much makes sense.

Instead of re-assuring you of her skills....you just sit there amused.  It's like some PhD guy sat down with her during the week prior....to educate Harris on X, Y and Z in the foreign policy world, and she got overnight 'smart' but still lacking in a severe way.  

So I will offer this opinion.  In the future, for qualifications for VP....you might as well include a retired Atlanta Braves pitcher, a Las Vegas entertainer, or some Montana rancher....because their skill sets for the job don't matter.  You can even consider some city prosecutor who is known for oral sex routines with the mayor.  

Gut-Feeling Over Airline/Airport Violent Encounters

 For a number of years, I've followed these stories of violent encounters at airports or onboard airlines.

In my entire life....I've only seen one incident....at a ticket-desk in Atlanta where a lady was losing your sanity and behaving like a 9-year old kid.  What the lady wanted to occur....to make up for her trip interruption....was impossible to accomplish. So the agent offered only one solution....at the mid-way point of this planned 9-hour 'trip'.....return the lady to her starting point.  This set off a huge cussing situation, and it hit me about five minutes later that the customer-gal was on some type of mood-enhancement drug.  The agent?  She probably realized the mess going on and just figured getting this gal back home was the only solution possible.

My thoughts....since the 1980s....a lot of people have gone to air travel even though they have anxiety or panic attacks.  To reduce stress and tension....they go to some form of tranquillizer.  Whatever the dose was on the bottle?  They probably doubled or tripled up on what they took at the airport itself.  So an hour into the flight....they just aren't capable of acting in a mature way or taking guidance from the airline crew.

Resolving this?  I don't see anyway.  You just have to move on....reflect upon the incidents that do occur, and then put these people on a 'do-not-fly' listing.  Maybe at some point in the future.....a quarter of the population by age forty will be on a 'do-not-fly' list and things start to calm down a bit.

What Is VP Harris's Problem?

 If you sat down with a dozen people....the chatter would go to a minimum of ten problems/issues.  Some revolve around maturity (the lack of)....some hit on skill sets (she has few to really demonstrate), and some would involve personality traits.

But once you define these....then what?  Can you remake VP Harris into someone totally different?  I just don't see how.

I think in the summer of 2019....touring Iowa and trying to get people pumped up over her candidacy for President, nothing much happened.  She'd give a marginal speech...shake hands, and then talk to her insiders about how wonderful she was.

Joe Biden being given a list of ten-odd people (all women and all of color) was then led down a pretty crappy path.  I'd offer the opinion that if he'd just picked Mayor-Pete.....things might only be half-as-bad as they are today.  (Was Mayor-Pete that qualified for the job?  No, but VP's are typically chosen to just sit in the background and not be noticed)

What happens to Harris in 2022?  More or less....the same crap.  Staff #2 is being recruited now, and I expect most of them to be gone by the end of 2022.  Maybe Biden could do everyone a favor and put Harris on a nuke-sub for 90 days of patrolling....to just have her off the front-page.

Movie Review

 Over the weekend, I watched Netflix's 'Don't Look Up' movie.  I will strongly endorse watching it, but not for the comedy.

So, it's basically a copy of 'Deep Impact' with one little difference.....they take the reality of news, politics, and crisis management of 2021, and make the suggestion of someone trying to save humanity from a asteroid hitting Earth....a joke.

As much as scientist try to make the government aware of the threat....it's all controlled by normal everyday American style fake politics. 

Maybe it tries hard to convey humor and comedy, but about halfway through it.....it's gone to the extreme of reality.  It's not that funny in the end.

So I'll recommend a viewing but it probably won't comfort you in the very least at the end.

Psychosis Now?

 So I kinda noticed several stories over the past week.....where Covid collective psychosis has started up.

Generally, folks feel a bit ill....they get ahold of a Covid test, and they get a positive reading from their at-home test.

So this curious situation starts up.....since they are so hyped-up over news reports....they rush off to the emergency room.

You can imagine....nurse at the front door and trying to halt the couple there.  'We-gotta-get-in' is the response then from the couple.

Nurse finally agrees to test them officially, but then says.....we won't know the results for 24 hours.  Well....that's not enough for the couple.  The fear of Covid...the fear of Delta....the fear of Omikron......all adds up.  

Behind them in the line is probably another five to ten couples/families, and they are just as hyped up.

Pure and absolute psychosis?  Yeah.

You've reached the point now where offering them ivermectin is not possible, because they will read off the NBC or PBS description of horse-medication.  Trying to educate the customers at the door?  Well....that won't work either because they've been personally brief by President Biden.

Talk then starts up.....some folks at the door are fully jabbed-up....some even with a booster shot.  Some folks have no vaccination and that gets some criticism by the other folks at the door, who are jabbed.  'You-ought-not-be-here' then gets uttered by the jabbed folks to the non-jabbed.  

You can laugh about this, but it's all pretty serious doom stuff for the couple at the door. 

Should Hillary Run in 2024?

 Well....here's the thing, if this is mostly led in the 2023 debate/primary-build-up, with Mayor-Pete and VP Harris, with Joe Biden continuing to talk about running again, then I'd say fine....let Hillary run against the three in the primary.

Trouble winning the Iowa caucus?  Well....that's problem number one.  

Does she have any cash free to run in NH, SC and Nevada?  Yeah, she can probably scramble around and get enough to win easily in Nevada and SC. 

Health issues still there?  No doubt.  Plus she's eight years older than last time.

But here's the thing.....there are almost no governors with good enough records and built economic strategies to sell people on their brand.

In simple terms.....Covid has wiped out a whole generation of Democratic  governors.  

So yeah.....let Hillary run, and lets see how the public feels after four years of Joe Biden.  

Where Things Are Headed

 The NBA commissioner came out yesterday and made the comment: 'you folks need to adjust and realize that Covid is never going away.'

In simple terms, he's laying out the problems that will exist.

You might have the greatest NBA team of all time....with 90-percent of the season's games won, and yet arrive on day one of the finals....with three of their key starters now out because of Covid.  Adding to the mess, you might the opposing team to this freakish series....with five of their bench members discovered to have Covid and out for two weeks.  

But why stop there?

For March Madness, you could have two of the top players for one team destined for the final eight....screwed with Covid.  You might have one of the best players of the season who ends up with 'long Covid' and just not physically up to playing more than 20 minutes per game for the March Madness series.

You could arrive at spring training for the Mets....to find their two top relief pitchers affected by 'long Covid' and just unable to pitch at the level required....for the entire season.

You could find six members of the Alabama football team down for first two games of the season because of Covid, and the team loses the first two games in a miserable way (losing by more than 20 points in each game).  

Sports screwed up?  There are a thousand scenarios I could put out there and they all represent a problem in getting hyped-up about sports.  You could have the final five games of a NCAA  season go in some weird way.....that paves the way for a 16-17 season team to get into the final four of March Madness.  

But why stop there?  Why not get into the 2024 primary season, and have some candidate or two get Covid, and end up with 'long Covid'....where they don't have the energy or stamina to hype up the crowd?

Get used to this scenario being played out.  

The Real Job as President?

I know some of you won't agree with this 'thought'.....but I tend to see the President's chief function/job.....as just persuading on 'something'. 

It doesn't matter if it's a war in the Balkans, or punishing the evil Russians, or suggesting that taxes have to creep up to pay for stuff we are giving away, or making you feel good over achievements to defeat racism, or giving you a hyped-up feeling over downsizing the nation's drug problems.  

 Probably since the 1920s....we've been dealt a thousand problems, and Presidents size up the mess....give speeches or gear the nation for a persuasion situation.  

So, we come to President Joe Biden.  

On some weird persuasion 'index' (one to ten).....Biden is marginally delivering at two or three on just about every single topic.

I just can't recall a President stumbling around at this level.  Maybe Carter gave several crappy speeches and just walked around with a successful speech one day.  Then he'd do a crappy no-thrills speech the next day.  

2021?  It's been a full year of comical persuasion.  For me, it was like a used-car dealer talking up a 1970 AMC Gremlin.  Two minutes into the Gremlin chatter.....you just want to leave the sales lot without being hindered by the sales guy.

Was Joe Biden always a dismal persuasion guy?  I sat and thought about this.  From the 1990s, there's nothing to really indicate he had persuasion talents.  Even as VP for Obama.....he never gave a 4-star performance for persuading people.  In 2020?  It was a choice of Joe Biden's dismal persuasion factor or Bernie Sander's crappy persuasion capability.  You picked the lesser of two evils.

So here we are.

2022?  I'd expect more of the same.  Maybe it's time that Joe hires up a sign language gal like the Latin American dictators use.....swinging her arms, body and boobs around......captivating you more than the clumsy dictator himself.  

The Student-Loan-Hysterical?

 With the 80-odd million votes in 2020....I would personally take a guess that 10-percent of these votes came from Republicans, Independents, and Democrats for Joe Biden....because he 'guaranteed' that student loan debt would be massively cut (some people felt 50-percent would be likely).  

If you were standing there in 2019....owing $80k and barely making $35k at your start-up profession after college (age 24), the debt thing was a constant problem for you to handle. Voting for Joe Biden made sense....he'd dissolve half of that debt and you'd feel better.

For some folks, the sales pitch was that $50k of debt would dissolve away.....so those owing $25k, $35k, or $45k....it was an enormous 'weight' lifted off your back.

President Biden did one single thing for you....he stalled the debt payments (no interest, no payments).  It was all figured that this would eventually evolve into a large sum of money forgiven.

Well.....it didn't happen.

In fact, presently, the new executive order says you have a grace period of no payments up to May of 2022.

Come June 2022....you will have to start making payments.

Anger and frustration?  I'd guess and say more than forty-million Americans are pretty negative about Biden and his fraudulent promise. Whoever is running for the Democrats in 2023's 'build-up' to the primary.....will go and repeat the Joe Biden promise....dismantling the college loan debt.  It's virtually guaranteed.

I certainly feel sorry for these folks and realize that this 'anchor' is screwing people over....limiting their home-purchase ability, and their contributions to their retirement.  But, I generally ask.....why did you go and borrow $50k for a crappy degree which only leads to a starting $30k a year salary, and limits you to probably $45k at age forty?  Why were you that stupid not to grasp the sequence of results?

Blame at the university system for having so many burdens upon them with almost no value for one-quarter of their college staff work-force?  Yeah.  I also blame state legislatures for not tackling the issue and asking for audits of their own public colleges.

This Biden 'joke' just sinking away?  More or less.

Someone will come along in 2023 to promise a massive give-away deal, and half your debt to dissolve if you just vote them in.  Another massive push that fails in the end?  Absolutely.

The only way to fix this?  I'd go to each kid applying for massive student loans and just tell them.....the max you get for a non-engineer/non-medical loan per year....is $8,000.  Either you accept this and just go to school part-time (making this a 8-year degree process)....or you settle on Community College (for lesser cost degrees).  Once you decrease the 'herd' entering universities.....the college will have to react, and lay off one-quarter of their employees (the non-productive folks).  The system will clean itself up in just two or three years.  

This Idea of a Vax-Status to Travel By Air?

 The White House is studying the idea that for all internal flights in the US.....you could not board unless you had a vax-status.

Odds of this order being issued?  I'd give a 30-percent chance of occurring.  So several observations:

1.  Even if you were quintupled-vaxed (five times).....it simply doesn't mean that you are 100-percent immune to Covid.  No one will sign their name to any statement like that.  So if you forced this order....vaxed-up people would show up....board a plane legally, and still pass the Covid virus around on the plane.  

To be honest, I'd have ten times the fear of Omikron being 'stashed' on the plane after a flight, and I'd be less than thrilled to board the flight leaving.

2.  Fake vaccination slips showing up?  More than likely, but this would just invite more cops to stand by and detain you at the airport.  Some might even accuse you of having a fake vax-slip, when you have a legit vax-slip.  

3.  I would suspect that even vaxed-up people would stand there for a minute....do some critical thinking, and ask the question....if this is so bad for people....isn't this the same for getting into a taxi, riding the subway, or entering a city bus?  

On fear status, I could see this quickly flipping public opinion and asking why schools are open....why you allow unvaxed-people into grocery stores, topless bars, and NFL stadiums?

4.  Finally, it just seems logical....the next step is to limit people coming to talk with President Biden....that only vaxed-up folks should be allowed into the White House, and that non-vax folks should be kept at the gate.  

My suggestion...if it's this bad to make a vax-status and forbid air travel....maybe it's time to just give up flying in general (crashing modern air-travel) and turn airports into Blockbuster 'fronts'?  

Gut Feeling Over the Daunte Wright Shooting

Four observations:

1.  I've watched the video.....the minute that the cops have confirmed his ID, and are moving to get him out of the car, he's acting a certain way for about 30 seconds, then decides 'what the heck, I'll just escape'.  This triggers the cops reaction.  

Why the escape deal?  He's got a warrant for a situation over a aggravated armed robbery.   Just a humble guess, but with some friendly DA.....he's still going to prison for a year.  

For the cops, the minute they realize the warrant is for aggravated armed robbery.....that means a weapon was being used someone at the robbery.  This pumps up all three cops to a level of 'worry'.

2.  On the female cop (Potter), the taser should have been a shoulder weapon....NOT on the belt.  I'm not saying it matters that much, but you have to make a decision and reaching for your belt (left or right)....shouldn't be a thought proccess.

3.  Convicting Potter (the cop)?  I could see some lesser sentence of three years, but not fifteen years.  The jury?  Hard to say.

4.  Finally, to the idea of some 20-year old doing something 'extra-stupid'.....getting into a robbery?  I look at this behavior and just suggest that he was going to die sooner or later....in some act.  You had someone who just wasn't an adult.  

Observations

 1.  This 500-million Covid test-kit hand-out by President Biden.....is being done on a non-compete bid process....meaning that the company was just given the deal.  In the Pentagon circle....they would have been forced to conduct bids.  So it just begs the question, who got the contract and how Hunter figures into the whole thing.  Note, it's a Chinese company....if you were wondering.

2.  It's now figured that 10-percent of all House Democrats are NOT running in the primary season of 2022.  

3.  Chicago's mayor has asked for fed help because of the death count in 2021.  What that really means?  As they arrive....she will want to meet them and 'instruct' them on how to conduct the 'help'.  Basically.....all the problems that she has mastered....they need to perform as well.  Don't expect much out of this 'help'.

4.  Is there any possibility of success for the Biden agenda in the spring of 2022?  Well....no.  Primary season starts up shortly, and no one wants any doomed agendas being pushed around with zero success.  So....mostly go and expect a few lite-weight pieces to come up.  

How 2021 Ends

 1.  We more or less....confirmed UFOs, and no one really got excited.  In fact, by the end of 2021....the Pentagon had recreated a division to analyze this from top to bottom.

2.  The 6th of January episode?  Around 200-odd people served up a revolution with flag poles, backpacks and water bottles.  A couple of folks (cops included) died from heart attacks....with one single person shot dead, by the law enforcement folks (note, this lady was unarmed).  Revolution?  With water bottles and flag poles?  If you tried to tell  this story to a Afghan or Iraqi....he'd just start laughing.

3.  You end up with a 3 x 5 inch index card resume for a Vice-President.  The most unqualified individual in US history.....acting as VP.

4.  Covid?  It was front-page news on 1 January and will be front-page news on 31 December.

5.  Joe Biden?  We aren't even at day 365 yet for President Joe, but there are various Democratic characters discussing the need for Joe to 'go'.

6.  As bad as the economic landscape looked in 2021....a fair number of people expect the same or more in 2022.

7.  CNN reached the point of failure.

The 'Real' President?

 The VP (Harris) was asked this past week....'who the real President is', and then tried to laugh it off.

My humble thought is that she walked into the White House business back in January, and maybe within two weeks....figured out that Joe Biden isn't all there.  She probably asked questions....then reached the conclusion that there's a 'group' behind Joe who runs the day-to-day business.

So she sits there....most every single day....in a daze.  She gets verbal orders of a sort and attends meetings, but behind the 'curtain'....she knows that there is no President.  It's just the 'team'.

What happens when the news media finally admits this and Joe has to go?  Well....the team is sitting there and hoping that Harris just assumes the 'chair' and lets them continue on.  Harris?  She knows in her gut.....every single member of the team has to be dismissed on day one.  

It is a weird scenario to be stuck in.....like something out of the Twilight Zone.

Observations

 1.  This past week, Senator Warren came out and said there ought to be a federal investigation of oil companies CEOs and executives.  After pondering over it....I'd welcome a federal investigation of all Senators salaries, investing habits, and actual wealth.  

2.  This Senate bill passing....making items built/assembled by Chinese slave labor illegal to be imported into the US?  In the end, the Chinese will just re-label the labor folks....calling them 'free-men' who owe a debt to the Chinese government.  As a token of their good will....there will be an extra bowl of rice soup each day, and a half-glass of beer offered on Thursdays.

3.  Is Afghanistan about to collapse?  Well....if you go and glean through all the news sources....there's a slowdown in the flow of food within the country.  Over the past twenty years.....they commercialized their market system, and the Taliban has failed to grasp how the system functioned.  A massive mess spiraling into a January 'rescue-us' mess?  Probably.  US cargo aircraft will be demanded to tons of food will have to be brought into the country.

4.  If Build-Back-Better fails....what comes next?  For 2022.....I might go and predict a second agenda effort....renamed of course.  The fact that various Democrats are in a fear mode over the campaign season arriving shortly?  Yeah.

Likely Candidates in 2024 For Democratic Primary

 1.  Stacey Abrams.  A lot rides on her 2022 Georgia governor campaign.  If she wins it....she will be one of the top five in 2024's Presidential primary.  If she loses?  I doubt if you see her.

2.  Senator Booker.  Probably has a rough go at the first four primary states.

3.  Mayor-Pete.  The 3 x 5 inch index resume guy.  Other than making good speeches....there's just not much there.  He might be able to win one of the first four primary states (SC).

4.  Julian Castro.  Texas political figure....gives good speeches.  Just not that well known, and has zero chance at the first four primary states.

5.  Phil Murphy.  Gives good speeches, but beyond New Jersey....he' an unknown.

6.  Gavin Newsom.  He says he's not running.  From the group, he is the most known guy, and toxic enough to be hated by half the nation already.  I think he could win two of the first four primary states.

7.  Ms Obama.  Well, she says she's not running.  I would probably rank her in the top three presently.  Never held any office and that's a key point.  If you were looking for someone like Harris or Mayor-Pete with a awful weak resume.....she's got that problem.  

What the party needs?  Some trans-Puerto Rican-bi polar-opioid addicted-dumber than a bag of rocks (who might not be an American citizen) individual.   

President 'Doom'?

 Did President Biden utter 'winter of death'?

Well....yeah....he was making a talk on Thursday and uttered the phrase. 

I'm sure he meant this in a positive way.  

Lower Your Expectations

 It has been a bit comical in the past week or two....with the Biden administration making a plea.....to news organization....to just get the 'brand' or 'message' out....you (as an American) need to “consciously lower your expectations.”

I sat and pondered over this.

Generally, throughout my Air Force years.....the folks who walked around with lowered expectations....were deemed losers.

Over the past twenty years....if I span out over sports, business, commerce or just plain lifestyles....when you lower your goals.....you end up at a lesser point.  

Bezos, Musk, Wal-Mart, the New York Yankees?  None of them are willing to lower expectations.  

So I can really imagine how this expectations gimmick would work.  Maybe if I were running for President, and my party asked me to hire some loser to be my VP.....to lower my goals enough to get a one-star candidate....it'd make sense.

Maybe if I ran a government, and I hired one-star character to be my Transportation Secretary, and all he'd done in his life was marginally run a small-town government......maybe it'd make sense.  

Maybe if I had to exit Afghanistan in a hurry, and I didn't give a damn on the outcome, then a no-plan exit would make sense.

The more I think about this.....I just keep seeing a lower-expectations character who acts like a 14-year-old juvenile living in Dad's basement.....always hinting of bright ideas but never showing any.  It's the same guy who seems to smoke a lot of weed and just chatter like a dimwit while in his mid-70s.  

Something's not right.....I just haven't figured out what.  

Humble Opinion on Ten Things

 1.  Hunter Biden.   Luckiest guy alive.  He could walk into a room....crap all over the place, and just get marginal criticism upon walking out.  But I see the guy's fortune in life dwindling out in the next five years, and being penniless by age 65.   

2.  VP Harris.  Probably the least qualified VP ever in the history of the US.  Absolutely zero passion to improve or resolve her own created mess.  She'll leave office in January 2025 and attempt to write a book.....which no one seems to want to read or discuss.

3.  Twitter.  It survives only because of content....once it crosses the line and can't provide content....the users will step away.  Alternate 'toys' now exist and it's only a matter of time when Twitter has lost enough content to be worthless.

4.  Joe Biden.  If Joe worked for a Fortune 500 company....the board would have eased him out six months ago and gifted him a pile of money to just go away because of the funny behavior, and dementia-like actions.  

5.  The Afghanistan Withdrawal.  No matter how you slice it....the mess could never take off and be a success story on reforming the entire country.  That was painfully obvious ten to fifteen years ago.  But on a exit-strategy?  There was never a plan, and the government officials of the Biden administration should worry you over how they handled this.

6.  People To Replace Joe Biden in 2024.  I would imagine at least twenty folks are gathered around their lobby-friends and considering the race already at this point.  Speeches and gatherings already in 2022?  Yes, I'd bet on it.  The problem is....no one is really that remarkable, and some (like California's Newsom) are carrying a ton of negative weight around.  While everyone is mostly agreed now....Joe has to go....the who comes next for the party choice is a joke.  

7.  This idea of another memorial in DC, over the war on terror.  Whether it makes any sense or not....it would appear that the power-players in DC will approve it and it'll move to the design stage.  Location?  Anyone's guess but probably within 500 feet of the Vietnam memorial if you ask me.  How you design this without showing some Jihadist or some connection to Islam....is a curious thing to ask.  Won't this just lead onto a statue or memorial to the 6th of January conflict?  It's best not to ask.

8.  The odds of Omikron affecting the Super Bowl?  I'd give it a 50-50 shot that at least ten players from the two teams will be sidelined because of Omikron.  NBA playoffs?  In the same situation.  You could actually have a marginal NBA team make it to the finals only because their crew avoided Omikron for the whole season.  

9.  This Biden judge nominee saying the Senate and the Electoral College are "anti-democratic"?  Well....yeah, he did say that.  It probably wasn't that smart to utter and will peeve a number of Democratic Senators.  But it generally says a lot about the character of judges being sent up for the 'big' chairs.  

10.  Investigative journalism.  Dead....stone-cold dead.  You could assemble a team of dozen 5th-grade kids, and do investigative journalism over a city council or mayor....without much training.   It's like the dinosaurs....it just evolved into nothing and disappeared.

Stock Chatter

 Yesterday, some question came up to Speaker Pelosi over the idea of banning House members from stock trades....she basically rejected the suggestion, without a lot of words.

Here's the thing....the system we currently has reached some point where it's obvious that some members of the House/Senate (maybe half of them) are actively engaged in the futures/stock trade business.  

If you tried to ban them?  Well...their spouse or kids would be the ones engaging then.  

I think this is a dead-end discussion....none of them want to give up the practice, and any alternate path is doomed for failure.

I'd rather see every single trade of the political member, and their spouse....reported within 12 hours of the transaction.  Let all of us know how they invested and assume our own risk following them.  

The $4.99 Thing

 I sat today and spent an hour looking at this new news vehicle.....CNN-Plus.

So here's the deal.....to get this streaming news 'stuff'.....you sign up and pay $4.99.  

There's the suggestion that you could see 'other' stuff via CNN-Plus that you wouldn't see on regular CNN, but I sat and pondered.....what 'other' stuff?  Would there be conversations with Donald Trump?  Would they tear loose with real investigative journalism?  Would they really give me something that doesn't exist on regular CNN?

I'm pretty skeptical.

I really don't care to hear about Cuomo talking about his brother.  I don't want any more Hollywood news.  Frankly, I'm not interested in fashion or trump Hollywood women.  If you drag another animal doctor out to talk over Ivermectin as a horse-dewormer....I'd just turn the whole thing off.

I'm just at a loss to figure how people would get themselves hyped up to watch CNN-Plus, and pay $4.99 for it.  If you offered up some deal where some naughty-clothed French gal read the news and some bumbling Brit would throw custard pies at her, or something really comical in the delivery of the news?  Yeah, I might try that for a month.  

Comment by Brian Williams

 This past week....Brian Williams (NBC News) left/retired-out....of his 11 PM MSNBC show.  You could say that they were looking for a fresh new guy, and he'd run out of 'gas' here in the final five years.

So his quote at the end of the show was: "The reality is though, I will wake up tomorrow in the America of the year 2021, a nation unrecognizable to those who came before us and fought to protect it, which is what you must do now."

An 'unrecognizable country'?  

Well....back in 1975 to 1977....my final two years on the farm....I have this vivid image of rural NW Alabama, what little urbanization I'd come across in life (mostly Huntsville, Birmingham, Nashville, etc), and a general feeling of safety.  

Today?  It's a place where you aren't sure about your safety, your level of society, the continual surveillance you have to maintain (being vigilant), news-propagandists, worry over the twelve paranoid-schizophrenics that you will encounter today, and some juvenile-acting politician acting like a 4th-grade kid.

Depending on your daily travels....at least ten people will want to talk about Covid, either in a constructive way, or a lecture-type situation, or just admit some Jesus-like situation has reshaped their view of society in the middle of a pandemic.

You have relatives that you try to avoid....mostly because they want you to convert over this such-and-such religious political persuasion.  They feel you need 'healing' or that you've got too much Trumpism in your behavior.

You turn on the local news to have some marginally qualified journalist trying to hype you up or giving some 3rd-grade behavioral 'fit'.  

You find about 90-percent of whatever comes on TV....to be a 'joke', and for some reason can accept watching the 1971 episode of Bonanza....'The Night Virginia City Died' as being acceptable.  Even the episodes of Gilligan's Island....which you've seen forty times each....seem agreeable.

You've reached a level that 'Doctor Doom' guy for the government comes on, and you don't even hesitate on the mute-button.

Brian Williams is correct, but it's mostly too late to wise-up or resolve the path ahead.  He should have said something thirty years ago.

Short Piece on Ivermectin

 Every week, I read around twenty-odd medical studies.  So this week, I came to the topic of Ivermectin (you know.....the horse-dewormer or miracle drug for Covid).

So back in 2014, the US government went to study the idea of Ivermectin for another purpose. The idea?  Using it for alcohol addiction.  Logically, at least in the studies.....if you used the stuff for seriously addicted folks....it lessened your 'need'.  

It was apparently a successful study....but went nowhere.  Why?  No explanation, but the fact that its so cheap.....it's not a money-maker for the drug-industry.  

When It Comes Down To The News

 I basically want eight things:

1.  I want the raw facts in a simple format....maybe one slide would be enough on one topic.

2.  If you mention a place....put a map up.  Most people have no real idea where Mongolia is, or how big the Sahara Desert is....or the general location of Mexico City.

3.  No story should be complicated enough to require more than two minutes of talking.

4.  What Senator so-and-so says is not really that important....so just quote the quote to two lines, and avoid a six-minute interview.

5.  If you have to do a Covid-story.....don't run video in the background of some women getting jabbed.  Some of us get nauseous when seeing injections.

6.  Avoid physical descriptions of women (saying she weighs around 190 pounds). It automatically makes me utter the phrase.....she seems 'chunky'.  If you gotta be direct on weight....you might as well say she was marginally attractive, or she carried a lot of extra weight on the butt.  None of this is helpful in telling the story though.  

7.  Avoid talking about social media frenzies.....like Facebook people got all junked-up over this verdict, or how Twitter people fell apart when such-and-such gal uttered this phrase.

8.  Frankly, try to model your news after Paul Harvey's 15 minute piece of the news.  

Conspiracy Story That Was True

 This is a little history story about a conspiracy story that was hyped-up to be negative and would later be found to absolutely true.

As 1920 arrived....the Prohibition Era was dumped upon Americans.  What started as a development to halt consumption of booze/alcohol....turned into a problem for people that favored alcohol.

People then figured out that you could brew your own booze....if you had the right ingredients.  By 1925, it was decided that something had to be done.  

Quietly, without saying a lot....the US government went to the companies that made legit commercial/industrial alcohol.  They instructed (guided) the companies.....to add some ingredients that would make highly dangerous for consumption.  They figured.....with a warning on bucket/barrel.....that was enough.

Between 1926 and 1933 (the end of Prohibition)....it's generally figured today that around 10,000 Americans died of chemical poisoning through the consumption of homemade alcohol.

Treated as a conspiracy?  Probably for more than thirty years....this was quietly discussed and treated as a joke.  By the 1960s, a lot of this information finally filtered out.  It was no longer a conspiracy.....it actually did occur.  The 10,000 number?  This is one part of the story that you can't be sure about.  It's estimated to be 10,000.....but it could just as well be 100,000.  

Wallace?

 Over Sunday's show.....Chris Wallace announced that his appearance on his Sunday chatter show (via Fox News) was going to be the last one.

The wording, if you gaze around various news outlets....was that Chris was leaving Fox. 

I pondered over this.  It's simply not a true statement.  He's not leaving Fox News.....he had zero options, they were not going to offer another contract.  

What Wallace says now...is that he's going over to CNN-Plus.

What's CNN-Plus?  Well....originally (1999)...it was the CNN attempt to create a Latino-CNN gimmick.  They gave it ten years, and deemed it a failure.

In the past year, they decided to bring back CNN-Plus but as a streaming news site (not Latino news).  

Is there a need for it?  My guess is that they are packaging this in a way....in three years....to sell it to someone (maybe Meta/Facebook....maybe Twitter).  

As for this being a big deal with Wallace leaving the Sunday talk show?  I'd argue that twenty-odd people are standing there and ready to take over the show.  It's not much of a big deal.

Brutal Truth

 This past week, Peggy Noonan wrote up a commentary piece on VP Harris.  Basically, the sum up the 'advice'.....she told Harris that she was marginally prepared for the job.....had no true interest in learning enough to fill the VP/President job....and 'sloughing-off' (my term) the whole whole purpose of her existence.

Yeah....it was awful brutal, and if Harris was reading it....I'm sure she's peeved to the ninth-degree.

Harris reminds me of the overly-talked-about brilliant third-baseman for some major league baseball team....who never shows up to practice....rarely jogs around the field...does various interviews but talking at the level a 4th-grade kid, and expecting no judgement to occur.

In a company like Amazon, Shell, or Ford.....she would have been dismissed by the end of twelve months.  

Various people have talked about how she moved up the chain in California....that lusty situations might have been 50-percent of the upward movement, and that her sex/ethnic make-up was the other 50-percent.

Why Joe Biden might be peeved over her?  After she arrives in x-number of meetings and offers 5th-grader advice when asked for an opinion.....after a while, Joe might have said 'enough' and just shut down asking questions to her.

I worked at a base once where the vice-wing commander had been 'dumped' upon the wing commander.  The vice was mostly a guy who golfed three times a week....showed almost no talent at leadership.....and hadn't done anything noteworthily the last five years of his career.  The deal was....the wing commander had to accept the guy, and allow him to shuffle around for three years before the vice retired.  After the wing commander left....the next guy fell into the same deal.  The vice wasn't an idiot, but he had no real enthusiasm for anything other than social occasions, golf, or skeet-shooting.  

How Harris survives the remaining three years?  That's really the question left to ponder upon.

Either she improves her 'game'.....brings in some person to teach how her to lead/manage....or just quietly disappears each Friday at noon....to mostly drink all weekend and 'couch' herself through a mess.  The odds of alcoholism or gaining 30 pounds more?  Better than 50-percent chance.    

The idea that Joe Biden retires early or resigns because of dementia?  Well....once you figure out the nature of Harris.....you'd probably reach some conclusion it's better to have a demented Joe around....than some no-talent-pretender President.  

Sad if you really ponder upon this.  

The Book '1984' And An Update?

 Around age 13, I picked up and read 'Animal Farm' (George Orwell), and six weeks later.....picked up '1984' as well.  Personally, I tend to regard both books as 'must-read' before you finish high school.  Interestingly enough.....you could mandate it for a literature class, or a civil affairs course.  

Both attack communism and socialism in critical ways.  

Yesterday, I picked up a news item.  The folks who control/own '1984'....have gone out and decided that a new edition has to be written.  It has to have the prospective of 'Julie' (there are only seven characters after Winston Smith, the lead character.....with Julie being a semi-love interest and dragging Winston along a path of rebellion against the system).  

First, let me say of the 320-odd page book....it is purely science fiction material.  Orwell had some intent to educate people on how bad things can get....if you allow surveillance and repression to exist in society.  It was NEVER meant to be a love-lust-sex novel, or to explain relationships in a surveillance state. If you'd asked Orwell to write a lusty sex novel.....it probably would have been banned on day one.

Second, Julie was meant to be a Eve-like character to charm Winston.....always described in some Orwellian way as 'beautiful' and 'dark-haired'.  He could have talked of her attire (rarely discussed)......her boobs....her lipstick, or some tattoo on her ankle.  

Third, Julie tends to suggest there is optimism out there and you just need to hang on.  Toward the end....Winston is dragged in....accused of crimes, and avoids torture by identifying Julie as the guilty one.....thus putting her on the torture list instead.  Weeks pass, and one day at some cafe, they encounter each other.  Each remarks on this page of text.....that they'd turn each other in (Julie turned Winston in before he turned her in).  Orwell hints (wrongly) that only Julie was tortured but it's her telling Winston this, and you can't be sure of anything.

For some reason, at this bitter end of the book (I thought this was a pretty lousy ending).....they wanted to have this face-to-face 'I-screwed-you' moment, and then define the relationship (mostly a sexual thing) as ended.  The coffee or tee sipped is mostly a end-point, and you wonder why Orwell even gave it this type of ending.

So the update part of this?  

For many years....there's been internal debate by the pro-Winston/pro-Julie folks.....over two aspects of the book.

Some folks after an intense amount of reading....tend to see Winston (the hero of the novel) as a 'loser'.  Why that Julie-gal even went out and slept with Winston is never explained at all.

The second question is....how Julie ever got promoted, when she seemed to be so antigovernment or anti-big-brother?  

So the controllers of the book have hired some female writer to write 1984's second part....Julie's prospective.  She's supposed to explain why she was into loser guys (my impression) and how she got promoted when she really wasn't into the whole pro-government/pro-big-brother thing.

On social media, this suggestion has created a fire-storm.....lot of negativity.

From my prospective?  I have four problems here:

1.  As much effort as Orwell put into the book....it's supposed to be about how things got so screwed up and big-brother was such a major part of your life.  Yet the novel spends a lot of chatter upon Winston being infatuated or hyped-up over this  'whore-like' Julie gal.   At some point, you just kinda wonder....were 99-percent of women in the 1984-era that screwed up, and Julie was the only tramp intellectual gal around?  

2.  If you were going to write another edition with Julie's prospective....why not include a 3rd prospective, from O'Brien as well?  Also, a 4th prospective from 'Big Brother' (the leader of Oceania), who is never really explained in detail within the book?  Also, how about the prospective of Mr Charrington (the seemingly nice guy who is really a member of the thought-police)?  Also, how about the prospective of Parsons (an actual Truth Commission member)?  

I could see seven other editions added....each telling their part of the story....why the Truth Commission had to exist.....how Julie was a four-star tramp....how Charrington fell into the wrong crowd, etc.  

3.  All of this could trigger a massive writing effort over the next decade....to go back to Wuthering Heights, Tom Sawyer, Bram Stoker, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, Of Mice and Men, Great Expectations, Lord of the Rings, Ulysses, A Tale of Two Cities, and even the James Bond stores.....to tell the feelings of alternate characters.

It'd be nice to know what Doctor No was really thinking of Bond, or how the Moby was actually a friendly whale, or how three of the Rings characters were sleeping with the trampy fairy ladies.  

4.  Doesn't this all go back to people thinking intensely about characters and asking questions that the writer really never wanted to engage upon? 

I mean....if you knew that Julie had slept with over eighty guys before she met Winston....would it bother you? (Julie might have even slept with Bill Clinton)

If you knew that Julie had slept with the top ten guys of the Truth Commission....would it bother you?

If you knew that Julie had even slept with four women who were in the Truth Commission....would it bother you?

If you knew after the break-up of Julie and Winston....that she converted to some cult-like religion....would it bother you?  

If you knew that Julie got all tortured-up, then told Winston she actually kinda enjoyed that kind of stuff, and wanted to spice up their relationship with things like this....would it bother you?

So I just see this episode of writing another ending to '1984' as wasted time and effort.  The story....was about big-brother and the crazy world that was allowed to exist....not about Julie or the loser boy-friend situation of Winston.  

How This Trans-Sport Thing Will End

 In recent weeks....lot of negative hype (especially by young ladies) over young Trans-sports folks exceeding and breaking records.  After pondering over this....I will make this prediction.

Over the next five years....various women's sports will be taken over by young Trans people.  Some will be fully trans.....some will be marginally trans, and some will simply claim/identify themselves as females but just have long hair, painted nails, and wear female attire.  

Some high school girl's basketball teams will be filled with a starting five of trans folks.  

In some regions, an entire girl's volleyball team will be totally trans.  

Somewhere around 2025, a 'we-quit' campaign will start with young ladies refusing to participate in any sport....either at high school or college level.  It'll be noticeable at some colleges that one out of every three girl's sports scholarships will be going to a trans athlete.

Then at the 2026 Olympics....almost 50-percent of the women's sports will be filled on the American side by trans athletes.  

In 2027, a massive public outcry starts up over this, and audiences at female competitions will drift down to almost nothing.     Judges and courts will side with the trans athletes.  

So the simplest solution will occur....no one will care about female sports.  No audiences....no spectators.....no real TV coverage for college-level female sports.  Around 2030....female sports will have mostly dissolved away to nothing.  In some funny way....almost 90-percent of women are now converted into conservative voters.  Democrats will be shocked over how this trend dissolved their standing among female voters.  

Just An Odd Thing

 Before Facebook and Twitter came along.....did you notice that we had virtually zero fact-checkers existing?  

If we removed Facebook/Twitter tomorrow.....would all the fact-checkers just go away?  

Should The Term 'Homelessness' Be Retired?

 There was an interesting point made on the Fox program, 'The Five', for yesterday....on the term 'homelessness'.

It was created as one single umbrella, and you could talk about various folks who fell under the umbrella.  The problem is....these were various groups.

There were the people down on their luck....the drug addicts....the nutcases....the people with zero job skills....and the people who were severally abused in their youth.

Each has a different issue and a different solution....so it's a waste of time to package them into one single focus group.

In some areas of the US now....you've got a 'Mogadishu-like' situation brewing....where it's not really the police that you need to come and rescue you....it's some lite-Army-pretender unit.  

It's time to crank out some new words to define people seem to drift around the homeless umbrella....and identify them correctly.  

If You Read Between The Lines: Biden's Supreme Court Committee

 After a lot of talking and thinking....Biden's commission on updating the Supreme Court came to a conclusion.  The only thing that they did seem to agree upon....maybe there ought to be a 'cycle' where a Supreme Court judge stands for 18 years, then moves on.  This would be done in a cycle, ensuring each President had one chance to nominate a new guy/gal.  

Getting this actually done?  Well....you'd have to go to the Constitution, and get a two-third's vote of both the House and Senate....then get 38 states to agree to this.

Added to this burden, logically....once you openly discussed this 'forced' upon the Supreme Court.....the public would ask why you couldn't do the same thing to the House and Senate....enforcing a 18-year cycle upon them.  

For a lot of Democrats who felt the commission would write the script to 'fix' their court problem?  This was a total failure.  

USA Today Headline: Is Math Racist?

 Yesterday, as a topic for it's daily paper.....USA Today asked the question.....is math racist?

I've seen the subject on more than a couple of occasions, and generally laughed over the discussion.

There are around four issues which seem to 'hover' above this topic.

First, ever since Black Lives Matter started up.....they needed 'targets' to hype upon and this math business is one of them.  The belief is that black kids do badly in math and never grasp various applications.  So in the general mindset....it has to be racist.  In this case.....I would suggest that there are substantial numbers of math instructors (across America) who are not capable of teaching math.  

If you are in a crappy and marginally-run school....the odds are your math scores (from both whites/blacks) will be limited.  It's not a racist thing.....it's more like a poor instructor problem. 

Second, there are some individuals who believe you can dumb-down math, and make it simpler.  You know....the same way that you can dumb down geography, English, science, etc.  The problem with this logic is that math has spent several thousand years getting to the point where it is about as dumbed-down as it can possibly be.  

Third, if you tried to just stamp math as marginally required, and let kids off the hook at the fifth-grade level (doing the same for English, History, Science).....then you might as well release/graduate kids at the sixth-grade and send them off to Burger King to flip burgers.  

Fourth and final.....with the exception of the French Fry guy at BK.....there just aren't any jobs in America where math does not occur.  I know it's shocking but if you go dig into most all jobs (even as President)....some kind of math occurs with jobs.  Even dope dealers, transmission mechanics, and bartenders have to deal with some element of math to be successful in life. 

Observaions

 1.  Ukraine and Putin.  It would appear the game plan for Biden is to arm Ukraine with US weapons....thus getting Putin closer to the invasion goal.  People will be shaking their heads in January on how this mess got created.

2.  Fauci is now admitting this travel-Africa ban was hastily done......might go back in the next couple of days to undo this.

3.  Someone put up statistics to show the late-night TV crew (Colbert, Kimmel, etc) are in a spiral with the youth audience.  Apparently, some of them woke up and realized they aren't that funny.

4.  There's been some kinda claim this week that Joe Biden is getting more negative press/media attention....than Donald Trump.  I've probably wasted an hour pondering over this.  The suggestion here is like comparing chocolate ice cream, to vanilla ice cream.  It's a totally different kind of attention....where Biden seems to go walking out in some cow-field, intentionally stepping into a cow-paddy every third step....then standing there grinning while the Press-Spokesperson remarks that he might have accidentally stepped into a paddy.  Then he repeats this over and over. 

The Second Amendment or Freedom From Tyranny

 If you could write some statement and find some way to provide protection (absolute in nature) from tyranny.....then you wouldn't need the Second Amendment.  That's really the long standing problem when you drill down into this whole discussion.

In the 1760s.....tyranny was some statement that you uttered in various ways, after having to deal with the British system of law in the colonies.  There just aren't 'protections' that exist....to give you some safe feeling against tyranny.  

So we edged through the 1800s...with tyranny always a step or two away (particularly in American western history, or the Civil War period), thinking over what would give us some chance of survival. 

As we arrived in the 1900s....tyranny was discussed in various other ways.  

If you live in a number of American cities today....tyranny has been replaced by fear of crime or threats.  You could be on the way home, and have some wild human creature with the idea of harming you at the gas station or super-market.  The Second Amendment is the only protection in this case.

This entire argument....to rid the nation of the Second Amendment?  You'd have to go and refer to tyranny, and build something to protect people from that.  Good luck on that search.  

The Normal Strategy of Picking a Vice-President

 Up until the 1990s, you (as the Presidential candidate) picked a VP who was mostly unknown to the bulk of America after the primary system.  Even in the case of Johnson being selected by JFK.....beyond Texas, the vast majority of Americans didn't know the guy.

The chief strategy was that you'd pick someone who was mostly unknown....not likely to create a fake national crisis....not having affairs to turn into scandals....didn't really cheat much on taxes....and didn't really know much about world politics.  

You might admit in 50-percent of cases....selecting a VP meant meeting the guy/gal for the first time and your full knowledge level was enough to put on a 3 x 5 inch index card.

So here is the problem of Biden-Harris.  Joe Biden needs 'lift' and figures that his VP ought to be out....actually working.  The script to the VP job?  You are supposed to attend funerals, cabinet meetings, golf at least twice a week, and mostly attend parties in the district.  You can consume a vast amount of alcohol, and wink at the opposite sex.  Joe wants more, and Harris is unable to deliver.  Why Joe needs more?  Well....he can't deliver.  He's basically acting like the VP job under President Obama.

What Harris should do?  Nothing.  I'd dismiss most of her staff....hire 3 or 4 unknown folks (college kids) and just do exactly what VP Biden did for eight years.  

Chances of her running in 2024?  Just about zero.  So it doesn't really matter.  

Observations

 1.  Jussie Smollett. I think this case will end with a conviction and a total time of 12 months of prison given.  With time off....he might be out in seven months.  Maybe it shapes up the guy, and he walks a straight line from this point on.

2.  Tesla moving its headquarters from California to Texas.  If you wrote up a list of the top fifty company headquarters in California presently....I'd suggest that virtually all of them have examined the idea of leaving, and at least ten of them are pretty serious (to announce by the end of 2022).  If I were the California tax revenue 'boss'.....I'd start hinting that this is a major problem.

3.  Gut-feeling over nut-case high school students.  The minute there is some hint of a high school kid being a nut-case.....expel the kid and let the parents deal with this.  If the kid needs a permanent presence in some mental facility....it's their job, not the school's job.  

Wilson Edward's Story

 Back around the 3rd week of July (2021)....there's this guy who appeared on Facebook/Twitter by the name of Wilson Edwards.

Wilson was a Swiss guy (yeah, Edwards is not really a Swiss name)....who happened to be a PhD-type biologist, and knew a good bit on Covid.  

Wilson came via social media to a lot of people, and talked over the idea that the US government (via the Biden-people) were putting a fair amount of pressure on the WHO to blame China for Covid.

At some point....maybe about three weeks into Wilson's appearance....some folks wanted to know more about the guy.  Even Chinese wanted to know about him.

So the Swiss government went and did a search to Wilson.  Basically, they couldn't find the guy.  He was non-existent.

Within a couple of days....Facebook and Twitter took down Wilson's accounts.

Here's the thing....if you really started to dig around Facebook/Twitter....there's probably 100k fake accounts out there like this....maybe even going up to 1-million.  

In the end, people doubted Wilson's chatter and began to question his authority.  

Observations:

 1.  It's just rather odd.....Mayor-Pete (Secretary of Transportation) and VP Harris....going this week to North Carolina for a speech gig.....same time....same place.  

You get the feeling that someone (not President Biden) is pulling the strings to see who is ahead by the end of 2022....to be running as Joe's replacement.

2.  Fewer profits seen on Black Friday, for the first time ever?  Business news is suggesting that.

3. Some investigation started after someone blew up a crater area....maybe big enough for three refrigerators on the beach in the NY City region.  FBI involved.  Terror uttered over and over by the news folks.  Evidence?  Zero.  Other than a hole in the sand, and maybe some sample for the lab....zero evidence of terrorists.

4.  Odds of a Ukraine-Russia 'rumble'?  I'd give it better than a 50-percent chance.  President Biden presents a weaken position for the US, and Putin can flip this into a six-month pretender-war.  

Observations:

 1.  New CEO of Twitter (Parag Agrawal) says that the company (Twitter) will not be 'bound' by the first amendment (Free Speech).

After a long pause and bit of pondering....I thought about the term 'bound'. The first amendment allows for free and open discussion, free ability to assemble (in a yard, church, cornfield), and the ability to exchange ideas without limits on conversation.  

So this guy Agrawal is basically saying he's all for hindering free speech, not exchanging ideas and stopping the ability to assemble?  The first amendment does nothing to bound.....it unbounds anything in its path.  

How Twitter will exist under Agrawal?  I'd suggest you are looking at the light at the end of the tunnel....their demise.

2.  Someone did a poll on Biden's Build-Back-Better.  52-percent of people have something negative to say about it.

3.  Just my hunch....Chris Cuomo on CNN?  He's got about 30 to 60 days of employment left before they launch him into a non-news job.  

4.  Just a page six story.....the FAA came up and admitted around 700 other Eppstein flights that no one seemed to know about.  Who was on the flights?  Unknown.  

5.  What the defense said the first day of the Jussie Smollett court episode?  They say Jussie was a victim....of a highly sophisticated team of twins....then tossing the label of 'highly intelligent' on the two.  Basically, he's labeling his own client as non-intelligent and non-sophisitcated....in doing so.  

The question is....will a jury believe this?

CNN Today

 I tried to watch a CNN piece today.....where they had three folks trying to explain President Biden 'poor' numbers.  Approval rating as of today?  36-percent.

About 10 minutes into this....you just felt it was like listening to some 5th grade kids trying to explain why the Professor couldn't get the Skipper/Gilligan off the island, or why the Power Rangers were so lame.

Look....Joe Biden doesn't care if he has a 1000-percent approval rating or a 1-percent approval rating.  He got elected to replace Donald Trump....so you gotta just accept him being the one running things.

As for CNN even doing this?  They might as well drive a RV around NY City's east side, and go looking for robbers.  People that voted for Joe really don't want to hear CNN explain things.  

Odds of the approval rating getting below 30-percent?  It just doesn't matter.  Joe's going nowhere, and you just need to get used to it.

Plan Nine

 This morning, without much in the news....I ended up watching Plan 9 From Outer Space (1956).  Well....I attempted to watch it.  After about 45 minutes of it....I started to flick it a minute ahead for every eight minutes.  

So for the basic story....there's some aliens who are concerned about Earth folks creating a doomsday bomb.  They've come to Earth with some plan (fairly marginal if you view their advance society) to halt the whole thing.  Some of this involves use of dead bodies.....which makes little sense.  

Script-wise?  It's like you hired four doped-up guys to write some 3 x 5 inch index cards, and just hand them out to the actors....to fake their way to a 80-minute movie.

Why I went and watched it?  There's talk that Hollywood wants to take the movie....redesign it, and make a 2022 version of it.

So here's thing....in the 1950s....drive-in movies were fairly popular, and some studios saw a great moment when you'd go and hire some folks to make a double-header.  With this concept, you had two movies announced for the weekend (back to back)....making people think they got tremendous value (one entry ticket) for two cheapo movies.  

Total cost for the movie?  Wiki says $80,000.  That would be $770k today.

Could you rewrite the whole thing to make sense, without it being a comedy or come off as fairly fake?  I'm not sure about this.

The thing is....from the 1950s/1960s....there are just a ton of bad movies....all designed for drive-in theaters, and people of that era have a fond memory.  You can go back and ask a 75-year old guy about his evening of watching 'Plan 9', and he start to grin.....to talk over 'Wanda' or 'Betty' and the lusty evening he had.  He remembers her bra size, her use of the word 'tantalizing', and the memory of that Saturday evening.  He remembers literally nothing about the movie, or the aliens. 

Kind of funny, if you think about it.

The Problem With Michelle Obama Running in 2024

 In the past ten days, if you pay attention to MSNBC or CNN....the folks are already talking past the mid-term....to 2024.  1,075 days?  Yeah....it's that far away.  

The necessity?  Well....I think the Einstein-crowd has figured out....Joe Biden can't run, and any hope of VP Harris regaining some popularity is now gone.  

The three folks I'd figure to be in the Democratic Primary: Mayor-Pete, Stacey Abrams, and Senator Booker of NJ.  

Mayor-Pete will survive through twenty-odd primaries, but from the first four (that truly matter)....pretty much zero chance of winning any of those.  

Abrams and Booker figure heavily into NH, SC, Nev, and Iowa.  

We come to the new chatter....that Michelle Obama will go out in 2022 and do a few 'talks' (like Hillary Clinton was famous for) in urban-magnet places (I figure NY City, SF, Chicago, and LA).  

I think political players will ask what office she's ever held, and she's in a lower position than Mayor-Pete.  If you went to resume material?  I can't think of a single President or VP, from the past two-hundred years with such a dismal resume.

If she had left DC in 2016 and done the Hillary route (gotten a NY Senator job)....it'd be different.  

So we have a person with a 3 x 5 inch index card resume, and simply gives speeches.  Yes, she was married to Barak, but that really doesn't say much.  

On the Iowa-SC-NV-NH route?  There's just a 1-percent chance should carry one single state, and most cases....she'd likely finish in a 3rd or 4th place.  

I turn and face the CNN/MSNBC crowd, and just stand there....shaking my head.  You might as well start a rumor that Oprah will run, or maybe Colin Kaepernick.  In Iowa-SC-NV-NH for those two?  It's a one-percent chance as well.  

If you ask me....Joe might as well run a 2nd time.  

Omikron?

 When I heard this new Covid name....Omikron....my mind asked questions:

1.  It sounds like some bad-guy alien that Captain Marvel or Ironman would go and fight.

2.  It sounds like a disco in Amsterdam with Russian hookers.

3.  It sounds like one of the Transformer guys.

4.  It sounds like a SF deli sandwich, with lots of goat cheese. 

5.  It sounds like some forbidden Soviet secret test site out of the 1950s.

6.  It sounds like a South Korean zombie series.

7.  It sounds like a failed Chrysler 1970s model.

8.  It sounds like a WWE professional wrestler with LED lights made into his shorts.

9.  It sounds like some planet that Captain Kirk and Scotty visited, where Kirk messed around with the Omi-women, and Scotty messed with the Kron-women.  Neither ever discussed that trip ever again.

10. It sounds like a budget beer that you'd pick up at the liquor shop....with some Amazon-like Norwegian gal on the label, and it's 16-percent alcohol.  

The Terrible Woes of Crossing State Lines

 Over the past month, I probably watched about three hours of MSNBC and CNN.....mostly covering the Rittenhouse court case.  So it's an odd thing that they dragged out and verbally hyped....at least twenty times....that Rittenhouse had crossed state lines.

So I pulled out the map eventually.....thinking he must have driven 300 miles by himself, and crossed the state line.

Well...NO, from where he lived....it was a 1-minute drive (1-mile) to the state line.  Kenosha, the city?  After you pass the state line, it's a three-minute drive (I-94) and roughly a 3-mile distance to the city limits.  

This hype....over and over about crossing state lines?  After you reflect upon the drive....it's like some 9-year-old kid trying hype up the idea of dragons possibly existing in the woods.

As a kid....living 3 miles south of the Tennessee state line....I had probably crossed the line about a hundred times myself (on my Honda bike) by age 15.....without parental consent.  With a car, between age 16 and 18.....I probably crossed another 200 times by myself, without parental consent. 

In the Air Force, I got to talking one time with a guy who'd gotten dragged into a family issue....someone had to go across four states and pick-up Grandma....to retrieve her.  No one in his family (father, mother, older siblings) wanted the duty (Grandma talked an awful lot).  So this guy volunteered....driving from the south part of Missouri to Miami.  His age at the time?  Sixteen (he'd had his license for three months).  

In the minds of these CNN idiots....all this state crossing of lines is just terribly serious for some juvenile kid.  

From the kids I knew in 1977....you could have entrusted any of them to drive from Bama to California....by themselves.  Some might have gone a thousand miles out of their way, on some weird route.  But there's no chaos in some kid crossing state lines.  

Joe's Gas Problem

 Yesterday, the average price of unleaded fuel in California was $4.71.  

What happens when January arrives and Joe's action resets the price of fuel up (not down) to $5.00?  

Whether the White House believes it or not....there is this clock ticking and the Joe-action gimmick needs to show something.  If the price escalates 30 cents....you can figure that the primary action for the mid-terms....gets real interesting.

Best Laugh of the Day

 South Park (the cartoon) is doing an episode this week of the South Park years after Covid, and how it changed the town.

The amusing thing, as you click to view this preview via YouTube....they've put a Covid-warning notice up.....trying to herd you to YouTube chatter over Covid knowledge.  The episode has nothing to do with the vaccination or info....just how a fictitious town looks years later.  

AOC in 2024?

 Question: Will Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of NY....run for President in 2024?  

She actually meets the age requirement....in case you were wondering.

First, there is such a weak field out there....that I think she could see some 'path' existing.  Mayor-Pete, for all practical purposes....just isn't prime-time material (while he will run anyway and remove himself after a dozen-odd primary situations).  Harris will test the system, and find little-to-no-interest in the first four primary states.  

So I'm projecting AOC to be one of the top three players in this election.  

All of this 'gaming' the system for Trump?  It is an odd period where you just walk from one chaos to another, and no Democratic leadership is really performing at the level you'd expect.  If Obama were around in this chaos....he fire or relieve a cabinet figure or two.  

I'm going with the AOC idea and think with some hired competent campaign experts....she can probably make a run (failing of course).  

Ending of Jason

 This week, General Hospital (the soap) fired one of it's guys.....Steve Burton (plays Jason Morgan).  Reason?  No Covid vaccination.

How I would have handled this?

I would have written up a parting-week, where the character Jason Morgan got Covid, and got taken to a fake ICU.....all messed up on health.

Throughout the week....I would have had Nurse Greta show up and weep....over her secret affair with Jason....then I would have had trampy 'Wendy' show up to weep over her secret lover, and then I would have had Jason's ex-wife Maggie show up and whisper 'screw you' over and over....hating him for leaving her for Bob (his bi-friend).

Around day four, I would have introduced Wong-Wong as a new nurse from Wuhan, who has arrived to save Jason.....mostly giving him oriental herbs and putting mustard on his tongue.

On Friday, Jason would have died, and then some fed doctor would have shown up to save if he'd just taken the vaccination he would have survived. 

Finally, I'd bring in President Biden for a 2-minute chat.....remembering Jason as a guy he'd see on the train each day.....going home from Washington DC, and he was a fine guy....who had great taste in lusty women, and the world weeps over his stupidity in not getting vax'ed up.

In the final moments....a new guy would have arrived on the street.....Jason's third cousin.....Marvin....who is fully vax'ed and is mostly a male model who hooks up with trailer-trash women.  

The Thing About Bail

 Lot of hype this week over bail conditions in various states.

If you stand back and review the landscape.....bail was the tool to ensure 'Joe', who'd done some pretty bad stuff....would return to court on X-day to face a judge.  

If you ended bail (which is going on nationally in various states)....the odds of 'Joe' coming to the judge?  No one publishes data, but I doubt if 'Joe' pays attention to this matters, and just disappears.

Personally, it'd make sense to avoid bail for non-violent and non-drug 'Joes'.  But the minute you start talking about assault or serious drug cases....you need serious bail to get their attention.  

Trying to make this a black/white issue?  Where in the Constitution is there some dividing line?  Show me.  

AOIMSG?

 This week, the Pentagon did a re-organization of the UFO hunter crowd....renaming it 'Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group' and making it a joint group (not Navy as in the previous program).....so Army and Air Force folks are 'invited' to participate.

Why reorg?  I think the Navy took it as far as they possibly could, and it needs a more broad approach.  

The name 'Synchronization' in this?  I've pondered over this for several days.  In the old days....it meant you took several programs and merged them....sometimes with success....sometimes creating a massive failure.

The chance that some general was given the reins and he just wanted "S" in the middle of AOIM*G?  Well....yeah, there are Air Force officers who would do this to have 'MSG' at the end of the term (pretty silly but possible).

As for what happens now?  Years ago, 1980s.....the Air Force sat down and designed an exercise for Europe.  The gimmick?  They wanted to arrange x-number of NATO aircraft in a pattern that would come from several locations and meet over West Germany for a brief five minutes....to see what the Soviets would do.  Stupid?  On a massive scale, and about two weeks after this idea was put up on the board....it was removed as a 'test'.  Too many people would have freaked out and some crazy crap might have occurred.

It wouldn't shock me if these AOIMSG guys finally sat down and designed a test like this and caught the UFO guys in a net where they can't turn in any direction without a full signature of their action....with satellites and collection gear maxed out.  

Marvs-9 (the alien dude)?  He's sitting there and probably speculating on these guys.  You really don't want to be the first alien caught by those stupid Earthlings.  

All of this leading to something caught in a 'net'?  Well....maybe.  

This Brooks Character From Waukesha

 Three observations:

1.  For twenty-odd years (probably going back to his teen years)....this guy has been a drugged-up character.  In the past decade, I doubt if there's a single day that passed....that he didn't do some type of drug.  He was unhappy with life.  He was not achieving much of anything.  The drugs deaden the pain of that miserable existence.

2.  The twenty-plus pages of charges over the years?  The serious ones were negotiated down by prosecutors to get him the lowest amount of time in prison/jail.  If any one of the DA's had done their legal duty....he'd probably done real time in jail.  

3.  The next month for him in jail will be rough....without any drug access.  Might be the first time in 20 years that he went an entire week without drugs.  

Observations

 1.  News crew in Oakland was going out to cover a story....with a security guy accompanying them.  Friendly group came up upon them, and shot/wounded the security guard.  Signs of Mogadishu?  Inside the urban zones of SF and LA, it's just not that safe anymore.

2.  The German Euthanasia Association (there to help you end your suffering) has now said that they won't help you unless you are vaccinated for Covid.  The fact that you will be dead within a period of time with them helping you.....is a bit amazing.  

3.  After Hillary Clinton made her comment that we should all double down and be appreciative of Joe Biden's accomplishments as President....made me try to remember anything she did as Secretary of State for four years.  It must have been a very remarkable period, but I can't remember anything of the period.

4.  New shortage: Alcohol.  Dailywire reports that some states are reporting a shortage on hard alcohol.  Beer?  No.  

Joe's Ten Months

 My description of the past ten months?

If there was a rat problem at the White House....of ten possible solutions (even bringing in a dozen cats as one)....he will go to solution number eleven, thus increasing and doubling the rat problem.

I can't recall people being like this....that stumble from crisis to crisis, and mostly offer solutions that drag a problem out to a further distance, or make the problem even worse.

If you had a farmer like this....he'd be out-of-business in a single year.

If you had a chief of police like this.....he might linger around for a year or two, but be dragged into the mayor's office weekly for a discussion about screw-ups.

So none of this makes much sense.  The crew around him?  They have to be mostly dimwits or marginalized college students who got a meaningless degree.

This is usually where some boss would step in....thump a guy hard on correcting his mistakes, and give the guy a month to clean up his act, or be let go.  Presently, we've got three years of this to go.

Harris?  She can't say a word.  I don't think Joe would accept any advice from her.  The rest of the cabinet?  Losers.  When you needed competence out of Mayor Pete.....you found he was sitting at home on 'rest'.  

So, just settle back.  

How The Rittenhouse Case on President Biden Will Go?

 Just a humble opinion. 

Shortly after Christmas, I expect a defamation lawsuit to be started President Biden for his comments accusing Rittenhouse of being a 'white supremist'.

Amount?  I would suggest in the range of $10-million, with a personal apology issued from the White House.

CNN and the crew wilf laugh over the situation, and somewhere around March....two big-name lawyers will be hired by President Biden.

Some amount of $25,000 will be offered to Rittenhouse to just shut up and drop the case.

Along the end of 2022, I expect the President to be worried over the incoming Republican majority in the House, and expect Joe's team to offer around $100,000.  The case will end early 2023.....Rittenhouse winning and being awarded the $10-million.

Impeachment burden?  This will be added to the list.  

As for where the money will come from?  Well...Hunter, of course.  This will trigger a House review of just how much money that Joe has siphoned off Hunter over the past decade, and the tax implications.  

Can Biden Be a Lame Duck President at the Second-Year Point?

 You can ask a lot of stupid questions over this lame duck situation, and it should not have come up over the past week.  But it's being asked a good bit.

If Biden says 'no'....he won't run....what happens?  Generally, people believe that Mayor-Pete and VP Harris are the top two for the 2024 election.

People thrilled about this?  On Harris, I suspect if you measured Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Nevada....I don't think she has much to hope for.  On Mayor Pete....he might have some standings in Nevada, but he's got the logistics mess on his accomplishments list.  

In simple terms, the Democrats don't need 2022 or 2023 with President Biden listed as a lame duck.  It hurts the mid-terms of 2022, and the House/Senate race in 2024. 

Stacey Abrams as a contender?  Well...over the weekend, I read two pieces that went at her odds.  She has no message that resonates much with Iowa or New Hampshire folks.  On making speeches....if she hired two or three competent people....she might get some traction.  But her chief problem....she has a 3 x 5 inch index card for a resume.  There's no accomplishments that show strength or character.

Cuomo from NY?  Totally out.

Newsome from California?  He says he's not in the running (I have my doubts it'll stay that way).

Bernie Sanders?  He says he's finished for Presidential campaigns.

Warren?  She kinda noticed from the 2020 campaign....there's just zero thrills over her efforts.

For lame duck thrills?  You really don't want to enter 2022....with people already hyping up lame duck status for Biden.  You'd have to hear at least one question every day at the press conference....if Biden thinks he's a lame duck guy.  

Did anyone really think much about this in November 2020?  No.  That's the curious part of this discussion.  It's like some guy waking up in some Twilight Zone episode and not recognizing much of anything familar.  

Afghan Woes

 Over the weekend, I watched BBC news.  They came to a new topic over the Taliban and Afghanistan....relating to TV productions.

After some review, the Taliban concluded that there was no decency in TV productions.  So there are some new rules.

1.  Foreign films shown on Afghan TV (Rambo for example), can't be shown, if they promote foreign lifestyles/cultures. Depending on how you interpret this.....about 90-percent of what used to be on Afghan TV.....can no longer be shown.  Alice in Wonderland, Little Shop of Horrors, Three Amigos.....out.  

2.  Any kind of show which might in some way....insult Islam....is forbidden.  

3.  Any show/movie which might show a bit of a guy's chest...is forbidden.  

4.  Any show/movie with women in a leading role....is forbidden.  It's ok to show them in the background, or demonstrate a woman preparing a meal for the husband.  Beyond that....no women in primary roles.

What'll happen to the TV networks?  I'm guessing that they will go to mostly scripted shows where Muhammad-Joe has transmission problems, and discusses this with Muhammad-Bob.  Or you might have four guys building a house, and discussing roofing strategies for an hour.  Or you might have a farmer discussing his foot fungus problem.

In simple terms....the DVD business is going to erupt and folks will be quietly renting the entire season of Amish Mafia, or the five Rambo movies.  

About a year or two into this....various Taliban members will comment to the top guy....it's just pretty boring at night....no one wants to watch three guys spend an hour cleaning rifles, or watch some 80-year-old guy tell one of his six snake stories over and over.

The senior Taliban guy will tell them to just shut up, and quietly go back to watching his 1982 DVD set of the Dynasty series.  He thinks that Joan Collins is 'hot'.  

Unique Business Idea

A couple of years ago, I spent some time in Den Haag, Netherlands.

Walking around the streets, I eventually came across this one business.

It's a combination vintage guitar shop and tattoo-piercing shop.

It's an odd combination.  Kinda like a chainsaw-and-muffin shop, or a fishing bait-and-barber shop.

Course, I should note that across the street is a Dutch coffee shop (meaning....joints or marijuana).  My guess is that the guy started off as one type of business, and after a while....he chilled out....going to a secondary business.

The Truth About Moderate Republicans

At some point around 2004, I remember watching some Sunday political chat show and some intellectual type journalist hyped up the idea that moderate Republicans were the way to go.  The idea was....if you just had some centralist GOP guy....things would go fine with Democrats supporting the guy.  For several years, I hear the expression repeated over and over.  At some point around 2012 (with Mitt Romney), I figured that the magic expression would finally work, and the general public would likely vote for Mitt...instead of Barrack.  Well....I was wrong.

In the last five years, I've come to this conclusion....Democrats vote for Democrats, and Republicans vote for Republicans, and independents are locked in for policy changes or particular reforms only.  The theme of a moderate Republican?  It is non-existent.  It's like a magic unicorn.

I will admit, it's a nifty catch-phrase, and folks can be led to believe that some Democrats might cross an imaginary line for a moderate Republican.  The problem is if you ask a hundred Democrats....there's probably only one or two who would fall into this strategy. 

So it's mostly just a gimmick of provocateurs, to keep convincing naive Republicans and independent voters....into thinking that there is such a person existing and that the public might vote for him.   

When people stand there and suggest to you about finding this mythical creature....the moderate Republican....ask them to identify the moderate Democrat instead.  The pause will last for a while.

Observations

 1.  People who identify (like trans) as vaccinated....are vaccinated (believing it is 99.9-percent of the 'game').....even if they aren't vaccinated.  

2.  Joe Biden has said that if you (as a company) pay no taxes....then his new gameplan would require you to pay 15-percent of your income. 

If you think about this, then you should avoid no-taxation, and pay $500....to say you do pay taxes, rather than pay $5-million as your tax requirement.

3.  The odds of Joe Biden's vaccination program reaching 70-percent of the nation?  I give it a 1-percent chance of happening.  

4.  If your kid wrapped up high school and graduated....then you found that he was marginally at the level of a 7th grade kid, should you blame the current system, or just accept it as part of the new bold world we live in?

How Alabama Fell into the RussiaGate/Trump Saga

 As things started to heat up in the 2016 primary season....it was painfully obvious for the 1 March 2016 primary in Alabama....that Trump would win (there was NOT a single county in the state where anyone other than Trump led).  So a couple of weeks prior....Senator Jeff Sessions came out and did an endorsement of Trump.

You can argue that Sessions really didn't need to do this.  He could have just kept quiet.  But this was an overwhelming vote for Trump anticipated, and Sessions needed to be in the 'wave'.  He'd won in 2014 and had four years on his Senate job. 

Right around this March period (the 22nd)....Governor Bentley went and Spencer Collier (the state Law Enforcement Agency 'boss'.  Chief reason, accusation of illegal spending of state funds.  I should state for the record, a complete audit was done after this firing....showing zero funds illegally spent.

Shortly after this firing (having nothing to do with the Sessions episode)....Collier came out and accused Bentley of an affair.  I should state for the record....Bentley was in his early 70s.  The player in this accusation?  Bentley's senior political adviser.....Rebekah Caldwell Mason.

About a week into this episode (front-page news in Alabama)....Mason resigned from her office.  Just prior to the resignation....an audio recording became public....with a lot of chatter between Mason and the Governor.

Around the first week of April, an effort was mounted by Ed Henry (Rep from the state) to impeach Bentley.  

So this odd thing comes up.  While the state constitution allows for impeachment....the House itself does not have this process written down.  In simple terms, no one knew how to impeach.  So they spent a fair amount of time talking over this, and writing a process.

November arrives, and the big shocker (even for Senator Sesions)....Trump wins.  

Very quickly, a list is developed for Trump and oddly enough....Sessions is listed for the Attorney General position.  

To be honest about Sessions....he's not a pure Republican.  Like Shelby (the 2nd Senator)....Sessions is mostly a pretender-Republican.

All the way to this pick, if you'd asked Sessions if he'd ever met a Russian in his entire life....he'd likely answer no.  I doubt if he could even count off one hand....the number of Mexicans he'd met in his life.

In January, Sessions walks into DC, and ends up as Attorney General....meaning his Senate seat is empty.

Governor Bentley?  Still around, and yet to be impeached (figure eight months now of chatter).

The Alabama Attorney General during this whole affair business (since 2011)?  Luther Strange, Republican.

The investigation led by Strange?  It can be said that it was done at a snail's speed.  Strange is oddly enough selected by Governor Bentley to be the replacement for Jeff Sessions.....taking the seat in early Feb of 2017.  

Sessions ends up being asked routine questions for his clearance, and now proclaims he met a Russian a while back.  There's almost no details to this, but it just stands out and is kinda admired as 'odd' by most Alabama folks.  

So when RussiaGate starts up....Sessions can't preside over this, and he has to go and appoint a Special Counsel. Choice?  Robert Mueller (mid-May 2017).  

For about a year, Mueller's team is drilling down into what will be a simple case of getting Trump into a room....getting a statement out of him, and then accusing him of a false statement.  

But this odd thing comes up around early 2018, with Deputy AG Rosenstein.  It comes out that he was almost ready at one point in 2017....to wear a wire into the White House (face-to-face meeting with Trump).  This was an effort to get Trump to say something....to be used to take him down. 

Once this gets out....Rosenstein now has a problem.  Just suggesting he might do this....makes him into a potential criminal.  All the way to this point....Rosenstein used almost no real control over Mueller and his team.  Things now change.

Within a month of this issue....Rosenstein has given strong directions to the Mueller team....the case needs to end.  Trump's cooperation?  Mueller's team is given only the chance of asking written questions, and getting written answers in return.  

The whole value of Sessions picking Mueller, and this getting rid of Trump?  Zero'ed out.  Along November of 2018, Sessions is fired by Trump.  

Bentley in this landscape?  Just as charges finally get handed to the House of Alabama (mid-April 2017)....he resigns.  

Strange at this point?  Feeling safe in his new job?  Well....come spring of 2017....the new governor (Ivey) has decided this was all a 'deal' made and routes the situation to a temp deal for Strange.  New election to come.

Strange is pitted against Roy Moore in the primary.  Strange by this point?  His 'deal' has added a burden to his campaign.....he can't win.  Maybe Ivey (the governor) knew this.  

Moore as the Republican in the December 2017 special election, again Jones (the Democrat)?  Moore is seen as a nutcase, and loses (only a 20-thousand vote difference though).

Somewhere in this whole two-year saga is a 700-page book waiting to be written, with serious politics, fake Republicans, an Alabamian who seems to have met one single Russian in his life, red-hot sex between a 70-year old Governor and some political handler, and some dimwit who thought he could wear  a wire into a meeting at the White House.  

Oh, and the plea deal for Bentley?  He basically has to accept the lifetime ban on political office....with strictly a misdemeanor situation.  As for this Mason gal and the Governor?  In mid-summer 2018....she was employed in some way for Bentley's medical practice.  In Alabamian terms.....they still hang out.

Oh, and one added note for Mueller.  By the time he wrapped up his two-investigation and gave a 'talk' at the Senate....it was obvious that he was starting to show serious dementia problems.  Just a humble opinion, but I'd say he was two years into the health decline.  I doubt that Rosenstein or Sessions knew this when they introduced him into the mess....but the twenty-odd people working for him....had to grasp that he was in a failing state of mind.