I don't think I got around to watching an entire press conference from beginning to end....until 2010. I'm like most folks....I'd watch the capsulated version via NBC or CNN, and you got the filtered version of what they felt you needed to know.
Between 2010 and 2016....I might have watched four or five of these total.
So after 2016, for some reason (being a retiree, and having time)....I've actually started to watch at least two or three of these each month. At some point last year, I was up to around ten of these in one single month.
I've come to four observations:
1. Probably some of the most stupid people on the planet.....are employed as journalists to cover the White House. Nothing personal, and I won't name the individuals, but some of these folks ought to be selling tires, or managing apartment buildings.
2. If you can't get to the actual question in twenty words or less....then it's not really a question.
3. Follow-up questions are generally worthless.
4. I'd really like to see the first five questions taken....to be from the general public, and limit the reporters there to just the same number. The idea that journalists are smarter than regular people? That's a joke.
Thursday, 26 July 2018
Wednesday, 25 July 2018
Socialism Chatter
Over the past couple of weeks, some hyped-up political folks have been talking about this new 'Bernie-era' opening up and Democratic-Socialism being the new chief sales gimmick.
So, you might need to go and dust off your understanding of what socialism is about. In general.....socialism is a open 'menu' of economic and social systems, built around public 'ownership' and public self-management of the 'menu'.
For example, if the public came to say all university degrees would be free, or that the college loans would never have to be paid back....then it'd just happen.
Rather than letting the market manage and control the economy, you'd have public groups which would eyeball the situation and have control over banks and industry.
What generally happens at this point of the discussion....some idiot would stand up and ask who pays for everything, and the answer is industry and rich people.
Then the same guy would ask....when you've taken all the money from industry and rich people....who will come and take money from, and the answer is.....the middle-class. At that point, the conversation usually ends because no one really believes the end-result is what people talk about.
It would be different if folks actually made their own shoes.....lived off the grid....had two cows and did their gardening....rode everywhere on a bicycle, and never threatened to take anything from neighbors or the folks over in the other valley. For some reason, most socialist episode end up in revolution (civil unrest), and they then revert back to the combo version of mostly capitalism with a base of socialism (mostly to hand out a few free gifts).
This Democratic effort now? Most working Democrats won't buy into this. So I don't see this going that far. Maybe the college crowd are stupid enough to fall for the gimmick but eventually....when they get jobs and grasp the whole concept, that will be the end of their 'thrill'.
Kind of a vicious circle, if you think about it.
So, you might need to go and dust off your understanding of what socialism is about. In general.....socialism is a open 'menu' of economic and social systems, built around public 'ownership' and public self-management of the 'menu'.
For example, if the public came to say all university degrees would be free, or that the college loans would never have to be paid back....then it'd just happen.
Rather than letting the market manage and control the economy, you'd have public groups which would eyeball the situation and have control over banks and industry.
What generally happens at this point of the discussion....some idiot would stand up and ask who pays for everything, and the answer is industry and rich people.
Then the same guy would ask....when you've taken all the money from industry and rich people....who will come and take money from, and the answer is.....the middle-class. At that point, the conversation usually ends because no one really believes the end-result is what people talk about.
It would be different if folks actually made their own shoes.....lived off the grid....had two cows and did their gardening....rode everywhere on a bicycle, and never threatened to take anything from neighbors or the folks over in the other valley. For some reason, most socialist episode end up in revolution (civil unrest), and they then revert back to the combo version of mostly capitalism with a base of socialism (mostly to hand out a few free gifts).
This Democratic effort now? Most working Democrats won't buy into this. So I don't see this going that far. Maybe the college crowd are stupid enough to fall for the gimmick but eventually....when they get jobs and grasp the whole concept, that will be the end of their 'thrill'.
Kind of a vicious circle, if you think about it.
Thursday, 19 July 2018
November 2018 Predictions
This is my list of seven predictions for the November election business:
1. Joe Crowley is on the NY ballot, not as a Democrat. He will in fact....beat Ocasio-Cortez and the GOP candidate....probably with 50-percent or more of the local vote. The Democrats will be faced with a problem because he wants Pelosi's leadership chair, but he's not a pure Democrat anymore.
2. From my homestate, Kay Ivey wins the election for Governor with near sixty-percent of the vote. It'll be her last election, and set into play various folks planning for the 2024 election.
3. Four Democrat Senate seats flip to the Republicans, and one Republican Senate seat flips to the Democrats: Losers.....McCaskill, Heitkamp, Nelson, Donnelly, and Heller (R). I also think Tester (D) of Montana probably will lose. So you can figure a four-seat gain (on the best scenario) for the Republicans.
4. The 3-way split for California will not be on the ballot. You already see court challenges to remove it, and I think the whole attempt is doomed at this point.
5. House situation? I will go and predict three GOP House members losing their election, but at least five to eight Democrats who were considered 'safe'....losing because of Democratic voters leaving the party structure.
6. All of this leads toward a strategy meeting for the Democrats and discussions over how to bring voters back into the party. The chief idea? The big 2020 candidate will have to be either black or Latino. It can't be Hillary.
7. The Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin race. Well....six months ago, I would have said she had a safe election and easily won for the Democrats. Things have flipped, and I might go suggest that even a 6th GOP Senate seat win-plus-up is possible. All of this, with Corker and Flake (the two fake GOP guys) out in January.
All of this will worry Democrat Senators who have to run in 2020. It's a smaller group than what you have today, but if they were to lose another three seats....it would be an incredible problem for long-term strategy-planning.
1. Joe Crowley is on the NY ballot, not as a Democrat. He will in fact....beat Ocasio-Cortez and the GOP candidate....probably with 50-percent or more of the local vote. The Democrats will be faced with a problem because he wants Pelosi's leadership chair, but he's not a pure Democrat anymore.
2. From my homestate, Kay Ivey wins the election for Governor with near sixty-percent of the vote. It'll be her last election, and set into play various folks planning for the 2024 election.
3. Four Democrat Senate seats flip to the Republicans, and one Republican Senate seat flips to the Democrats: Losers.....McCaskill, Heitkamp, Nelson, Donnelly, and Heller (R). I also think Tester (D) of Montana probably will lose. So you can figure a four-seat gain (on the best scenario) for the Republicans.
4. The 3-way split for California will not be on the ballot. You already see court challenges to remove it, and I think the whole attempt is doomed at this point.
5. House situation? I will go and predict three GOP House members losing their election, but at least five to eight Democrats who were considered 'safe'....losing because of Democratic voters leaving the party structure.
6. All of this leads toward a strategy meeting for the Democrats and discussions over how to bring voters back into the party. The chief idea? The big 2020 candidate will have to be either black or Latino. It can't be Hillary.
7. The Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin race. Well....six months ago, I would have said she had a safe election and easily won for the Democrats. Things have flipped, and I might go suggest that even a 6th GOP Senate seat win-plus-up is possible. All of this, with Corker and Flake (the two fake GOP guys) out in January.
All of this will worry Democrat Senators who have to run in 2020. It's a smaller group than what you have today, but if they were to lose another three seats....it would be an incredible problem for long-term strategy-planning.
Wednesday, 18 July 2018
Russia and Trump Reset
This was supposed to be the signal that the Obama Administration was going to be different from the 'stupid' Bush Administration and rebuild relations with the 'evil' Russians.
To be honest with the Bush Administration....Russia was always on the 50-50 deal.....sometimes a friend...sometimes an enemy.
In some ways, from Nixon on.....the idea was always to use the Russians in some 'theatrical' sense to plus up appearances, or to appear as some 'cowboy in a white hat' against the 'evil land baron'.
This week, everyone is hyped up the evil Russian scenario....because President Trump went by a different script than usual. Most people are sitting there. They remember the stupid reset-button that Hillary presented. They get 'bad Russia' stories each month through the news media. Some stories are probably true.....some fake.
In some ways, I think most Americans are fed up with the 'scripted' storyline over Russia. Trump just walked in with his own version of the reset button, and the news media freaked out. If he'd just bought some fake button kit and gave it as a joke to Putin....things would be fine. Well....people just laugh over that suggestion.
All of this 'evil' talk resembles some Seinfeld episode...a bunch of stuff, about nothing.
Tuesday, 17 July 2018
How the Mueller Business May Fail
You have twelve Russians accused of hacking into campaign servers....all related to the Democrats. Indictments? On paper, and passed by some Grand Jury....stamped by a judge. Without a extradition treaty? None of this can go forward, and the Mueller-team can be happy that they've cornered team-Trump.
Well. What if President Trump returned from Finland, and appointed an outsider to his office to write an extradition treaty with the Russians? He would bypass the Justice Department and the State Department. In fact, it could be finished in less than a month without the two groups involved.
So the guy would go and copy.....word for word....the exact same treaty framework that is used for countries like France or Mexico (already stamped by the Senate). Trump presents the treaty to the Senate to approve. They freak out because it's going to trigger a mess.
Republicans and Democrats explain how this extradition treaty is doomed. Then Trump reveals the curtain pulled....to say it's the exact same wording as the one from Mexico or France. The Senators look like absolute fools. They now must sign this or face massive skeptical nature by the public.
Once signed, Rod Rosenstein gets called in and told to extradite, and he will try to refuse. Fine....he gets fired on the spot. Mueller will then realize that the whole episode that he's developed is cornered...he can't win.
Well. What if President Trump returned from Finland, and appointed an outsider to his office to write an extradition treaty with the Russians? He would bypass the Justice Department and the State Department. In fact, it could be finished in less than a month without the two groups involved.
So the guy would go and copy.....word for word....the exact same treaty framework that is used for countries like France or Mexico (already stamped by the Senate). Trump presents the treaty to the Senate to approve. They freak out because it's going to trigger a mess.
Republicans and Democrats explain how this extradition treaty is doomed. Then Trump reveals the curtain pulled....to say it's the exact same wording as the one from Mexico or France. The Senators look like absolute fools. They now must sign this or face massive skeptical nature by the public.
Once signed, Rod Rosenstein gets called in and told to extradite, and he will try to refuse. Fine....he gets fired on the spot. Mueller will then realize that the whole episode that he's developed is cornered...he can't win.
The 'Compromising' Story
I sat there last night and observed the Trump-Putin press conference, and there's probably twenty-odd things that you could observe. Toward some point, some news journalists stood up and asked Putin....if he had 'compromising' material on Donald Trump. Putin just started to grin, and then talk to a topic that had nothing to do with the question.
The press? Well, today....they've gotten hyped up to suggest that the answer was 'yes'.
I sat and pondered over this. The plain blunt truth is that Putin has an entire library of compromising material over President Trump, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Senator McCain, and at least 20,000 present and former American characters. Just the folder with Bill Clinton's compromising information alone is probably over 3,000 pages. They probably even have a folder for former Alabama governor Bentley and his paramour gal, which goes into the range of four pages.
Putin mostly grinned because he could just blow away the entire audience by admitting that he's got hundreds of thousands of pages of material, and it's way more than he could read in his entire lifetime. He might have spoken up on some fistfight between Joe Biden and some associate back in 1959.
The problem with the press is that they are just stupid enough to hear something and twist it one way.....not realizing the massive problem at the other end of the spectrum, and that most of the public doesn't buy their angle to the story anymore.
The press? Well, today....they've gotten hyped up to suggest that the answer was 'yes'.
I sat and pondered over this. The plain blunt truth is that Putin has an entire library of compromising material over President Trump, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Senator McCain, and at least 20,000 present and former American characters. Just the folder with Bill Clinton's compromising information alone is probably over 3,000 pages. They probably even have a folder for former Alabama governor Bentley and his paramour gal, which goes into the range of four pages.
Putin mostly grinned because he could just blow away the entire audience by admitting that he's got hundreds of thousands of pages of material, and it's way more than he could read in his entire lifetime. He might have spoken up on some fistfight between Joe Biden and some associate back in 1959.
The problem with the press is that they are just stupid enough to hear something and twist it one way.....not realizing the massive problem at the other end of the spectrum, and that most of the public doesn't buy their angle to the story anymore.
Cold War Talk
I sat and watched about 20 minutes of the McLaughlin Report (7/15/2018), which feature Pat Buchanan. The hype? This Helsinki meeting with Trump and a discussion over the necessity (oddly enough) to recreate a cold war, which Pat points toward liberals for 'desiring' (my word for the humourous suggestion).
Back around the spring of 1992, I got this note from the Air Force personnel office that I'd been awarded the Cold War Victory Medal. Basically, anyone who served between 2 September 1945 and 26 December 1991....got the medal. At the time, when I was given my medal....I displayed it to a couple of folks and it was commonly observed that the 'look' of the medal was some older lady sitting in a lawn chair with a sword, facing a rising sun, with COLD WAR written out.
Of all my medals, it kinda rates there with the Good Conduct Medal, which you typically got as long as you didn't misbehave or get arrested for a DWI.
Most folks will suggest that from 1992 to the last year....we've been in Cold War II. Some folks might even suggest that we are approaching Cold War III, where it's all mostly hyped up fake chatter over some fake war brewing. Even this talk over NATO needing to exist....is only driven because of the fake war suggestion. It's just odd, that conservative folks are almost to the point of agreement, and the liberal folks are to the point of hyping war potential.
The odds of some idiot sitting there now and designing Cold War Victory Medal II? I would imagine there is such a guy, and that by the end of 2018.....another medal will be authorized (yes, I might actually get a second medal, having been retired for 19 years).
As for Pat's suggestion of this fake chatter over a non-existent Cold War? It is the amount of disrespect by the public now....toward the news media, that drives this whole discussion. Thirty years ago, the news folks could have driven this easily into your living room and convinced you. Today? I doubt if they can convince more than 30-percent of the nation of this 'doom' scenario. Maybe that's the bigger story here.
Back around the spring of 1992, I got this note from the Air Force personnel office that I'd been awarded the Cold War Victory Medal. Basically, anyone who served between 2 September 1945 and 26 December 1991....got the medal. At the time, when I was given my medal....I displayed it to a couple of folks and it was commonly observed that the 'look' of the medal was some older lady sitting in a lawn chair with a sword, facing a rising sun, with COLD WAR written out.
Of all my medals, it kinda rates there with the Good Conduct Medal, which you typically got as long as you didn't misbehave or get arrested for a DWI.
Most folks will suggest that from 1992 to the last year....we've been in Cold War II. Some folks might even suggest that we are approaching Cold War III, where it's all mostly hyped up fake chatter over some fake war brewing. Even this talk over NATO needing to exist....is only driven because of the fake war suggestion. It's just odd, that conservative folks are almost to the point of agreement, and the liberal folks are to the point of hyping war potential.
The odds of some idiot sitting there now and designing Cold War Victory Medal II? I would imagine there is such a guy, and that by the end of 2018.....another medal will be authorized (yes, I might actually get a second medal, having been retired for 19 years).
As for Pat's suggestion of this fake chatter over a non-existent Cold War? It is the amount of disrespect by the public now....toward the news media, that drives this whole discussion. Thirty years ago, the news folks could have driven this easily into your living room and convinced you. Today? I doubt if they can convince more than 30-percent of the nation of this 'doom' scenario. Maybe that's the bigger story here.
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