The Odds That the Op-Ed New York Times Guy is Trump

Well....the Times does hint that they have some relationship with the guy, but they aren't very clear on 'HOW'.  So you are left to speculate.

Maybe Donald Trump had his geek-guys set up some fake email account, and for almost two years.....Trump late at night, has sent various bits of data and info to the NY Times....feeding them some insider info, and they've praised him continually on the privileged information coming in.

Is it possible that Trump himself is the insider?

I've sat and pondered this.  CNN folks and the Washington Post folks....seem to glee over the fact that they know the guy, but then....maybe it's all just fake stuff, and the NY Times simply plays along and thinks they got the real insider to the White House staff.

Of course, it sounds crazy....but Trump has learned to use the news media at almost every single junction.  Maybe he figured long ago....to use them for a long-term goal.

Nike-Kaepernick Episde

My theory?

I think some insiders to Nike (not the board but way down the line)....were talked into a situation to help bring the share price of Nike down to the $35 to $40 range (currently at $79.60), and their tool was to convince the Board to go with a Kaepernick contract. 

Why?  Well...I think the logic is that around one-quarter of the normal customers will now avoid the brand, and it'll trigger some losses on profits (probably to be noticeable in the fall of 2019), after one-year. 

The share price will reach a stage where an unfriendly take-over is then possible...in essence, buying Nike at a discounted price because of the customer loss and profits.  Who?  I can only speculate, but it would not surprise if the buyer off in the distance is a Chinese brand looking to scoop up Nike at a cheap price. 

To be honest, I buy an average of three Nike shirts a year....mostly because of the quality.  I see the whole Kaepernick 'chat' as mostly a fraud, and you were dealing with a a good but average NFL quarterback.  Nike was convinced to make him into some icon figure, and think the negativity will just be a short-term thing. 

The 3 Chief Questions of 2020's Presidential Election

1.  Can Gary Johnson pull 4.5-million again, with Jill Stein pulling 1.5-million Green Party votes nationwide?  My guess is that they can't.

2.  There are a couple of blue state wins for Hillary that were roughly two-percent wins.....can the Democrats repeat in those states? The states are Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire. 

3.  Will a 25-percent turnout for black voters for Trump make that big of a difference?

Funeral Hype

Out of the twenty-odd funerals that I've attended in my life....none ever involved 'negative-chatter' as part of the ceremony.  To be honest, with Air Force folks in attendance....if you had gone to 'negative-chatter', a fair number of us would have just gotten up and walked out of the chapel or church. 

I worked with one guy who'd gone back to the US for some funeral of a relative, and one of the living relatives spoke up after Minister had done his piece....'demonizing' two or three of the other relatives for bad treatment of the dead individual.  This being a black community....things apparently got hectic and the funeral just kinda ended at that point, and half the group escorting the casket out to the yard for a quick burial. Based on the description of the event, there was divided respect over the dead person, but enough to at least show up at their funeral. 

Other than two short clips....I didn't really observe the McCain or Franklin 'propaganda' festival.  I did observe a minute or two of Bush, and of Al Sharpton.

I'm guessing a bunch of political pretenders will all go now and write up funeral instructions that the President is not to be invited, and only special people may be on the invitation list. 

The effect of these two funerals on the bulk of American society?  Zero.  Franklin's funeral might have gotten forty millions to tune in for the first part, but I think by the halfway point....they'd probably lost a quarter of the viewers.

In the case of McCain, I would suggest few Democrats watched (having a negative opinion of the guy to start with), and even fewer Republicans watched.  Maybe a quarter of the folks from Arizona cared, but beyond that...it was just a wasted TV gimmick.

My impression of Bush?  While I greatly regret my vote for McCain in 2008....I think in the past year I've come to rank my vote for Bush in 2000 as a major mistake.  Even though Gore was really lacking, at least he was brighter, and perhaps more capable than Bush.  I suspect that a quarter of people who voted for Bush....feel this way. 

2020 Expectations and the Black Vote

I've spent part of this week reviewing the black vote in 2016, and anticipating the 'slant' in 2020.  So I'll lay out my observations:

1.  If you use the Pew research done....2016 was an odd year for black votes.  Roughly 7-points lower than in 2012 or 2008.  One might get the impression that neither Trump or Clinton thrilled the general black population.

2.  Trump basically got 8-percent of the black vote that did show up in 2016.  Right now, if you use the various data collections....they suggest that he's in the 20-percent range on black votes.

3.  If you use CNN-data, then it suggests that black men are three times more likely (in 2016) to vote for Trump, than black women.  No one can really explain this particular detail. 

4.  Best estimate, four million blacks didn't vote in 2016.  In a couple of red-state wins for Trump....it probably mattered.

5.  If you use the theory that roughly 25-percent of blacks by 2020 will vote for Trump (three times the 2016 number), what states really matter?  The higher populated states with blacks?  Mississippi, Florida, Maryland, Louisiana, They all have 30-percent or more of their population as black.  Trump won three of these in 2016....leaving Maryland as the state with 'flip-potential'. 

6.  The one city that matters?  That's an interesting topic.  Detroit has a statistical number of 82-percent black.  It may not matter because Trump won Michigan, but it was a fairly slim win in 2016. 

So I would suggest that between the black and Latino 'plus-up'....there's probably well over two-million votes that might be flipped in 2020....if Trump runs again. 

Peter Bartholomew

The Crusades interest me to a degree and over the past year, I've spent a fair amount of time reading over the period, and the people involved.  The one key person that has fascinated me is.....Peter Bartholomew.

In the first wave of the Crusade period....Pete is this half-soldier, half-mystique, half-nutcase guy.

There's simply not a lot about Pete.  Most know that he was a servant to William (Lord of Cunhiat), and at some point in 1097, having deployed to the Middle East and faced some action....he's there in Antioch and has these delusions.   Some folks think he had PTSD.  Some folks think he was crazy well before he left France.

Anyway, at some point....he has this vision of Saint Andrew.  With this vision, and some sword that he found.....he goes off to tell folks that the sword needs to go Raymond (the head of the Crusaders). 

All of his instructions to Raymond, and the act of the sword....has convinced everyone that he's getting personal instructions via God. You have to remember.....this is the 1097 period.

History says that Pete is basically going blind as 1098 comes around....slowly.

Most all of the Crusader crowd is now hyped up.  Even if Pete was a nutcase....they basically needed a morale booster, and that was the key to success.

As time passes in 1098, he comes around to announce that Jesus has also appeared to him in some vision, and as part of the fight ahead in Jerusalem.....everyone on the Crusaders side....needs to walk barefoot all the way there.  That didn't go over well, and virtually everyone felt faked out by Pete at that point.

So toward the early part of 1099....Pete has stood up and suggested that everyone needs to a test by 'fire'.  This meant to walk through some path with fire on both sides.  Most of the folks aren't buying into this idea....but Pete goes full-turbo through the path of fire.

Sadly, Pete gets burned pretty bad, and he dies on 20 April 1099.

The Ignorant Journalist

Generally, forty years ago.....what the AP, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, US News and World Report, Washington Post, NBC, CBS, and ABC said.....mattered.

Folks sat around, and talked about this article or that news piece, in a factual way.  They sat on front porches and discussed what the US News and World Report said this week, and it MATTERED.  Watergate was Watergate, because the Washington Post made it topic number one for almost an entire year.

Then you watch this transformation occur in the 1990s and over the past two decades.  Drudge, NPR, social media, 'evil' Russians, CNN, Fox News, and forty-odd dozen micro-news organizations (like the micro-brewery business in a way) stepped onto the stage.  Being a journalist changed....you didn't need to really be factual.....you needed to just convince people of something....whether true, false, or something 'else'.

It reached some point in the past year where the news groups started to drag back onto the stage,  the collosal 'kings' of journalism of the 1970s, who most people today don't recognize or even care about (sorry for that slam).

Journalist connecting with people?  No.  Most haven't talked to regular people in a decade.  They've heard that these people exist, but the idea of talking to them and finding common grounds?  No.

So this odd thing occurred.  We just dissolved the relationship.  It's like having IP service and dumping our carrier.  Or having a cable package, and dumping them for bad reliability.  Or having some kid mow our grass and be fed up with his attitude.

Upon watching this CNN exchange with Allison Camerota and John Sununu....it was obvious that Sununu was not going to give respect to Camerota.....kinda like saying just because she thought she had a talking dog or a magic unicorn.....didn't mean it was so.  She repeated that demanded respect, and it was an obvious moment that he didn't believe in giving them any respect.

For well over two years, the news media has blasted onto Trump and he's treated them like juvenile delinquents....pushing them around and labeling them 'losers'.  The public thinks of it as some circus entertainment situation.  Trump is the guy in the center-stage, and the news media acts as clowns.

I don't think this will be corrected anytime soon, and might go on for a full decade.