Timing and RBG

 In the Ruth Bader Ginsburg business....timing is everything, or nothing.

You go back to 2013/2014....approaching 80, and she already had health-related issues.  

President Obama had a majority Senate in his favor.  She could have easily drawn the curtain, said enough, and retired.  She didn't.

In November of 2014....everything in the Senate flipped.  Republicans controlled a clear majority. 

So come January of 2015, President Obama didn't have the slant in his favor on picks.  If she wanted a person of her legal views....it probably wasn't going to pass via the Senate....so she waited....figuring Hillary Clinton would win, and have some 'extra' control over the selection process. 

Well....November 2016 rolls around, and Hillary's 'boat' sailed in the opposite direction.  

For four years, and through marginalized health, RBG waited.  Her hopes?  To make it to January of 2021, and President Biden fixing this mess.

What'll happen now?  Among the possible names on the list....there's this conservative Cuban-American female judge from Florida.  It wouldn't surprise me if she was the name, and it'd turn into serious poison if the Democratic Senators slammed her in any fashion.  

As for RBG's wish to get the 'right' person?  She had that chance in 2013.  She could have retired and written books.....while President Obama would have selected his choice.  

Could You End Up With VP Harris Under President Trump?

 Well.....there is this one odd scenario.

On December 14th, the Electoral College will meet up and cast votes.  Lets say for the sake of the scenario....that around four states are not able to certify their votes and send the Electors to do their jobs.  In this scenario....Trump fails to get 270 EC votes.

So the EC is finished, and we then proceed onto the first week of January, with the new House and Senate members arriving.

Lets also say for the sake of the discussion that the four state did complete their certification on 15 December....enraging a lot of Trump-voters because all four were Trump-wins.

In the secondary instructions....the House selects the President, and the Senate selects the VP.

The House must vote....state-by-state.

The Senators votes....individually.

So if you had 49 Republican Senators, and 51 Democratic Senators....this would lead to a Harris-win situation.

If there were 50/50?  As long as we haven't crossed the middle of the month, Pence is still the VP, and would be able to vote for himself.  

The odds of a 51-edge for Harris?  I'd give it a less-than-10-percent chance at this point.

However, it would be amusing for four years, to have VP Harris around, as Trump's forced-upon VP, and daily battles where Trump refuses access to Harris. 

Joe's 100-Billion Promise

 I sat and watched the Joe Biden 'townhall' from yesterday.  In the midst of this....he got onto some tirade about Covid-19 and schools, saying he wanted to spend 100-billion dollars on adequate ventilation for schools.

I sat and paused over the comment.

Being from Alabama (1970s era), ventilation (or the lack of ventilation) is a familiar topic.

Ventilating usually meant that you had a rotating fan that seemed to have the pitch or hum of a diesel dump truck.  

Ventilating usually meant that around nine AM, with the healthy diet of bacon/sausage or eggs....a gaseous 'fume' would be pushed around the entire room, and the teacher sat in agony. 

Ventilating usually meant that you pushed 95-degree air around the room....to every corner.

How would this Covid-ventilator work?  A 100-billion involved?  Some engineer is probably at work....building a fairly fake ventilator and filter system, and swearing that it'll remove 98-percent of the Covid virus from the air, but failing to mention that the filter has to be changed daily, and it cost $29 for each single filter (made in China of course). 

For some reason, I just don't see this promise going anywhere.

Seven Hours to Nowhere

 I tried to make sense out of this story.

Qantas, the Australian airline, will fly a passenger plane (Boeing 787) for a seven-hour flight....taking off and landing at the same airport.

Yes, a flight to nowhere.

What they are saying about this flight....it'll fly over the Northern Territory, Queensland, and New South Wales.  You are basically leaving Sydney, flying northward over the eastern section of the country.....coming to the north central region, and then doubling back.

That's it.

What do they mean by low-level?  That's not entirely explained.  Normally, the plane would be at 38k feet.  I might go and interpret this to mean a 5k foot flight.

Number allowed onboard?  ONLY 150 seats.  Cost?  $850 (US) for the economy seats and $1930 for the better seats....while maxing out at $4088 for the business class.

How long did it take to sell the tickets?  Ten minutes.  They were gone.

My humble guess is that they could have offer a dozen flights, one after another....150 on each plane, and still sold all the seats in less three hours.  

Why?  You are getting a totally different prospective from 5k feet.  If you were interested in the landscape....it's brings a totally different picture up.  

Now, I will admit....there's no way that I'd pay $850 for such a seat.  But with this....you probably get an outstanding meal, with drinks included free of charge.

The odds that this might catch on in other places?  Australia is different, and you can say with some confidence, there just aren't that many planes flying around in this north-center region region.  If you could forecast limited traffic in Canada or southern Africa....this might sell well there. 

The most nifty thing about this flight?  No bag drag, and no chance of your bags getting lost.  

Ten Things I'm Pretty Certain About

1.  If some idiot did eventually get access to Donald Trump's tax records for the previous three decades....they'd eventually to say that the guy now only averages $40-million a year on profits (over the whole past decade).  His BIG years?  All from the 1990s era.

The ultra-rich angle?  It won't be there.  This story of the 2.5-billion 'value'?  It's basically assessing hotels and casinos at a certain rate, which might not be totally true.  

Does this bother anyone that Trump might only 'marginally' be a billionaire by a dollar or two?  No.  

2.  The NBA will only survive as an organization if the TV contract business continues on 'as is'.  Once the current contract ends, and the talk starts on the new deal....it won't match the current numbers, and the players will stand there in shock with profits set at 50-percent of the current numbers.

A doomed path?  The super-players with ultra-contracts are finished and need to start talking retirement..

3.  Fox News will lose about 25-percent of their viewing audience over the next year to lesser-known right-of-center news organizations.

4.  At least one state will not be able to complete the vote count and sign their process as 'wrapped-up' by the time that the Electoral College occurs.

5.  NY City officials by the end of January 2021, will agree that around one million NY residents are 'gone' and likely NOT to come back.  

6.  Nashville will begin by summer of 2021, discussing a crisis with around 150k new residents within 25 miles of the city.  Traffic, congestion, drug sales, and stress will be hyped up.

7.  Covid-19 will be detailed out as a 'virus' that escaped a Chinese lab, because of a cleaning worker's mistake.  

8.  A poll will be taken in early 2021, to reveal that 19-percent of Americans have no idea who Hillary Clinton's husband is. 

9.  The November election will not be decided until the House meets in January, and votes state by state to finalize the pick.  

10.  Around 30-percent of California residents will admit by next summer that they'd really like to leave the state, but don't have the money to reach that goal.

The Trouble With Long-Winded Questions

 At some point in the 1990s, I watched some forum show, with the moderator and a couple of 'experts' on the stage.

Question-time opened up and one audience member wanted to ask a question.  This turned into a very long 'I-believe-this' chat....going for almost 90 seconds.  Then he turned to flip a question into this.....demanding that what he said was 'factual' and your answer had to fit into the question.  The question though?  Well....it went on for probably 60 seconds.  

The 'expert' looked at the guy and in 10 seconds....said the summary was invalid (like a professor would do) and the answer can't be derived from the data presented.  'Next question' was the end of the 'expert's' moment.

You could tell the audience member was all peeved and upset, but he'd consumed all that time....for virtually nothing.

In an average month now (2020)....I probably watch five hours of public forums like that, with five to ten of these 'whale-farts' (my term for the chatting and unanswerable questions) from the five hours.

If you had a 'point'.....you need to get to it in sixty seconds.  If you have a question....it needs to be structured as a question and not demanding it meet your preconceived notion of the answer.  

I sat and watched this morning some fake town-hall piece where President Trump tried to answer questions from the public....with these all structured as a two-minute comment, and answers from Trump had to fit the notion of the citizen.  It became a joke very quickly.  

The true problem of this.....after you've seen enough of these as the audience member....you lose patience and understanding in the crowd trying to reshape your opinion.  They aren't helping the situation....they are hurting it. 

Joe's Trip

 Joe Biden left the basement yesterday in Delaware....flew for a couple of hours to reach Florida to deliver a speech to Latinos-for-Joe.

So, here's the thing....if you go and ask reporters about the number of Latinos there....there were roughly twenty of them.  

Yes, just around twenty. 

But here's the other thing about this trip.....the speech was 18 minutes long.  

You go back to Jimmy Carter campaigning, or Al Gore campaigning, or Barak Obama campaigning....this would have been 50 to 60 minutes long....as a minimum.

Here in this final 45-day pace.....you can't make trips like this for twenty people, and when that plane lands....you need a minimum of forty-five minutes of chatter.  This one trip...was a total waste.

It begs the question....is there any real enthusiasm going on, or are we looking at forty states carrying Trump in November?