Observations: 23 March 2022

 1.  This necessity to admit the Hunter Biden laptop....ease into a court situation by the fall, and deliver Joe Biden to a January 2023 impeachment scenario?  

I would suggest that various people from the Obama administration are now worried that certain matters from the 2008 to 2016 period will get dragged out into court.  A lot of Americans will end up asking why CNN, NPR, or the NY Times just failed to investigate or discuss this five to ten years ago.

2.  Some analysts are discussing a 25-percent drop in new home 'sales' by late summer.  A lot of this is simply spiraling economic matters and worry by the general public.

3.  NY Post says Hillary Clinton tested positive for Covid.  Her only comment.....'mild symptoms'.  Bill?  Tested and negative.

4.  This past week....a discussion started up over frustrations with the 2020/2021 census.  Some folks have suggested that what we've been using for decades is what I'd call census-lite, and they are asking for something that I'd refer to as census-XXL.

In simple terms....they want the census guy to come up to the front porch, and ask a number of questions which got into personal things.  Then this would somehow be converted into a government database.

To be blunt, the census was never designed in a way to be perfect or effective.  If you asked the PhD guys.....they'd grin and mostly say it's about 80-to-90 percent accurate.

The problem is.....do you want some guy asking what you paid for your house, your monthly grocery bill, your booze consumption on a weekly basis, the horsepower of your vehicles, or sexual preferences?

But I'll add this view....what if fifty percent of us just decided to make up fake data?  You know....admit we consume sixteen bottles of Jack Daniels per month...admit that we've been married nine times.....admit that we pay $9 a month for the rent....and admit that we prefer sex mostly with alien gals from the planet Fleetwood.

Would the census then just go away?

5.  Not that we care, but the Shanghai Disneyland shut down.....over Covid.  If you asked me the odds of re-opening at any point in 2022?  I'd say it's mostly 50-50.  A lot of Chinese now carry around a bag of two-days of food....because of the fear of being caught in some panic situation.....where 20,000 people in some fest or show....have to be tested before being allowed to exit.

6.  Finally, not that I care.....but it's another week that Colin Kaepernick was not hired to quarterback anywhere.  Frankly, I don't understand why people want to discuss the matter anymore.  

Are Both Cuomo Brothers Victims?

 If you'd stood up in 2017 (five years ago) and said both (a governor and a CNN bigwig) would be victims....folks would have laughed at you.  Today?  Yes, they've made themselves (without much effort) into victims.

I don't think this was intentional.

They both had a strategy of controlling their 'descent' down a negative path, and neither had the ability to stop the descent or change the final outcome.

Do we the public owe them anything?  No.

What'll happen over the next twelve months?  The CNN-Cuomo will likely get some final pay-out.....probably less than 30-million.  The Governor-Cuomo will just simply walk away and hopefully never be interviewed by the NY Times ever again.

I'll predict this though....by 2030....someone will attempt to make a ten-hour mini-series over this, and tell the two stories.  I don't think anyone will really care about the story though. 

Why Hunter Biden Is Coming Up So Often Now In The News?

 It's just odd....just about every single news media apparatus is now discussing the laptop issue, unreported income problems, and lobbyist work he did.

So I'll go out on this and just say that various signals have been given....a grand jury (maybe even two) are about to come down with serious charges....that cannot be resolved/fixed by paying a quarter-million fine.

What I expect by late summer.....some police team will come  to do the warrant, and arrest Hunter in his home.  

The court episodes?  Probably not until spring of 2023.  

The problem?  Well....each one of these charges will lead back to some activity or 'favor'.....tied to Joe Biden.  You can sugarcoat these to some degree....but each week that passes where no impeachment occurs.....gives the Republicans more negativity to openly discuss.  

It's hurting the Democratic Party for the 2024 election, and as much trouble as you are inviting to have President Harris around for two years.....it's about the only way to clean up the mess.

Numbers Discussion

 Dominic Pino wrote an interesting piece this week,  and the question is....why do Americans overlook the racial/ethnic numbers in America?

It's under the National Review, and worth a read. 

So to sum up the whole piece....Pino took the numbers of individual states and cities, and discovered something in plain sight.  

In various states, the black population of these states.....are centered around urban areas....not the rural areas.  So an example....Nebraska does have a black population existing....roughly 5-percent of the total population.  But if you go and ask about numbers in Omaha....it's roughly two-thirds of the total state black population residing in the city itself.  

I used to work with a guy who lived in Maryland, and he'd talk about odd statistics of the state.  One of the discussions centered on the 30-percent of the state being black, but the vast number of blacks (his claim was 90-percent) were residents of Baltimore.  His suggestion was that once you passed Hagerstown (mid-north of the state)....blacks only made up around 2-percent of the population for the whole western part of the state. 

This discussion working in all fifty states?  No.  I would disagree with maybe two or three states.  But it does bring up the view of a fair segment of society....they don't see the racial divide because they don't see vast numbers of blacks....unless you go into an urban zone.  

Just Observations

 1.  On this Jussie Smollett situation (him getting free while his case is appealed), my prediction is that the court review will occur in roughly four months, and he'll be standing there expecting them to throw out the case entirely.  Instead, I think the appeal change only the days to state prison from 150-odd days to 180-odd days.  

Smollett will then go into another tirade....freaking out everyone in the court.  He'll be in some jail-hospital for seven days....then another appeal occurs.  He'll be free for that one as well....giving him three or four months, until that court brings him in and says 'no'.  Then he'll launch into another tirade, before getting dragged off to jail.

All total?  I think it'll take a minimum of four years before he serves up the 150 days of jail.  Some black comedian will make a four-star movie over the whole matter and make $40-million off the two-hour movie.

2.  Somewhere in all this Chris Cuomo-CNN chatter....Cuomo has said that that bad-boy Don Lemmon guy, and Jeffrey Toobin.....did some highly unethical stuff.  He hints in some weird way....they ought to be fired as well.  Maybe he's right?

3.  The odds of Hunter Biden getting dragged into a court in 2022?  Nearly zero.  After 1 January 2023?  I'd say it's near 100-percent.  It might be time to quietly disappear with the loot.

4.  Was this 60 Minutes interview by Anderson Cooper with 'Mayor Pete' simply a commercial for Presidential ambitions?  I sat and watched the 13-minute piece.  Rough or demanding questions?  No.  Anything that would convince me to vote for 'Mayor Pete'?  No.  If anything, it was another example how crappy the 60 Minutes show has become in the past forty years.

Yellowstone Series?

 This week, I watched the initial first two episodes of Yellowstone (the series, with Kevin Costner).

So, to make it clear....while I am into westerns....by the time I ended episode 2, I kind of noted this series as a non-western western series.  By that, I mean....the chief sales gimmick is the western landscape.  

Description....if you took Dallas, Dynasty, Billy Jack (to a lite-version), and twisted in a lot of unrealistic family drama, you'd get Yellowstone.  

It's not bad....but by the end of the second episode....I just stopped.  There are around 39 episodes of the series, and I just can't figure out how you'd do twenty-plus hours of drama, built on the top of more drama, and layered thick with a final coat of drama.

What sells the series?  I think people are at a level where big wide-open spaces really appeal to a person who has a 72-inch big-screen TV.  You throw in some two-star writers, to who create some crime element....people then accept the marginal series as a big deal.

Observations

 1.  This outburst in court by Jussie Smollett?  I've watched the video clip three or four times now.  The guy acts like a 10-year old kid, and says a bunch of BS.  I'll predict he has a pretty rough time in county jail, and likely goes through some kind of mental break-down in the middle of this....ending up in jail-hospital situation. 

2.  People that held onto Russia ETFs?  Royally screwed.  These will never recover.

3.  Six West Point (Army) cadets overdose on some Fentanyl-laced cocaine.  All still alive, but I doubt that the Army will keep them within the university program.

4.  Russia's space station 'business'?  The only partner they will have in the future is China.  

5.  Journalist Luke Rosiak went and did a fair amount of research for his new book "Race to the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education."

The original angle?  He wanted to show how Covid screwed up education in America.  The problem?  The more he talked with teachers....it became obvious that the decline going on....wasn't a Covid thing....it'd been going on for several decades.

Real literacy?  It's anyone's guess just how bad the situation is.