Conversations with Jessica

Super Bowls and State of the Union speeches and maybe some other stuff

Thursday 26 February 18:22:36 CST 1772151756
Sietch Asara

JM: Have you had any responses to your letters?

AS: No, it's a little early. I mailed the last ones today and it takes a while for anything to happen. Each recipient knows who all the others are but whether that will matter I have no idea. Not that I care much - at some point you have to get on with your life and remember to give over the heathen to their... whatever it is they have.

JM: You used that phrase.... talking about the people who don't care

AS: It occurs in the Bible a time or two, most notably in Romans 1. It is when people are so determined to do evil that he lets them go to where their evil desires take them. You get so many chances and then.... (laughs) not like I haven't had more than I deserve but I never intentionally harmed another person or cheated them or.... I drank too much and cuss... I never drink and drive haven't done so since I was a dumb kid of sixteen or so... but so many people prey on others. Cheating people and stealing from them is predatory, talking bad about people, especially to hurt them, is predatory... as if to take from others gives you something more, even if it's just their reputation. But... I saw this and you probably did too in that world... for so many it was getting ahead at any cost in whatever way worked. Why we had so many incompetent people, often above us in the food chain. Like post turtles only they generally the ones beneath them were too ethical - which is why they were lower - to sabotage them by letting them be exposed.

JM: Oh yeah, that was one reason I didn't stay with it. Even if I wanted to play the game I saw the damage it did to some of them. The ones who - the ones I knew well - knew that they were faking it and were terrified of being exposed. It was easier to be a valuable worker bee that they had to take care of even if the money wasn't as good. You were talking about the news people, how they don't care about anything but the next issue or broadcast and the paycheck.

AS: Yeah, the small-timers here, even the big Little Rock or Memphis TV stations or newspapers - for what a newspaper is worth these days, the older ones hoping it lasts until retirement. I see the TV stations though, they have a lot of young people. Got a journalism degree or one in meteorology if you're doing weather - and they're in their twenties or thirties - like there's a future in that to say nothing of the big leagues ever calling. Very likely CNN and MSNBC or MSNOW or whatever it is won't be subsidized much longer as the ownership changes. There was a bloodbath at the New York Times a while back, something like a third of them canned.

JM: It does seem to be continuing to shrink. Well, it's not our problem. I don't know how the television stations are surviving. I suppose most are part of large companies can still afford to pay for them.

AS: Television is still benefiting from inertia - ad buyers for the big companies throw many at them without caring about the results. Almost no one is watching MSNOW and the without airports CNN would have been long ago. I don't know how the owners of KAIT and the radio stations are doing but as long as the local car dealers and grocery stores and other business will by commercials.... there was this hardware store in Wynne that was probably over a hundred years old when it closed a while back. At the time the Wynne Progress stopped printing - that was after the tornado two or three years ago wrecked their office - Graham Hardware had a little ad in the classifieds, about two inches, and they had run that ad for as long as I could remember. They just wrote a check to the newspaper and one fo the radio station every month and that was just what you did... inertia.

JM: I don't know anyone who watches television these days, even the movie channels - they just stream everything. You were telling me about the local news websites here in northeast Arkansas...

AS: Yeah, there used to be only one or two. NEAreport has been around forever and in fact it seems like it was about the only one for a long time. The newspapers had theirs for a long time but they require a subscription, I believe the Sun is about eight bucks a year... not sure what the Paragould paper is... but you see hardly any ads unless you're a subscriber... just what's on the front page. I used to buy a paper once in a while to look at the classifieds or the Sunday ads when they had those but now the entire paper isn't much bigger than the Wynne Progress was. And it's something like a buck a copy or something ridiculous. Which is probably why the Sun and the Daily Press are sharing an office in a strip mall. Anyway the Wynne radio station started up a site and the Wynne Progress has one, I look at them once a day to see if they're still functional, and there's another TV station in Jonesboro and some political site, a couple of little sites about Brookland and Imboden...

JM: Imboden?

AS: We went through there on the way to Mammoth Springs. It's about halfway.

JM: That's one crazy road.... yeah, I remember Ravenden and it's close to there.

AS: Right. Anyway those guys put up some article about something every day or so. The Imboden one has some ads and it has a few ads so might make some money. Their advertisers apparently don't do any metrics - if they did they would know hardly anyone sees them - and just send the checks. Even the NEAreport site apparently doesn't get much traffic judging from the comments. At least it takes comments - they get more exposure on Facebook. Anyway that's about the state of news but probably it's like that most places.

JM: It doesn't seem to be a good place to plan a future. But then being able to code seems less so than when I got out.

AS: It was probably a good time for both of us. I hadn't planned on it but it worked out well.

JM: I suppose we should talk about whatever it was we were going to talk about. The Super Bowl or something. You said that you didn't watch it again.

AS: As far as I know I've never watched one. According to Google the first one was when I was about ten it's possible that at some time or other I was in a place where it was on - as far as I know I never intentionally watched one.

JM: Not a football fan?

AS: Never cared much for any sports except baseball and auto racing - specifically NASCAR but most kinds of good racing - ARCA, SCCA and all that. The Nashville Network if you remember that had a lot of motorsports back in the day.

JM: Nashville Network? Yeah, I seem to.

AS: You were pretty young - hard to believe it was twenty years ago.

JM: I was really young.

AS: Anyway baseball... about the time of the big strike - that was before the Nashville Network went south.

JM: That was a while ago. What happened?

AS: Guys getting paid millions of dollars to play a game - OK back then million-dollar players weren't the norm but it was going that way - and want more, want it enough to... some people consider me strange but it wasn't as enjoyable to watch knowing that the love of money had gotten to them. Baseball - of the big three I guess it still is - had a quality that the other two don't. I get the color and spectacle and the gladiator thing with football but baseball appeals to the intellect, the subtlety and nuances pretty much absent from football and basketball is the most mindless of the three but....

JM: Mindless? Isn't that a little harsh?

AS: Actually soccer - or football as the rest of the world calls it - is only slightly more intellectually engaging than basketball. Hockey is too frenetic for me but the skill and toughness of those guys is something... I see the U.S. teams did well at the Olympics and that was nice. The last time they beat a bunch of commies was forty-something years ago.

JM: Commies?

AS: The Russians, they were still commies then?

JM: What are they now?

AS: Well, the old Soviet government is gone, that was pretty bad - and dangerous. Now they have some sort of dictator-oligarchy or something. They've been reduced to being... less dangerous generally.

JM: Unless you're Ukraine.

AS: Yeah, that's a bad deal for the people there. It could have been avoided but that's a while nother story. Hopefully President Trump will be able to work something but it would have been better to have avoided it. As I said... anyway still enjoy watching baseball, some college games when I have time and that's pretty good. But...

JM: Did you ever like football?

AS: I liked college football back in the day. The Razorbacks had some good years and the annual Arkansas-Texas thing was pretty enjoyable even if it seemes like Arkansas usually lost. I went to a few ASU games when I first moved to Jonesboro but never got into professional football.

JM: Was it something you didn't like about it or just a lack of interest?

AS: Watching it on television was... it seemed it was more about the announcers and commentators. Actually I suppose to them it was I could just watch and... I remember back in the good old days of NASCAR and it was still mostly on ESPN sometimes they would just say "we're gonna shut up and let you watch for a while" and that was pretty cool. But their announcers were better - almost all did nothing else but racing and were really into it. But getting on the alphabet channels it started to go downhill.

JM: Alphabet.... oh, OK.

AS: (laughs) Yeah, ABC and CBS and all... it seems ABC was the first one to do a NASCAR deal. I believe when Dale Earnhardt died it may have been the first season they had it. They cut away right after the race without any updates.... at least I got tired of waiting and turned on the radio and found out what had happened.

JM: I was young then but Dad was a fan of NASCAR and Dale Earnhardt and it was a pretty awful thing.

AS: I dunno if ESPN would have done better but suspect they would have. They weren't big-time then but now...

JM: Doesn't ABC own them now, or something like that?

AS: I believe Disney owns both.

JM: Well, yeah.... we seem to have gotten off football. Speaking of the Super Bowl this year's was pretty contoversial.

AS: Yeah, NASCAR really shot themselves in both feet way back whenever that was but they have paid a price. The NFL took a bit of a hit when a few million people changed channels during the halftime show but not likely enough to have an effect. Sports generally and the NFL is the equivalent of the Roman bread and circuses. Sadly they don't look at the... how is it when you do something that financially supports a bad thing - bad TV or movies... John says he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. If you watch bad television you encourage it even if you don't buy the products advertised and if you watch football on TV - or maybe it's all gone to streaming, I haven't kept up with it you are supporting something really bad.

JM: How?

AS: One of the things I liked about baseball was that the players were pretty decent people for the most part. There was some drug use - the recreational kind and the PED stuff - but they seemed to have kept it cleaned up pretty well, and there was some bad behavior - a DWI and occasionally a wreck involved and sometimes a domestic violence indicent, some gambling. But you don't see much and even basketball isn't just awful (laughs)...

JM: OK....

AS: Well, you got thirty NBA teams, something like that, and thirty or so NFL teams. I don't know how many players a football team has but the basketball teams have about fifteen - there's a lot more people to get into meanness. If there were more NBA players there would probably be more crime but the NFL has a whole lot.

JM: Is a person watching football partaking in evil?

AS: If it was one here or there in a while no - those things will happen. But when you have an industry based on taking young men of - it doesn't take much intelligence to play football and probably less for basketball - and bad character does not disqualify - at least on entry...

JM: The NFL does seem to have a disproportionate market share on bad behavior. Do you see a solution?

AS: A long time ago, don't ask me when, the NFL and I guess the others... you had to at least finish college. Now whether you learned anything you had to go through the motions. So you were older to start with, now they have to finish high school for a couple of years, something like that. But this guy went to college for three years for all the good it did.

JM: OK...

AS: He skipped the last year and went into the draft and got signed for a ten million bonus and about six more salary. He bought a fancy Corvette, eighty-some thousand. Got drunk and was driving through Vegas and hit a car that had stopped to make a turn. Rear-ended a little Toyota at 156 mph. Gas tank went up and the young woman - a Ukrainian immigrant who was close to becoming a US citizen - burned to death while the emergency personnel tried to free her, hearing her screams.

JM: I remember that. I see what you mean - take a kid, or little more than a kid that may or may not have had a decent home life - and give him ten million dollars.

AS: Right. And most don't have much.... much of a raising as my folks said. It doesn't matter... no, let me go back. In high school there were kids who played football and basketball and a few went to college. I remember may be two or three who became professional athletes - I had three or four guys in my class - one of two played in college but when they graduated they became doctors or lawyers or whatever they had in mind. The ones who don't have the quality of character to become doctors or accountants or engineers or.... the only way they see to the good life is sports. So the ones that get selected can make some good money... if this guy only played a few seasons and put some money away he could have a good life for as long as he lived.

JM: Should the NFL do something... how can they prevent or at least mitigate that?

AS: Killing people by giving low-quality people money to make it easier to kill innocent people doesn't need to be mitigated but stopped but they don't care to even try. Look, a guy plays football and gets rich and gets parts in movies and lives in... wherever that was and one day carves up his ex-wife and a guy that had the bad luck to be with her... you can't prevent it all any more than you can prevent Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. There are bad people but making them richer than ninety-five percent of the population just increases the damage they do.

JM: Is there a lack of accountability? Silly question, of course there is. I see that this guy got three to ten years and probably won't do much of it. And the guy that had the dog-fighting operation did a little time and went back to football.

AS: If somewhere back there.... maybe something broke... it probably happened slowly but the rot is inside the people who don't do anything to stop it, even if all they can do is stop subsidizing them. I don't know that it can happen organically - there just aren't enough people willing to give up the circuses - most of them at least earn their bread. I don't know that even another economic disaster like the Depression would cure it. As for whether they're bad people to any degree - the great Rush Limbaugh loved football and a lot of conservative pundits do - it seems that going to college and being attached to the teams it gets carried on.... I'm not sure what Rush would say today, it's worse and gets worse all the time.

JM: It does seem so. Shall we talk about something less depressing? You had some observations about the State of the Union address.

AS: Yeah, I don't watch it when there's a dim so this was the first in a while.

JM: Dim as in Democrat?

AS: Yeah, what's the point? They read the speech - Obama could read and that's about it - asking him what it was about a few minutes later he couldn't tell you unless the answers were also on a teleprompter. Like an actor except they actually have to remember their lines long enough to to a scene... and Biden was barely coherent at the best of times, whatever they juiced him with seemed to be unpredictable...

JM: You don't think much of either one?

AS: No, Obama hated America - that is he hated the creation of the founders and those who built it - he wanted that destroyed. Not that he could accomplish it but he did as much damage as possible. Biden... corrupt his entire life, not very bright but like Obama could follow a script pretty well.

JM: Was Obama smarter?

AS: Probably but that isn't saying much - average at best. But as long as he stuck with the script and the news media covered for him..... Biden deteriorated so far that it became a liability.

JM: I suppose most would say that the Democrats should have found a way to get rid of him earlier. They must have had the leverage all along.

AS: Presumably they did but Harris was so bad the idea... it was a last resort. I suspect they hoped to get him elected and that he would die pretty soon but it seemed like a bunch of junior high kids running the place. Apparently decisions were by a sloppy concensus...

JM: Is Trump smarter than them, and Obama? I mean by a lot?

AS: Hard to say how smart he is - years ago I guessed that he was pretty bright, being successful in business to that degree, but how far above average? I guess 130 or so at least but IQ... some of the big Nazis had high IQs, the Unabomber was up there... so IQ and character aren't related. And high IQ and being smart aren't exactly the same so hard to say. He's definitely smart though and his second term so far demonstrates it.

JM: What is the... or is there a single factor that's different this time?

AS: He seems not to have realized just how vicious the opposition would be, the dirty tricks, the sabotage from inside. This time he was read for it. He had four years to prepare and he prepared well... there are only one or two weak Cabinet members...

JM: One or two?

AS: OK, one. The AG thing - it seemed he really wanted Gaetz but some believe that he was a distraction and he knew that he would be shot down and Bondi would be easy to get in. I don't know... it seems plausible but Bondi was a mistake. I suspect it was the Florida DeSantis connection, personal feelings... but I watched her for years as AG in Florida and she pegged the needle on the Peter Principle gauge before she got to Washington.

JM: Ouch!

AS: It's an unpleasant fact but most AGs are like that - in Democrat states they go after the political opposition and in Republican states... they have a legitimate law enforcement operation but the guys on the ground do the work and write a report for the AG to read at press conferences. She wasn't even very good at that. Now he's kinda stuck with her as getting anyone else confirmed would be a hassle... the best thing he could do is sit her down and tell her to have Patel and.... well Bongino left but have every statement vetted by someone competent and stick with it.

JM: Anyone else?

AS: (laughs) Don't make me pick on both of the women. No, Kristi Noem is really good... smart and no-nonsense and speaks well... actually I could do without wearing the combat gear... but the ICE situation is a hard-to-win situation and she goofed a bit but it was a minor goof that wasn't repeated.

JM: That's definitely a weak point but it seems there wasn't much that could be done better.

AS: No, Minneapolis... it was a major offensive and was apparently well-planned and well-financed. They were hoping for.... still are... for a Kent State photo. They're already faking pics and videos but they're easily debunked and they're in the minority of public opinion in a big way.

JM: Kent state?

AS: Before your time, almost before mine. Lessee, 1970 I was in the eighth grade or so. Two years earlier a cousin was killed in Viet Nam, he was kinda like a big brother growing up. We lived close together and hunted and fished and he taught me to work on cars... anyway it was the stuff going on at colleges and at Kent State they got what they wanted.

JM: A photograph?

AS: They had been rioting for days, burning stuff, burned the ROTC building... governor finally called in the National Guard. Things got worse and some of them fired into a crowd of rioters. Four dead, one of the photos that became famous was a young girl kneeling by one of the bodies, dramatic pose, probably the iconic photo of the era.

JM: I've seen that. Yeah, before my time.

AS: Well, she was a 14-year-old runaway. What she was doing there... accounts vary so I'll just leave there. Kind like the Saigon police chief executing a guerilla during the Tet Offensive. The facts don't matter - just the picture.

JM: A picture can be worth many thousands of words, and television, and....

AS: Yep. They want something that big but we live in different times, but they still try. So if they can get a couple of people, one of them at least demonstrably mentally ill, go get themselves killed assaulting ICE personnel. It's a desperate time for them - the border is closed so every deportee is a loss because no new ones are coming in.

JM: Is Minnesota the worst we'll see?

AS: I hope so but California has to be cleaned up. We might get lucky there as there seems to be a possibility of a Republican governor being elected - consider how bad it must be for that to happen. The dims are so flaky and things are so bad that Hilton just might make it - if so cleanup of illegals would be much easier even if Californiat loses a few more congressional seats in the process.

JM: Is that likely? They've lost a couple in the last census because of migration and it looks like they may lose another one or two.

AS: Seven hundred seventy thousand something is a district so it could happen in Calfornia and a couple or three other states.

JM: That would be big.

AS: Yeah, yet another big thing. Years of lawfare coming to nothing, a bullet that would have ended it all and another failed assassination attempt or two - not sure many so far. Donald Trump seems to be - and I'm not one to count the chicks prematurely - somehow inevitable. Whether or not the Republicans hold onto both houses is the big thing.

JM: That has a lot of people nervous. I believe when we get around to talking about the State of the Union speech...

AS: (laughs) Yeah, I guess I've spent a lot of time has been setting the table.... just one thing about this four years in history. If Donald Trump had not been elected the president would now be a possibly sub-average intellignce person with zero control - about how much Biden had - over the course of events. I don't see any reason to believe that the same junior high class - and not the TAGs - would again be governing like a junior high student council with no adult supervision.

JM: It is scary to think about.

AS: Worse than you probably think. Trump and probably several of his family would be in prison and their wealth confiscated, Elon Musk would at the very least be under numerous indictments and very likely his businesses seized as well - laws don't matter to these people.

JM: That's really scary but I can see it. Space X turned over to NASA.... who would rescue astronauts then? And Tesla being subsidized and electric car mandates nationwide, X locked down into a government propaganda outlet again. Yeah....

AS: One of the reasons I suspect... whether or not a successful Trump administration is inevitable and will be followed by another Republican remains to be seen... that there is some aspect of destiny at work here.

JM: What happens if the next administration is Democrat?

AS: Some form of widespread... unrest is a mild term.... but there is likely to be a lot of badness.

JM: How do you see things unfolding?

AS: The dims in charge - and actually about all of them - are dangerously mean and stupid. I try to think of one or two that have some intelligence not to mention character and come up with nothing. Schumer and Pelosi are on the way out and in any case are powerless - what's left is the mad dogs - many of them foreigners - and they'll... if there is a close election and again there was a lot of fraud I don't believe there will be a protest in DC like last time. People are smart enough to know to keep their heads down....

JM: The transfer of power goes quietly?

AS: Yeah, pretty much. So they won't rounding up thousands of citizens and throwing them into gulags. This time they will to after the law enforcement personnel - FBI and ICE especially and any others. They've already said they'll do it and even if Trump pardons them all it won't matter.

JM: This time they won't be arresting regular citizens, many of them elderly.... you think they would do it?

AS: As I said they're stupid and mean. Back in control of even the presidency they will believe they are untouchable.

JM: Won't they need a lot of new FBI and ICE people to arrest them?

AS: Exactly. I'm going into some of that in Pandora's Pryzm and Balance of Power. It's possible you have a bunch of new, inexperienced and poorly trained, going out to arrest guys many of whom don't plan to go quietly. And you might see retaliation, possibly even pre-emptive retaliation.

JM: Attacking the government before it comes after them?

AS: Probably not before the first few arrests but... who wants to spend a few years - four at least - in a gulag and possibly never getting out. I don't know how it would play out... instead of thousands of prisoners they get thousands of fugitives who will resist if cornered. I suspect it would get ugly... and you have the militia groups that there's no way to get at. They monitor them and try to infiltrate but there are too many and some of the stuff I hear from them is some of them are a little on the crazy side.

JM: Any good news?

AS: Getting to the speech, it was pretty spectacular but even more important - for good or bad - was the reaction. The dims were nuttier than ever, having furries and people in blow-up frog suits and sky-screaming outside and the ones who did attend sat on their asses like last time no matter what the subject was. When Trump asked people who thought it was more important to protect American citizens than illegal aliens they sat. They looked really really bad but what else is new? Trump's stock rose considerably that's good but unless things get really a lot better - inflation is down and gas prices are down and crime is down and anything you could ask for but and he went over all that.

JM: Reading the mainstream reports - some of them talked about what the Democrats did but most weren't critical and many justified it because Trump bad - and it does seem to have been a disaster for them. Do they not see it?

AS: As I say they aren't very smart and in fact almost all are rather stupid. They do what they're told by the ones who pay to get them elected. Remember the guy that pulled the fire alarm?

JM: Yeah, as I remember he was a buffoon anyway.

AS: He was in a safe district - whoever they run will get elected - so they pulled the rug out from under him and he was replaced by someone just as corrupt but not as controversial - I'm not sure that would happen today as they demand that sort of behavior. The one from St. Louis got the same treatment - St. Louis is reliably Democrat so the one selected by the party gets it. So with the old ones like Schumer and Pelosi on the way out it's this bunch, stupid and mean and if they ever get back in power I don't want to think about it.

JM: From where we are now how does it look?

AS: There has clearly been a higher power at work.... that bullet just missing or not quite missing just enogh to make that iconic photo.... was evidence. And the lawfare falling apart because of the corruption of the persecutors being exposed, and Biden crashing a little too soon and Giggles being the candidate - not that Trump couldn't have beaten him and that may be why they pushed him out. And almost everything he does works out - Ukraine is still unfinished but it gets little attention these days and the Epstein thing is going everywhere except in the direction they want... it looks good.

JM: Giggles?

AS: I think some call her Cackles but I ususally say Giggles. A silly mentally slow child that does it all the time, can't talk without giggling.

JM: What's the deal on Epstein?

AS: Just a guess but I suspect that if there some good stuff somewhere it's well hidden. We know a lot of stuff was taken from his house in New York and most likely from the island. Whether it still exists or was destroyed I have no idea and what's left - the "files" - is a lot of stuff that doesn't tell much. Donald Trump can account for every minute of his life for years - he was the president or in the public eye and under constant scrutiny the whole time and if anyone alleges that he did this or that at some time or other it's easy to disprove. And of course he despised Epstein and Epstein hated him so there's that. So they have nothing but facts don't matter if you can make enough noise. No serious person believes that Trump ever did anything but it's about all they have. I believe that if the economy does really well in the next year and he doesn't make any major mistakes the Republicans might stay on top or given the behavior of dims maybe improve their position. If that happens the next two look good and a Republican successor looks likely.

JM: What could go wrong?

AS: These things go back and forth, especially when the population is so compromised. The dims still have thirty percent in the bag - the welfare depdedents and committed lefties - and too many with the memories - or IQ - of goldfish. Bill Clinton never got 50% of the vote - but Ross Perot siphoned off enough from Bush for him to win.

JM: Do you see that happening?

AS: I don't know if they're smart enough to pull it off but Perot I believe acted on his own, he just hated the Bushes. The problem they have is that all of their candidates are about the quality of Giggles and Ocrazio and those types are most likely to get the nomination. The only thing close to a certain win is for Trump to do so well it's like Reagan and Mondale.

JM: A lot of things will have to go just right.

AS: Yeah. I believe that even with that higher power in charge this may not be easy. So much corruption hasn't been removed from the population and apathy and selfishness infect much of the population. There could be a setback in one or both of the next two elections.

JM: If the midterms go badly Trump may be so crippled that he can't get much done and that could mean both elections.

AS: Yep. And they go full-throttle revenge, and things might break really really bad.

JM: Any likely scenarios?

AS: As I said before Trump and his family and Elon would be.... from experience I guess they would be arrested immediately and held without bail. If I were them I would make arrangements, maybe with Russia.

JM: The commies?

AS: Nowhere else would be safe. And Russia isn't the old Russia, they're realists and are interested in the security of Russia. What the whole Ukraine thing is about - the Obama crew put a puppet in control and was preparing to make Ukraine a NATO state. Putin was cool with Ukraine as a buffer but not as an outright enemy, and the Euro/NATO crowd is dumb enough to start a war... or was anyway.

JM: Seriously? By was you mean before Trump?

AS: Right. Without the U.S. NATO is pretty lame. But Putin was pretty disgusted by all the corruption, particularally the human trafficking. Drugs was bad enough but... and the attacks on the church riled him up. Putin's not a nice fellow by any means but he only kills people who are or whom he perceives as imminent, or close to it, threats. The people who seek asylum, as long as they don't do something dumb, are largely left alone. So Elon and the Trumps, if they could get a few billions stashed, would be safe and relatively comfortable there. Seeing everything they created taken and broken wouldn't be much fun but...

JM: And the people who don't have money and somewhere to go?

AS: Very bad for some, the political types - it wouldn't matter if Trump pardoned them. They would be prosecuted - if you think the kangaroo courts they put Trump through were.... wait until you see these. As for the little people...

JM: Who will those be?

AS: They're already threatening the ICE agents and other DHS types - I can easily see them doing... or attempting a J6 roundup.

JM: You don't think it would go well?

AS: After J6 they identified a thousand or so people - mostly just regular people, some of them elderly, and threw them into prison. If they go after thousands of federal law enforcement types - remember most of those people didn't even think about it until the FBI showed up and arrested them - these guys will be on alert if another Democrat president takes over. And they have law enforcement experience and weapons. If they see the gulag in their future, some may try to flee but unless you can get out of the country where do you hide? - but others may not go quietly.

JM: That could get ugly.

AS: Yeah, and they think it can't happen. A while back a bunch of judges sent Trump a letter asking him to stop criticizing them for letting violent criminals run loose and kill people, said they were afraid someone might commit violence against them. They're lucky it hasn't happened yet - there have been a few cases of someone attacking the perp - sometimes fatally - and that it hasn't happened to a judge is surprising. You have some guy whose teenaged daughter is raped and murdered by a perp that has been repeatedly put back on the streets, maybe it's his only kid and he figures there's not point in living any more, he goes after the judge that was responsible. Instead of asking people not to say bad things about me I think I would stop being that kind of judge.

JM: Yeah, I've heard about a couple of those. I wonder how they live with themselves.

AS: Beats me. I have heard some theories, have some of my own. Solipsism syndrome or narcissism... I lean towards narcissism but probably there are different types, some may be sociopaths... I don't know if this fits one of those but I think of them as functional atheists.

JM: What kind of atheist is that?

AS: Atheists deny the existence of God (or any supreme being but you rarely see them attacking Allah or pagan deities) and agnostics just don't know and don't care... but what I call a functional atheist - maybe I made that up - lives as if there is no God and no afterlife and therefore no accountability as long as they don't get caught in this life.

JM: That behavior describes a lot of people.

AS: And some of those people are religious in appearance, being members of a church and professing to believe whatever it teaches. Some politicians do it of course...

JM: Yeah, some congresscritters and a president or two. There seems to be less of that especially on the Democrat side now, they just don't care, the younger ones anyway. Biden and Pelosi are so old they've done it all their lives. It looks like Atlantis will be part of the Pandora's Prysm universe.

AS: Yeah, that's the only unrealistic part since it hasn't happened yet.

JM: Do you think it could happen?

AS: Wishful thinking. It would be cool.

JM: Besides the disruption of an inexperienced and incompetent... essentially a secret police chasing a lot of hardened ex-law enforcement types with the expected consequences when they find them, what else is going on?

AS: The flight of productive citizens and money from the blue states - California and New York being a huge part of it - to Florida and Texas and other red states by the time it goes south in 2028 the blue states are in even worse shape and the red states have large populations of potential resisters and the money to resist, particularly if they do it officially. State and local police and citizen militias resist. It's something I would hope would never get to that point but I don't see a way it doesn't.

JM: Effectively a civil war, not officially but...

AS: Yeah, or whatever you call it when a nation breaks up into pieces. It's never happened in a country this big but don't think it can't happen. If there is a positive angle to it... the rest of the world is too screwed up for some other country to come in and take over. China is so dependent on American spending money they would take a big hit and Europe is so screwed that even if they could get together and decide to do something they're so broke and the potentially dangerous ones have bigger internal problems with migrants than we do here.

JM: Any thoughts on the rest of the world, with the U.S. even less engaged than now? The dismantling of things like USAID and disengagement from things like the WHO and the UN.

AS: The economy would go south so fast that restarting that, the "foreign aid" and the manipulation that goes with it, would be difficult. Not that they wouldn't try but the debt situation is close to the point where borrowing money... who's gonna buy the debt with the whole world in the same or worse situation? If we're lucky it breaks into several parts - the south and parts of the midwest and Montana, Idaho, South Dakota... then the west coast is one part and the northeast another.

JM: The south being the Confederate states in the Civil War? Hmmm....

AS: Yeah.

JM: Interesting, especially with the Atlantis factor. How far along are you?

AS: I'm on chapter six now. At this point there are two, possibly the main two, plotlines. The subplots... I'm thinking about stealing the religious commune and it's prepper neighbors from MacArthur's Freehold.

JM: I enjoyed that. It would be interesting to see them in this scenario - in some ways it's where they would be if MacArthur's Freehold hadn't had the happy ending.

AS: What I'm thinking.

JM: Since we don't ever seem to come to a good stopping point... want to take a break? I'm buing lunch.

AS: Sounds good.

Elections and whatever else comes up

Saturday 7 March 12:49:20 CST 1772909360
Silvertree Lodge

JM: It looks like it's going to rain for a while so we might as well do something useful. What did you think of the elections?

AS: No real surprises. I didn't seriously expect Paxton to clinch and he didn't - and whether or not we're much better off if he does beat Cornyn - I can's say. Cornyn is worse than useless but Paxton is weak... if he does manage to move Cornyn on getting the SAVE Act through - it' not certain that he can since Thune is the obstacle... maybe it will happen but Idunno.

JM: Aside from the obvious any other major takeaways?

AS: As usual many Republicans didn't bother to vote some probably some people that should have been bounced - judges, sheriffs and such but Texas is so big they're hard to keep track of.

JM: Any idea how many Republicans voted in the Democrat primary to try to get their preferred candidate?

AS: I'm not aware of any estimates... people calling the talk shows were urging against it as it would take votes from Paxton and he needed all the help he could get. Couldn't guess how many.

JM: It probably would be fun to see her get it but it seems the guy who won maybe as unelectable... almost anyway.

AS: Yeah, that dude is as crazy as Beto but it wasn't until after the election they... like the Republicans knew it but were holding it.

JM: Presumably she will get a big paycheck at CNN or MS whatever it is, MSNOW.

AS: Unless the new management cleans them up - CNN already looks questionable for that sort of thing with the sale and if MSNOW ends up being sold to a company unwilling to subsidize it that may not be available.

JM: The New York Times cut a bunch of jobs and they didn't even have to be bought, and the Washington Post had already some some attitude adjusting.

AS: Yeah, Bezos probably prefers profitability and he's not the nutjob that some of these people are. The Netflix acquisition was something that some folks were hoping for since it was likely to continue the policy.

JM: I know you have some comments on the Arkansas elections. Anything unexpected?

AS: Not really, the attempts by the governor to install some friendlies in the legislature... may have fallen flatter than even I expected at least here with Senator Caldwell - I suspect it was the same in the other two cases.

JM: I didn't see any reaction from the governor but I didn't look much, nothing on her Facebook page except people congratuating her for winning with no opponent.

AS: Yeah, go figure. Arkansas politics is inertia.

JM: More or less like national politics?

AS: Probably about the same. Arkansas mostly elected Democrats until about... there was an occasional Republican and Huckabee - Mike - took over when the Democrat governor was convicted of crimes. Then there was another Democrat and Hutchinson was a RINO so while the majority of the state votes Republican it's only been recently that the governor began to be a pretty sure thing.

JM: Sanders was elected because of party?

AS: Pretty much. People liked her father and he was a good governor. She made sure to always be Sarah Huckabee Sanders to cash in and seems to be a typical swamp creature.

JM: She was President Trump's press secretary during his first term his endorsement probably helped.

AS: Yeah, and having the Huckabee name and not much being known about her and being that Arkansans vote for Republicans these days.

JM: She seems to have made a lot of Republicans unhappy.

AS: (laughs) Ya think? She acts like... entitled for sure but doesn't seem to relate to regular people the way her father did. But she sees being governor is just a step on the way back to Washington.

JM: There was talk of being president someday.

AS: Yeah, but that's unlikely and I suspect she knows - future Republican presidents if there are any will be Vance, Rubio, DeSantis and probably some others. No way but she can be a senator. Arkansas governor is term-limited so she's done after this one but if she can get elected to the Senate that's pretty much permanent.

JM: Are you disappointed? Or surprised?

AS: Yes and no. I see politicians - with very few exceptions and those have proven themselves - as rental cars. I stole that from Jesse Kelly by the way. And they see voters the same way.

JM: That is sad but accurate. One of the things about Donald Trump is that he's the real deal and while that makes him unskilled at politics people like him for it.

AS: Yeah, I believe it was Mark Levin that called him a blue-collar billionaire. Those are pretty rare but strangely Elon Musk is like that.

JM: Is that one of the reasons they get along so well?

AS: Probably helps. And both are self-made and there's that mutual respect.

JM: You know I've gotta ask you this.... Kristi Noem?

AS: (laughs) That didn't age well did it? Actually I didn't know most of that stuff - the quarter-billion dollars - actually I'm pissed that someone didn't stop it. Sadly she seems to have become too impressed with herself and... it was really really dumb and.... given that Pam Bondi is an order of magnitude dumber and more incompetent and she ends up being the first one fired... and she apparently lied about stuff like nobody was gonna call her on it... good looks and being able to talk convincingly isn't enough.

JM: That is embarrassing. People in those positions should never start thinking they're bulletproof.

AS: Indeed. Especially when you know people are out to get you and you give them openings. Look, when the Minneapolis thing got so... they shouldn't her or Bondi talk without a script approved by someone capable - Patel or Bongino at Justice and Homan at DHS - know what they're going to say and that there are no holes... she screwed up just a little there but a lot more... and the money for her essentially running for president after Trump.... just dumb. Someone was going to have to be heaved over the side and it was her. Her loyalty to Trump got her the job but it was the only thing... and when she threw him under the bus...

JM: Bondi hasn't been especially embarrassing lately, or for that matter visible.

AS: Yeah, and firing the AG is gonna be hard to do... getting another confirmed it would have to be worse than her. It does seem maybe she has received some counseling maybe or the while ICE thing has... the dims have trouble tracking multiple targets.

JM: And now the war, such as it is. How does that look to you?

AS: Apparently it had to be done, as in the Iranians were about to do something that would have worse consequences. Maybe simultaneous attacks on several targets and a lot of casualties. Not sure just what they had but... it didn't get much coverage but the Iranians had launched a really long range missile - with the permissions of Russia - to a target way off, the distance to the U.S.A. All the talk about making bombs - it's likely that they could get one ready-made from somewhere... possibly China or Russia the way things are. But the regime had to go and soon. And it needs to be over real quick so we don't have hundred-dollar plus oil with the election coming up.

JM: Some people would call that last part cynical.

AS: Yeah, but it's the last thing on Trump's mind. He sees the threat and he sees the tens of thousands of Iranians being slaughtered by the regime. He's one of the few people in that position who cares about the human cost.

JM: It... well I wouldn't say it's strange but unfortunate that so many people don't see that.

AS: Normal people do, that's why they like him. And famous people who know him well and are around him a lot remark on how... what is it, empathic? And it shows in his actions - it really does bother him that Iranians are dying and Ukrainians and Russians are dying.

JM: Before we get to Russia let me ask you how you see the Iranian thing going.

AS: As I've believed since that bullet didn't miss by exactly enough - he was relatively unharmed but the image was so powerful - more than anything I've ever seen... it was worth millions of words... that he has a destiny - just how big it is I can't guess. So just on suspicion I suspect that Iran will go well, some kind of government that works reasonbly well will be set up and the oil will flow and... but I'm just going on the track record thus far.

JM: And Russia?

AS: Beats me. There seems no way to make Putin accept anything less than he wants, no way to put pressure on him. That's one of the problems with assigning the role of pariah to a state that big, they aren't dependent on the world outside of the friendly nations like China. If the Ukrainians would depose Zelenskyy and make a deal but if they hadn't elected him to begin with this wouldn't have happened. Unfortunately it's going to be a while before President Trump can get back to work on it.

JM: Unfortunately with the Iran thing it will probably be even longer. Not much news at all with Iran going on. Strangely the rain seems to be letting up. It looked like it was going to be a while.

AS: Apparently we got off easy. It seems to have been bad in a couple of places, Michigan and Oklahoma.

JM: I saw something, maybe it was the one in Michigan. Some people were inside a store hearing stuff flying around outside, hitting the walls. That must have been scary. And I believe there were some fatalities in Oklahoma.

AS: I hope the one I was in was the only one. That is scary. Michigan doesn't get many - I believe there was one whey we lived there for a few years - but Oklahoma, I would definitely have a shelter and figure someday you might lose your house and everything in it.

JM: Yeah, it's bad enough here I don't think I'd want to live out there. Want to take a break?

AS: Sounds good.