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 her 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 let 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.

Tuesday night cocktails

Tue 10 Mar 2026 10:02:41 PM CDT : 1773198161
Alex's undisclosed location #2

JM: Nice place. Is it undisclosed to everyone?

AS: Almost. A couple or three friends and family.

JM: It's hard enough to even find so your secret should be safe.

AS: Yeah, you can't see it from the gate and as far as I can tell no one ever comes back here exploring, and the cameras never show anything but the local wildlife.

JM: It's rather spooky even in daylight once you're in the woods.

AS: Yeah, I get a little... of that feeling sometimes. And I've been coming here for years.

JM: You've owned it for... how long?

AS: The first time... well the first time it was part of the originally family farm. Dad sold it back in, lessee, that would be in '73. I was a junior in high school and Dad was getting out of farming and we moved to over near where I live now. Dad semi-retired and he had so much land that the rent on it was to live comfortably without working. He worked for [redacted] as an insurance adjuster until he was about seventy or so. I used to come out here and hunt and fish, sometimes alone or with one or two of the guys I hung with back then. Anyway when Dad died Mom was in pretty bad health... her dementia had started before then... they put all the stuff in a trust and we gradually sold it off as none of us wanted to be farmers. I forgot to ask if you want a drink, I'm gonna have one.

JM: Sure, since we don't have to drive.

.   .   .

AS: I've got Arbor Mist, two or three flavors... I believe the only beer is Stella, and Canadian and bourbon. Seven-up since I haven't bought Sprite since they went to the woke clear bottles.

JM: I'm not sure I can tell the difference.

AS: I liked Seven-up better anyway - Sprite is a little on the sweet side. When I drink Canadian - and it's not often - I mix it with Seven-up.

JM: What do you usually drink?

AS: Bourbon, Evan Williams black usually, sometimes Dickel, with Coke. The lower octane Turkey but I have to order a case when I want it because neither of my favorite stores has anything but the hundred proof.

JM: Not popular enough to stock?

AS: They can have three of four fruit flavors of Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, even some flavored Turkey... a matter of shelf space I guess.

AS: You were pretty young, I remember it well and while it was going on I couldn't believe they could be so stupid. I can believe it now so what happened at the Jackson deal didn't surprise me at all. The fact is Jackson didn't particularly care for any of them or they for him - he was a tool and nothing more but they couldn't help themselves. It seems his kid wasn't too happy about it but I doubt it will change his mind about things generally. The inherited, conditioned.... call it dislike for white people... and non-black people generally. Generations of it are hard to overcome and there are always the Al Sharptons to keep fan the flames.

JM: Is it changing much as far as you can see?

AS: The fact that... well this is Donald Trump and he's not... he's a different animal, got a bigger part of the black and Hispanic vote than usual, whether or not that will continue... there seems to be more black people waking up but they're... the ghetto ones... are propagating faster.

JM: How can that be stopped if not reversed?

AS: I would like to think that some of the welfare reform... actually there haven't been any aside from some states stopping SNAP recipients from buying junk food with taxpayer money and that probably won't help much. Even if there was some real cutbacks - SNAP, HUD, Medicaid - in the red states the dependents will move to the blue states - not that it would be a bad thing - and the voter pool is more concentrated and easier to manage. If responsible people - the ones paying the taxes - would make more babies it would help some. And if enough illegals were removed it would help as the blue states lost Congressional seats and the reds gained them as they are now.

JM: What do the prospects look like at this time?

AS: The migration looks good and the redistricting probably will - and if that gets another couple of presidential terms there is some hope. Losing one or both houses of Congress will make it harder but at least... the next Democrat president will make sure, or try to.

JM: How?

AS: They started... made some clumsy attempts... with Biden. Rounding up thousands of people and throwing them into gulags, the lawfare - most directed at Trump but they used in a lot of smaller fish - and if there is a next time they will make that bunch look like amateurs. Mass arrests again, this time many thousands, and kangaroo courts to put not only Trump and kids away but others in the administration. And as I said it's unlikely all will go quietly.

JM: And it gets ugly.

AS: Yep. It would depend on some things, like how fast they moved and I suspect they would move fast. It would likely the same type of... some of the same people... in the Biden era. Essentially the mental age of junior high kids and not the top class it would be clumsy and .... they would have no idea what they were taking on.

JM: How much... do they underestimate...

AS: The general thinking seems to be - they don't base this on any scientific or statistical analysis - that they would simply roll over any resistance. Just start arresting people and locking them up and confiscating property - especially the big ones like Musk - and if anyone resists they get locked up if they're lucky and dead if they aren't. Dealing with the business people will be easier as they tend to be law-abiding and always hope to cut some kind of deal at worst.

JM: What about the other kind?

AS: That will probably vary - you got anywhere from ten to forty million people... some call them Bubba or Joe-Sixpack.... regular guys who for the most part don't pay attention until it's too late - they may vote but aren't that engaged. The kind that don't vote in the primaries and weed out the bad Republicans, and... anyway it changes suddenly and rudely. They're armed by the way, many heavily armed but all know people who have more guns if they don't have enough. I put the number closer to forty than ten by the way - say have thirty million.

JM: That's a lot of people to have mad at you, mad enough to shoot you anyway.

AS: The federal law enforcement numbers, FBI and all the others, is less than 200,000. There are about 400,000 local law - state, municipal and county. Some of the locals - big cities and blue states - will probably go along but the country ones mostly won't. Many would join the resistance.

JM: A couple hundred thousand against millions? How long before they impose martial law - or try to?

AS: Try. I describe that in MacArthur's Freehold but the League got control before they could find out. Pandora's Prysm begins about four or so years after they tried.

JM: I saw the outline - it seems rather... cursory.

AS: Yeah, I'm just starting and will add details as I make them up. The general flow is that resistance grows they start by using troops in the U.S. They still had over a hundred thousand in various places outside the U.S. but that left over a million inside, guard and reserves included. If a couple hundred thousand had near zero effect a million couldn't do more than deal with major hot spots. Handling the urban areas would take most of that and when the real threat is out there in flyover country... given the reality which they didn't or couldn't visualize... it would be like Vietnam times thirty. Guerilla warfare - they had over a half million in Vietnam.

JM: Youch.

AS: Yeah, like I said they fail to visualize the threat. There were a couple of things back in the day, mainly the Oklahoma City thing, that should figure into their calculations. One guy, OK two if you believe the official story, blew up a bigass.... (laughs) sorry a pretty huge building and killed a hundred and sixty-something people because the feds killed a couple at Ruby Ridge and eighty-something at Waco.

JM: Official story? I'm aware of the various theories - what do you think?

AS: The Oklahoma City thing doesn't pass the smell test and the feds confirmed it in some tests that leaked out. I discuss that in Balance of Power and a couple of other books. My theory there is that the feds learned of the operation and knew that that a ton and a half - OK they grew it to two and a half tons - would do that damage. So they stole the truck the day before and meanwhile added demo charges to the building and got the spectacular destruction. Poor old Timmy was driving around wondering what happened to the truck when it went up. So he headed out of town but of course he was under surveillance so...

JM: I liked that, creative intrigue and ironic outcomes... do you think it was like that?

AS: (laughs) Seriously? Idunno if it was exactly that or something similar but it's close.

JM: I found it fishy and I don't have your experience. I researched explosives and stuff like that and the official story is pretty lame. You didn't elaborate but you said something when talking about Jesse Jackson that intrigued me.

AS: The photo thing? Yeah, MLK is horizontal and Jackson and the other two are pointing at the building where the shot came from. One shot anywhere - even out in the sticks I can only get the direction - talking the four compass points with only one shot. In a city... they have equipment now that can do it but the human ear-brain can't do it...

JM: They knew.

AS: Yeah, I said I won't speak ill of the dead even if... they were all rotten but separating character and intent and eventual action is difficult at the best of times with conflicted people... people sometimes do the right thing for the wrong reason and may do what they wrongly believe is right even if their methods are wrong. They're all dead now and so it's between them and the final judge.

JM: Since you can't get inside their heads and see all the thought patterns it does seem rather a waste of time. We can only judge action or inaction and the results in our own time.

AS: Right. And that goes for everyone - the Bidens and Obamas and Clintons and both Bushes and Reagan and Trump. What's going on inside you - are you feeding the white dog of character and altruism or the black dog of base desires or emotions? I have come to believe that some people are intrinsically evil and our world today... we're more aware of it because we know everything - or are told everything according to someone - in near real time.

JM: The dogs of news media and social media. The constant fight is apparent.

AS: Yeah, that's for sure.

JM: Each side is so certain that they are right?

AS: Well, that goes into mental state. Probably a lot of the junior high intellects in high places - and government isn't the only place - started out as... I can't say good or bad at that age but innocuous maybe... but to me as you mature should acquire somehow the knowledge of good and evil so to speak.

JM: The idea of school kids, even high school - I found the speeches of the valedictorian speeches lame - running the government is scary.

AS: And that's what the Biden administration - actually Obama and to a considerable degree Clinton - was. Kids who thought they knew it all with the destiny of the Republic in their hands. Clinton was more naive but by Obama-time it was malicious and with Biden it was unadulterated hatred.

JM: And with their plans thwarted - briefly - by the return of Donald Trump - they are determined to never let it happen again.

AS: Right. That scares them and we still have three years to go. They can't risk losing the presidency again and they'll pull out the stops next time. And if they succeed the scenario I describe is highly probable.

JM: Any guesses on which way it goes?

AS: The Iran thing has got me uneasy... on the non-spiritual side. If it goes badly, and going badly may well be going on for more than a couple of months, it could cause problems. Things need to be looking good with the economy - and that means really good because the media disinformation will make it look bad to a lot of people - and no wars or bad things like a 9/11 happening.

JM: And a 9/11-sized event is how likely?

AS: Something like 9/11... that was planned for a couple of years during the Clinton administration and for whatever reason they pulled the trigger after Bush took office. Now it could be that it couldn't be done earlier or they wanted to do it to a Republican president... if something like that is going on how I hope it will have been uncovered. Quite a few small ones have been and some others were actually activated, some one-perp shootings. I don't see how something like that wouldn't be damaging, especially in the election year.

JM: What do you see on the spirtual side?

AS: That looks better and has for a long time. The lawfare failure, him being elected at all was so improbable, and then the assassination attempts failed. When he turned his head at just the right time and... (laugh) the result was that he survived and the... that may be the most iconic of iconic photos and... I'll admit I was still worried even after that but he pulled it off. So he seems to that light around him, and if it's meant to be it will be.

JM: If God is for us....

AS: Right. The signs I see in the population, the trans thing almost disappearing and actual lawsuits against some of the perps, and the medical industry backing away. The DOD... excuse me Department of War weeded out most of the poison with little blowback. I like the signs.

JM: Same here. Want to take a break?

AS: Yeah, sounds good. I happened to perfect frozen pizza preparation long ago.

JM: Cool.

Passing of Giants and some who won't be missed

Tuesday 24 March 2026 14:47:24 1774381644
Jessica's undisclosed location

JM: Beautiful day. That wind was crazy yesterday.

AS: Yeah, I'm always ready for that to be over but we've got a few left.

JM: And rain.

AS: That too. I'd like a mild summer with rain once a week but the farmers need more. Or the aquifer does.

JM: Cutting grass is so much fun though. But I have small yards at both places and the.... the company takes care of that. But I don't have acres and acres. Well, who was it that said he didn't hate anyone but he had read some obituaries with pleasure?

AS: Officially that belongs to Clarence Darrow and it sounds like something he would say. But he certainly isn't the only one to do so.

JM: The Monkey Trial guy?

AS: Yeah, that made him famous I suppose but the Leopold-Loeb case... the Scopes made him a hero to the left because he was defending the pseudo-science of Darwinism and a lot of people actually believe it no matter how often both Darwinism and the Big Bang get revised because actual science gets in the way... but in this case he was getting a couple of rich kids - sociopaths both - off the hook... or at least the rope while in those days you did the crime you did the time.

JM: What was the Leopold-Loeb case about?

AS: Back in the day mom worked for a small store to have something to do while Dad was away. They called them dollar stores but they weren't like the ones today - often just one store or at most several with one owner. They sold a lot of stuff they got cheap - liquidations and auctions as I guess some still do - and it was cheap stuff price-wise. I bought my first Bud Shank album there for a buck. And they had books like the records real cheap. One day - I used to go by after school and visit - I got a copy of the Chicago Crime Book.

JM: OK, I gotta ask you about the Bud Shank thing but first the Chicago Crime Book. What was that?

AS: It turned out to be a collection of stories from Chicago writers, reporters, from the 1930s or so. Mafia stuff of course - not sure if it was called Mafia then but Capone and that bunch - but there was a lot of other stuff, sensational Chicago crimes. And the Leopold-Loeb case was one of them.

JM: How did that go down? I confess to not being familiar with it.

AS: Two rich kids - their families were rich - killed a boy just because. Because they thought they were so smart they wouldn't be caught and that that they were smarter than anyone else and had a right to regard other people as expendable. They did the deed - got the boy into their car and killed him and dumped the body. Poured acid on his face and back then it might have delayed identification a while but as they say... like the guy in Body Heat, dunno if you saw that...

JM: Ummm, not sure. What was it about?

AS: So-so. 1980-something, before you were born. Kathleen Turner who was big around them and William Hurt. This low-rent lawyer is infatuated with this hot chick that's married to a rich guy. She wants to be rid of him and have his money and gets the low-budget lawyer to help do him in.

JM: That's pretty sick.

AS: Yeah, to normal people. Anyhow the low-rent lawyer isn't that smart and he asks a client some questions and the client - this guy is a defense lawyer so the client is a criminal tells him if he's thinking what he seems to be that 'if you go to commit a crime there's a hundred ways you can screw up and get caught and if you can think if ten of them you're a genius and you're no genius' or something like that. be that 'if you go to commit a crime there's fifty ways you can screw up and get caught and if you can think of twenty-five of them you're a genius and you're no genius' or something like that'. And that sounds abour right.

JM: Lemme guess, Leopold and Loeb screwed up.

AS: Yep. One of them lost his glasses at the scene of the crime. A rather unusual pair of glasses.

JM: Ouch.

AS: Yeah. And from there it fell apart because they couldn't keep their lies straight. So they confessed. They were rich and their families hired Clarence Darrow. They were dead-bang guilty and had confessed so all he could was try to save them from the noose. He did, allegedly ending with a twelve hour summation. That was to avoid the death penalty as they pleaded guilty and if they hadn't they probably would have swung as the Brits say.

JM: Twelve hours of explaining whey they shouldn't pay for their crime.

AS: Yeah, dunno long he talked at the Monkey Trial. Anyway they went to prison and one was murdered by another inmate ane the other was eventually released.

JM: Life doesn't mean right if you have money.

AS: Yeah, pretty sure that helped. Poor folks do the whole shootin' match unless they're so old and sick that they're harmless and an unwanted expense. Reportedly he - Leopold - continued to commit crimes but was never prosecuted. Died at sixty-six so spent half his life prison.

JM: How about obituaties? I know you want to talk about Chuck Norris - shall we get the bad guys out of the way first? Gosnell, Mueller and Radvinsky are a interesting set. I remember Gosnell - that was one of those things, you wouldn't believe it happened without the proof. But in your case there is proof but no one cares.

AS: No one cared about Gosnell either being where it was - Philadelphia - and the more abortion the better with those people. When it made national news and too embarrassing they prosecuted him. I suppose he was mental to some degree, or just a sick kind of evil, or since he was getting away with it...

JM: Finding line between crazy and evil - if there is one - can be hard. Clearly Jeffrey Dahmer was messed up but when you're raping and killing and eating young boys... I don't remember if they tried for insanity on that one.

AS: Me neither. Like Bundy too horrible not to put him away or in Bundy's case kill him.

JM: OK, Kermit - that was weird too - is off to his reward and it's not one I would want. Mueller got no sympathy from the good guys.

AS: Yeah.

JM: President Trump... I was a little surprised at the intensity.

AS: I was slightly but can you blame him. At first I thought it was fake but... anyway Mueller... he wasn't one of the prosecutors but instead of doing his job he smeared Trump and suggested impeaching him and they did. The whole thing was so fake that... I don't speak ill of dead people because when they're gone they're gone and anyway I spoke plenty of ill when he was alive and meant every word of it.

JM: He said nice things about Jesse Jackson even though... there wasn't really much if anything nice to say. But Jackson wasn't one of his persecutors.

AS: Right. These people... look Mueller was the one of his tormentors that had died and so Trump said what he thought. Fat Fanni and Fat Alvin and Letisha or whoever and Jack Smith - were trying take everything he owned and put him and some of his family away forever. I would speak some ill if I was him.

JM: (laughs) Fat Fanni and Fat Alvin? The ones in New York and Georgia?

AS: Yeah. Actually Fat Fanni says it's pronounced FAH-KNEE, there used to be something in Wickedpedia about some African mystical spiritual meaning or some such thing. She must be.... Idunno if Latisha in New York is dumber or they're about the same. Same for Fat Alvin - they're all low-intelligence type placed in those positions solely because - in New York because the ones running the show want a black woman and in Georgia because Fulton County.

JM: Neither seems very smart and the whole thing with Fanni and a boyfriend not really trying to hide the theft. As you said Fulton County - who's going to do anything? The state didn't seem interested.

AS: Georgia, governor and all are terrified to hold black people in those positions accountable because of the racism accusations they know are coming. Even now little if anything will happen and she will probably still be there years from now. She and whatshername, Latisha are not very bright and know they are where they are because they're willing tools. They hate white people and generally anyone smarter and more accomplished. They've accomplished nothing except being tools but they make a lot of money and graft a lot more. I don't like saying it but don't like it being.

JM: Mueller seems somehow pathetic. He was a tool too - got jobs in both the Obama and Bush administrations and afterwards went back to a lucrative law practice - just a continuation of the graft as you get business because of the connections.

AS: Yeah, why he took the job I have no idea. You're gonna be unpopular with one side at least and both if you don't deliver the desired result? If I had to guess... maybe he had it in for Trump even though he had offered him a job... he's a swamp creature and Trump isn't may be the reason.

JM: It seems reason enough for some people... a lot of people

AS: Quite a few. Anyway he cooked up stuff to prosecute a couple of Trump's people - I'm pretty sure he hated Manafort for the reasons the dims did, and what he did to Flynn... just evil. Destroying people's lives because... if he really did an investigation he knew it was all a hoax and maybe that's why he didn't dare charge Trump - trying to prove lies is risky. So he didn't but suggested impeachment. Yeah, I'd say he was evil. Know what's funny?

JM: I can think of a lot of things but I suspect you have something special.

AS: General Flynn and Paul Manafort are still alive - I didn't see anything on what they had to say but they have plenty of reason to enjoy reading the obit.

JM: I should think so. Who's left before the big one, oh the OnlyFans guy.

AS: Yeah, that one got the reaction one would expect. He died young from cancer and I don't celebrate anyone dying that way, months and sometimes of years thinking you may die and they you probably will die and they you know. As for his business - if he didn't do it someone else would have. It seems that he turned it into the cesspool that it is after he bought it so he has to account for that.

JM: Chuck Norris has a special place in both our hearts and many millions of others. The reaction was expected, millions of people loved him. What do you think made him so special?

AS: Generally he was a high-quality human being, the best kind. Real regular guy who didn't think he was special no matter how famous he became. If asked he would tell you what he thought about politics and that stuff but he didn't sling it out they way so many.... I guess they're still called celebrities. He quietly did a lot of good for a lot of people.

JM: Like Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall and others we've watched them approaching the end - Clint is still with us but isn't seen much - and knew that it would be time for Chuck but it's still sad even though we know they've gone on to something better. What was... you've told me you watched his career end to end... what did you think about it? Besides being spectacularly successful of course.

AS: I remember his first movie, or maybe his first credited role and Bruce Lee kills him. He wasn't a great actor in the early days and his martial arts skills were the main reason to cast him. Probably like Tom Selleck in his early days but both grew and while Tom had to escape being typecast because Magnum Chuck stayed with action stuff but some actors to choose what you might say is a narrow path. He was good at it and liked it.

JM: When did he turn the corner as an actor?

AS: Lone Wolf McQuade probably. Still not great but acting is hard to judge in beat'em up shoot'em up action stuff. His good looks and personal charm went a long way. And then about ten years later Walker.

JM: Massive success and not just action films. Actually being successful in television after just doing movies takes some doing I would think.

AS: Yeah, Chuck was the kind of guy who could do anything though. A world martial arts champion takes some doing.

JM: The memes were good and there were a lot. Affectionate and resectful.

AS: Yeah, he was one of the most likeable human beings there was. And seeing all the Chuck Norris jokes, some of the memes were like the jokes. It was a life lived well, one of the best ever.