Sanders?

So for the last few weeks all I've been hearing is if Sanders is the nominee, he loses. The Sanders supporters have been saying, "look at the poll numbers, Sanders is better than Biden across the board!" Meanwhile, the people who are so interested in poll numbers when they agree with them, totally blow them off when they don't, and with Sanders, they don't.

Does any of this mean anything? Well yes. If you're a Sanders supporter, right now, you're pretty happy, it looks like he's going to win the primaries if not the nomination outright (does he get enough for the first ballot?). If you're anti-Sanders, you've got a problem because right now none of the other candidates are holding with him (Pete is closest, but does that hold?) and none of them are in position to catch him with all these people still in. So moving from right to left center, here are the others still in and what I think they need to get the nomination.

Joe Biden needs an act of God. He doesn't look good out there, and while he doesn't have the same mileage at Bernie (the oldest guy running) Joe's trip has been a lot rougher.  Bernie looks like he did a decade ago, Biden looks like a cousin of the Crypt Keeper. Joe Wins if everyone else drops out.

Mike Bloomberg also needs an act of God. As the next oldest guy running, he's also got some baggage from New York he's hauling around and looked like he was in an excitement contest with Fritz Mondale and Al Gore at the Vegas debate. The part going for him is his commercials are great. I don't think that's close to enough. He's too early to pull a Jesse the Governor Ventura. Bottom line, he' already spent over $100 million, and has high single digits in response.

Pete Buttigieg is closer, but needs a larger group to get back in this. He needs a couple dropouts, and maybe he can get somewhere. He also has a negative politically, he's gay, and that's going to turn people away. Fortunately, the vast majority of those people won't vote Blue anyway, so mostly irrelevant.

Amy Klobuchar is in serious trouble and needs drop outs to stick around. She may be the best option to Bernie, but right now, isn't there.

Elizabeth Warren is done. The only way she wins is if Bernie drops, then his support (most of it) goes right to her. Without that, I don't see she has a chance.

(note, Amy and Pete may be out of order, they're pretty close)

All that out of the way, can Bernie beat Trump?  Yes. and if you doubt that idea, turn your clock back 4 years and tell me if you thought Trump had a chance. Most Democrats didn't. He was a joke in the primaries, then started winning those, then was a joke for the general election until he won.

That's my current prediction for the primaries.

Decapitation

(acronyms at the bottom)

Okay!  Richard Grenell is the new acting DNI. Why is he the acting one? Because he wouldn't get confirmed. He was close on approval for Ambassador to Germany, and you're going to tap a guy with zero intel work and his diplomatic work consists of being ambassador and pissing off members of the host nation to the point he's hovering about the edge of the warning track to get PiNGed. Just like at Wrigley, a stiff breeze either keeps the ball in, or sends it onto Waveland, Grenell is a decent gust from landing in the bleachers.

So maybe this is a way to keep him in government after the Germans kick him out for goosestepping, but that doesn't sound like a good reason to give him not a plum, but a live grenade, so why would Hair Furor hand it to this guy? I mean aside from him being a convert to the Orange. How about, he has asked for the CIA files about the Russians and the election and he can either get all of the people who worked them RIFed out, fired, or even burned.






That last one stands out, and damn well should, burned. Everyone who has watched a Mission Impossible movie knows what getting burned means. It means you get retired (Valerie Plame) or you get killed (William Buckley), and those are OUR guys. Those aren't the guys they got info from, they're the ones working the contacts like an operator is supposed to.

The guys they were getting their info from? They're gone, never trusting us because their handler just got tossed. Or gone, never hearing from us again after their handler got tossed. Or dead, because their handler got tossed and their government had no idea the guy they went fishing with worked for the CIA.

If anything SQUEAKS from Grenell/Patel (Patel is Grenell's new right hand, sent to him via Devin "I'm suing a cow" Nunes), then we know that scenario just went into play. And this is something I 100% expect. Grenell is going to use the job to get rid of the "disloyal people." Either himself or by sending names over to the White House. They will decapitate our ability to obtain and process information in any area where someone has done something to upset, or say something that Trump doesn't like.




They are actively weakening the security of the United States to further Trump's personal agenda.


Acronyms!
DNI - Director of National Intelligence, the job was specifically created to deal with things like inter-agency fights (CIA vs FBI vs ATF vs NSA vs ETC) after 9-11. The CIA had pieces and the FBI had pieces, this position and surrounding Office (ODNI) were created to put those kinds of things together and hopefully stop the next attack.

PiNGed - Persona Non Grata-ed. Told by the host country, "We don't accept you as the Ambassador, or member of their staff at the embassy, get the hell out of our country." It isn't common. After the 2016 election and the Russian interference, Obama shut down two Russian missions, ejecting their staffs. I'm not sure when the last time before that we did it, and ejecting the Ambassador specifically is a doozy.

RIFed - Reduction In Force. Think government layoffs and you've got it in one.

Time Killers

Since I've got a lot of it, and not much I can do that doesn't put me on the ground in pain, things that occupy time are of some import.

Music is a nice one, there's so much, and so much out there that's fantastic, that it's hard to pick individual things. That said, the Grateful Dead music archive is one of those things that's great. Why?
Because a) the Dead was primarily a touring group. They'd go out for a couple months, take one off, rinse repeat. The number of shows they did is enormous.
Because b) the Dead allowed a "taping section" where people would come in and record the show. They LET people do this!
Because c) all that stuff has been getting digitized, and the band is still saying, yeah, trade the stuff, cool.
It is here. https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead

What else can I do without going very far. I'm playing Magic online. The company has finally built a stable expandable platform, so now I can play, even if I can't shuffle cards well anymore. That one can be, but probably wouldn't be, free. It's an addictive card game and has made Hasbro into the absolute kings of the games world. That one can be found here.  https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena

It's been a long week.

Treason

The Constitution says the following about treason, one of the few crimes mentioned:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Here then is the question. If a foreign power is attempting to change election results, is that levying war or not? And, if a foreign power is attempting to change election results, and a citizen aids them, is that "aid and comfort"? I'm not certain on the first part, but the second is not as ambiguous, yes, if a foreign body is changing the results and you help them do it, that's treason.

The suggestion has been made that the new Acting DNI, Richard Grenell, was placed there to continue to block any action on election security. The intelligence services are in uniform agreement that the Russians are gearing to interfere again. Bluntly, Grenell was placed there to ensure the Russians succeed.

This matters. Grenell is far from an experienced diplomat, there are entire parties of the German government who want his standing as ambassador revoked and him sent on the next plane out of Berlin. The rest of them want him gone, but don't want to piss us off showing him the door. He has no intel background at all. In short he comes nowhere near the background or ability the position asks for. So what is he doing there?

Well, the outgoing DNI Joseph Maguire a week ago went to the Hill and gave a committee a briefing in the SCIF room, just like all of these guys are supposed to do from time to time. Think of it like the State of the Union, but in this case, it's State of the Intelligence Community. That's not quite it, but it's close enough. So as part of this meeting, he flat out said, yes the Russians interfered in the 2016 election. They've been saying that for years now.

I think we all know who has an electoral college map with him everywhere he goes, and hearing that about the Russians? He was done with that with Mueller! One pissed off Orange Ogre later, and Maguire is gone to be replaced by Grenell. Except Grenell has no idea what he's doing other than smooching said Ogre's morbidly obese ass.

Result, the election systems continue to be un-upgraded, and Vlad's minions are getting ready to run rampant because Donnie made sure it wouldn't get fixed. If a foreign body, Russia, is changing the results, and Trump and Grenell are ensuring that nothing happens to stop that (they've only had three years), and the bill dealing with it from the House is being used as toilet paper by Mitch Mc🐢.

The level of mendacity from the White House makes this a real question. As Grenell is not stepping down from his Ambassadorship to take DNI, it leaves the entire community without the rudder that was supposed to prevent the next 9-11, and says he's not looking at security at all, he's busy at a revival of Cabaret.

Trump Sucks

Let's start with the first thing. Guys? Do you wear makeup? I mean if you're going on TV, in the studio, sure. You're doing community theater (or you're a pro). yep. You're going golfing? uhhhh. When you make Hulk Hogan look a normal color, you've done something wrong, and folks, the Hulkster is looking pretty normal colored next to this guy.

Next, I can't wear one of my baseball hats anymore. Red hats are the new White Hood. Any questions? I don't care. The people wearing those and their "fuck the libs" shirts to this guys rallies have something wrong. If your enjoyment is the suffering of others, well, this ain't a place for you. You've abandoned being human.


By the way, when you abandon being human, well, that sky dude pulls out the Sodom and Gomorrah smiting crap. Also by the way, they didn't get blown up for buggery, they got blown up for refusing to help their fellow human (and I don't mean beggars, I mean Jim Crow). Also by the way, the expression "by the way" was originally a reference to the way of the Lord, so I'm using it quite correctly here, referencing the actions of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God (also correct, it all comes out of Abraham, so all the same God, just different angles on the topic, and no, you're not going to change my mind, so don't even try).






And man I haven't even gotten to the guy aside from the makeup. Where to start with The Donald. How about with this. Donald Trump was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and when they pulled it back for his first bottle, he'd turned it to lead. He blew through billions of his fathers bankrupting casinos, and turned Atlantic City into a wasteland doing it.

He's pretty much every single thing you don't want your kids to be when they grew up. He's a loudmouthed idiot, who even when he probably knows what he's talking about (rarely), lies like a rug. You can't take a single word out of his mouth as true, sometimes it's going to be, but that's going to be happenstance.

I keep wondering who he's going to start a war with and nuke. My guess is Iran. He's already tried once (and while I don't miss Sulemani, let's call it what it was, a premeditated hit), and I'm sure he's going to try again. He's the most dangerous man on the planet because he has both the means and temperament to open Pandora's box back up. No one else has both.

I could keep rolling on this, but frankly, Rick Wilson is funnier, so go read his Twitter feed. And that's a lifelong Republican skewering Trump like he's making kabobs.

Have a good night, and I'm still pissed about my hat.

The Editor

The sun was shining brightly. It was a September morning and Jeffery Taylor was on his way to work. Sadly, neither Jeffery Taylor, nor his job exist anymore. His job was editor. And it would be much appreciated had word processors with spell checkers and grammar checkers not driven them to extinction.

So what the hell am I talking about now? Well, for you fiction writers out there, this is someone you're going to want to know well, it's someone who is more than a proof reader, but not like the editors of old, those guys got paid. It's also not something you can do as a qriter.

It's not what? We'll get back to that in a second, but what you see there is something I typoed, the spell checker caught it, and I could have fixed it, but didn't so I could make this point. This is the kind of thing a proof reader used to catch (another extinct job), and something your guys will catch too, but that's not what you want/need them for.

Back to why it's not something you can do as a writer. There are very few people on the face of the planet who can write something, then read it as if they were looking at it for the first time, and are functional humans. As the writer, you're going to be trying to edit it, and at the same time, you're going to be remembering what was going on when you wrote it., and that's going to have a huge impact on what hits the final cut.

I'm not saying don't go back after your drafts, do. There will be things you put it in that don't work. Spots where you had a word you were searching for and couldn't remember. Whole sections that make you think, "and this is why I shouldn't try to drink like Faulkner." Those you can fix in draft revision. What you can't do is that part about the fresh eyes.

That used to be part the friends/family (who are still important, even more so now) but if you were getting published, the publishing house had editors who would tell you, "This section is slow, that section is good, and I don't think you should drink like Faulkner because this section? This is just... Tell you what. Throw this whole crap section out, now you figure out how to connect the ends."

You need that guy. That guy is extinct. Like I said earlier, somebody just got more important.


And none of this deals with the most important guy for getting published, an agent. I haven't been published but know a couple people who have, and they are universal, if you want to get published, you need an agent, without one, you won't even find the door in.

Wherin I don't have Writer's Block.

The topic of writer's block is a frequent one, with people staring at a blank page and no idea what to do. My uncle, a published writer, says just start something. Anything. Once things start moving, they tend to gather a bit of life of their own and keep going. So a shopping list, the dinner party invitations, cousin Judy's birthday card. Anything.


My version of this is a simple sentence that could go anywhere. The classic Bulwer-Lytton line, "It was a dark and stormy night." is one of these, but sets a mood going in, and oh yeah, it's the tag line for the worst opening sentence annual contest so that's out. That doesn't mean the idea is without value.

The sun was shining that Saturday. It was crisp, actually outright cold, and windy. Those two factors combined such that the church attendance for the funeral of Eldon Miller was a decent crowd, 143 people showed, but by the time the procession reached the cemetery for the burial, only 18 remained, including the pastor, pall bearers, his daughter by his first marriage, and a few of his old ex-co-workers. And one person none of the others recognized.

So I used "The sun was shining that Saturday." When I started the paragaph, I knew I was going to have it be the funeral of  some guy (Eldon), but I didn't know I'd toss in the pall bearers or Mystery Person until I did. So where does it go? Anywhere. I could go with Eldon, or Mystery Person, or the daughter, or... how old was this guy? The daughter? By this time though, you should be unclogged and able to get to what you want.

Let us write

I've been told the act of writing depends on the act of doing so (and based on my blog, I obviously haven't). So, I bookmark here and write today and do some more the day after. And the day after that.

Why? Don't I have anything better to do? No, I don't, and if you go read the thing before this about pain, you'd get an idea why.

Right, I'm planning to do longer bits than this, but I'm a combination of frazzled and exhausted stacked on a constant 4 on the pain scale (you wrenched your ankle, not quite sprained but not good, and have to walk two miles on it), and I'm flat outta gas.

Tomorrow.