Tag: Uniparty

The Power of No

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It never occurred to me that maybe the anti-McCarthy coup might actually have a chance to succeed but what if they did dig their heels in for a few weeks?  Maybe the rest of the House Republicans might start wondering if maybe there were a few more candidates that almost everyone could easily agree on.

It’s so pleasant to dream about what might happen if our elected “leaders” somehow developed backbone and started acting like leaders.  Of course, in reality most of them are either completely useless or worse.  They vary from hacks and grifters to actual sociopaths.  But maybe there are a few that want to do the right thing.  And if they show some resolve and take advantage of a rare situation where the actions of a few can impact a whole institution like the present situation in the House, then maybe something unexpected and positive might result.

Just for the sake of argument, suppose after a couple of weeks of yelling at each other behind closed doors, it occurs to some of the more moderate representatives that a more productive way of solving this problem would be asking each member to provide a list of names that they absolutely would refuse to vote for.  Taking everybody’s lists, they could then add up the negatives and disqualify anyone who had more than four no-votes against it.  Whoever is left would constitute a pool of names that had the potential to be approved.  Then after a couple of test ballots using that pool of names as the source, they could pretty quickly come up with the four or five names with the largest support and begin to do some horse trading to see who could become the Speaker.

Obviously, my idea would require that most of the Republican House members were reasonable human beings.  And we already know that’s not true.  I suspect at least half of them are nitwits.  But I’m sure that the more intelligent members of the group could persuade their more cognitively challenged brothers and sisters to follow some simple instructions.  Surely there are three or four Republican representatives who are both competent and haven’t sold their souls to Mephistopheles yet.  Jim Jordan is one name that has come up often.  Maybe there are some others.

The point is the MAGA wing of the party has found a silver lining to the 2022 mid-term meltdown.  Their 20-member coalition can wreck the Uniparty’s party.  Short of the GOP establishment letting a Democrat become Speaker, their backs are to the wall.  And if they did elect a Dem then the whole charade would be exposed and the Uniparty would be truly unmasked for all to see.  And from my point of view that would be almost as good as Jordan getting the Speaker’s gavel.

Now, this is all nonsense.  None of this will happen.  McCarthy will whine and hector the dissidents and they will be threatened by the donors who paid for their campaigns and eventually they’ll vote for good old Kevin.  But for just a day or two they did give me something to cheer about.  Listening to all of those politicians screeching apoplectically about irresponsibility and the storied history of the “People’s House” gave me a good laugh.

And who knows?  Miracles do happen.  Very rarely.  But not never.

03JAN2023 – Observations on Happenings in Washington

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The House Republicans are busy beclowning themselves but I’m happy at least there’s something of a pretense being made of demanding accountability from the leadership.  Making McCarthy sweat a little before he’s coronated Speaker of the House is healthy.  I don’t believe he’ll enact that rule change to allow the Speaker to be voted out based on a single rep motioning for it.  After all, after he’s Speaker he’s untouchable.  Why would he honor a promise he made while he was still just a mere mortal?  I guess the only reason would be because it would be such a clear proof to the electorate of his dishonesty.  But then again, they’ve already embarrassed him.  Maybe all bets are already off.  We’ll see.

My view is that the Republican House should use their majority to hold the line on everything.  They should produce a budget.  If the Senate doesn’t want to bargain then say too bad.  No continuing resolution, no nothing.  Shut down the government and let the Democrats sweat.  It’s their Senate and President.  Let them vilify the House but it’ll be two years before there will be any way to change the power structure.  Even if the American public sweeps them out of office for turning off the endless flow of entitlements the Republican House majority will have done what they were supposed to do, legislate and create a budget for this runaway bureaucracy.  What happens in 2024 is just another page in this fake script we’re trapped in.  At least they will have shown some honesty, which is in very, very short supply.  Let the Democrats have the whole federal government and let them bring this whole charade crashing down around their ears.

Without a brake on the actions of Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries we’ll be looking at hyperinflation and double-digit unemployment very soon.  And that’s what the American people voted for last year.  Or at least that’s what the poll results that we saw indicated.  It’s important that they get every last drop of the result they chose.  It should be clear as day what was selected; sky high energy and transportation costs, unreliable infrastructure and dead-end jobs for most of the population.  If that truly is what people want, it’s better for those of us who don’t share that vision to get it through our thick skulls that that is the future.  That way we can look for something better.

And as we head down that road, we’ll be able to at least enjoy the comedy that’s on full display from our elected officials.  An hilarious cavalcade of grifters, congenital idiots and just plain criminals who are busy selling off chunks of their country to the highest bidder.  And it just goes to show that individual honest men are completely defenseless against a government that has transformed itself into an organized crime syndicate.  It’s our version of the Baath Party with a revolving door full of Saddam Husseins switching out every four or eight years.  And who knows maybe even that charade will be dispensed with soon.

But while it holds out, I intend to savor every bit of the bathos and buffoonery.  Let’s hope Dementia Joe gets to finish out his term in January 2029.  By then both he and the country should be about the same; a gelatinous puddle of goo.  How could I ask for more than that?

Kevin McCarthy Struggling to Find Enough Votes to Become Speaker of the House

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Kevin McCarthy has so far been unable to assemble the 218 votes he needs to become Speaker of the House in January.  The usual suspects in the GOP establishment are wringing their hands and warning that to resist McCarthy’s accession to the Speaker’s gavel would be madness.  Some representatives who despise McCarthy have floated Steve Scalise’s name.

Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) said, “Steve Scalise is a good friend of mine, but he himself and many others have said they’re supporting McCarthy and will continue to support McCarthy. Again, there is no Plan B here. The plan is to get him elected as speaker. At the end of the day — we could be there two, three days — it doesn’t really matter. The majority of the conference understands that without him, we wouldn’t even be having this debate.”

That may be, but apparently McCarthy is worried and so he is making concessions to his opponents.

“The embattled California Republican is offering a congressional rule change that would make it easier to remove a House speaker in exchange for his ascension to the post. McCarthy’s offer would lower the threshold required for a motion to vacate the chair — a parliamentary gambit that forces a vote on retaining the speaker.

“Currently, because of rules change pushed through by Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, only a member of the House leadership can offer a motion to vacate. Conservative House Republicans are pushing for that standard to be repealed, allowing any one member to force a vote on the speaker at any time.”

Well, well, well.  Some of the new congressmen don’t want the establishment hack to sell out their constituents.  If you ask me that’s pretty damn good.  It may not accomplish a thing but it restores faith that not every last politician in Washington is a fink.

Look, McCarthy will end up the Speaker and he will cut the usual deals with the Democrats that sell us out and make him a zillionaire.  But the fact that some of the reps are even trying to get some leverage over their future boss is a minor miracle from my point of view.

It at least shows that there’s an awareness of what the voters think of McCarthy and so these reps are at least trying to show that they’ll do more than just stand by and let the Uniparty sell us out according to standard operating procedure.

This is hardly a stunning victory.  It’s not even a feel-good story.  Let’s call this a tiny first step in the right direction.  But it’s a nice sequel to the ejection of Liz Cheney and most of the other Never-Trump impeachment traitors.  Let’s just call it a little creative schadenfreude.

Guest Contributor – TomD – 13AUG2022 – MCCarthy and McConnell

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

If the Republicans prevail in the house and senate in the midterms but McCarthy and McConnell remain as the leaders, just look for more of the same. But if we could somehow get Rand Paul and Jim Jordan, it would be happy dance in the streets time.

Both these guys are fighters, the opposite of the current “leadership”. Have you ever seen more inept “leadership” than offered to us by Paul Ryan and McConnell in 2016-2018? They did nothing at all despite having the House, Senate and Presidency by substantial margins.

The current Dims hold all three branches but the two legislative branches by razor thin margins. Despite which, they are ramming incredibly destructive legislation down our collective throats. And all we have to counter them is the ineffective duo of McCarthy and McConnell?

What Passes for Logic in Academia

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I read an article entitled “Down With Primaries!” by some genius named Kevin D. Vallier who is an associate professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University who wrote a book called “Trust in a Polarized Age.”

This learned scholar wrote the following:

“Most democracies don’t have democratic primaries. By and large, party elites choose candidates, and the people then vote for the parties or the candidates. American democracy, by contrast, relies on popular primaries: Ordinary party members select the candidates, or we have open primaries, in which voters can select candidates from either party.

Why do we do this? American anti-elitism. We see party elites selecting candidates as corrupt backroom dealing. We don’t trust parties to evaluate candidates themselves, to help us make a better democratic choice.

Americans are wrong about this. We should abolish democratic primaries.“

You see the party elites are the ones we should trust to look after our interests.  Think of the last few presidents before Trump and ask yourself how that worked out.  George W. Bush and Barack Obama are the shining examples.

And then he gives examples to “prove” his point:

“Consider some recent illustrations. In 2016, GOP party elders would have blocked Donald Trump from the outset. I’m sure that many people reading this are still happy that Trump broke through as he did. But for most Republicans, and most of the country, this proved to be a bad outcome.

If Republican Party elders had had their way in 2016, Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush would have been the nominee. I have no love for Rubio or Bush: They are too hawkish for my tastes. But Trump damaged the country’s democratic system in ways that Bush or Rubio would not have done. Conversely, had Democratic Party elders not gotten their way four years later, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren might have been the nominee in 2020. If a strong left-wing candidate had become president, instead of Biden, most Americans would have regretted it.”

So from the author’s point of view Jeb Bush instead of Donald Trump would have been a win for democracy.  And Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders was also democracy in action.  Even though in each choice he is advocating for the less popular candidate.

Finally he sums it up:

“Backroom deals? They’re the stuff of democracies around the world – and of American democracy before the advent of the primary system. We should bring them back.”

It’s amazing what passes for political thought in universities.  So his thesis is that letting the parties give us the choices for president will make it more “democratic.”  Of course, what if the two parties are just two sides of the same coin; heads I win, tails you lose.”  Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle Dee work for the same masters and just act out parts that reinforce the script that we can change the conditions we live under.

Well, I have to assume “Professor” Vallier represents the pragmatic reality based side of academia and is considered a radical by the Bernie Sanders majority at his university.  All that tells me is that subcontracting to BLM to burn down the universities is a noble idea.

Tucker Carlson Provides an Excellent Discussion of Ukraine

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I think this is the best summary from a mainstream source that I have seen so far.  Carlson touches upon many of the important aspects of how this war is going to make our lives worse in the weeks and months ahead.  Energy prices, food prices and increases in everything else because of the impact of the price of oil.  And fundamentally, the increased risk of starting a nuclear war.  Tucker Carlson is probably the only mainstream source that provides this point of view.  Everyone else including the rest of Fox News is carrying water for the UniParty and their desire to start a war with Russia.

 

What Do the Poll Numbers Tell Me?

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For decades I’ve noticed that political polls in the United States had a very noticeable bias.  Depending on whether they were ridiculously partisan polls or just slightly biased they would skew more or less to the Left.  They were able to produce this bias by overestimating the percentage of the population that is Democrat and underestimating the Republican share.  And it was just assumed by me that we had to throw our own fudge factor in when trying to make sense of the actual political situation from these flawed measures.

But look at Joe Biden’s approval ratings on RCP now.

Polling Data

Poll Date Sample Approve Disapprove Spread
RCP Average 1/10 – 2/13 — 40.6 53.8 -13.2
Rasmussen 2/9 – 2/13 1500 LV 42 57 -15
Reuters 2/7 – 2/8 1005 A 43 51 -8
YouGov 2/5 – 2/8 1255 RV 41 51 -10
Susquehanna 2/3 – 2/9 800 LV 42 52 -10
Politico 2/5 – 2/6 2005 RV 41 55 -14
IBD/TIPP 2/2 – 2/4 1355 A 38 48 -10
CNN 1/10 – 2/6 1257 RV 42 57 -15
Monmouth 1/20 – 1/24 735 RV 38 55 -17
Insider Advantage 1/21 – 1/23 850 LV 40 59 -19
Harris 1/19 – 1/20 1815 RV 39 53 -14

 

These are horrible numbers.  And they’re close to accurate.  Rasmussen is one of the few pollsters that doesn’t favor Democrats.  He’s got Dementia Joe at 42 – 57.  CNN which is perpetually in the tank for the Dems has 42 – 57.  That’s not an accident.  Those are real numbers.  And why are they doing this?  Because Biden’s numbers with Democrats are terrible too.  Or in another way to look at it, a lot of the people who voted for Biden have switched parties.  The proportion of voters who claim to be Democrats has shrunk.  They’ve shifted to the Republicans or at least to Independents.  And they mean that they’ll be voting for Republicans even though they don’t want to be called Republicans because they’re women and they don’t want their friends to judge them harshly.

All this tells me that the midterms are going to be very bad for the Dems.  They will lose the House and the Senate.  I think that’s a given.  Does it mean anything more?  Only maybe.  It’s completely within the control of the Republicans to do what they typically do and blow this golden opportunity.  They can use their control of the Congress to collect fees from the donors and lobbyists, as usual.  They can ignore their duty and not thoroughly investigate and document for the American people the blatant and systematic voter fraud that happened in 2020.  Or they can for once act like the leaders of a free people.

Normally I’d say the chance of them doing the right thing was zero.  But things are significantly different this time.  Donald Trump refuses to let sleeping dogs lie.  He continues to rally the people to support efforts to investigate the 2020 election.  He continues to call out the RINO’s like Liz Cheney who support Democrat lies like the “Insurrection.”  And some of the state leaders are making the right noises too.  They are attempting to safeguard their election processes.

Putting all this together I’d say we’re at about a fifty percent chance of something good coming out of the present situation.  Admittedly that’s not a glowing prospect but compared to how things have gone for most of my life, it’s a reason to hope.

The polls actually give us good information for the first time in decades.  The people are pissed off.  Now it will take the politicians to get their act together.  Let’s pray that some actual leaders will emerge and use the opportunity.

The End of Summer

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August 31st isn’t the last day of summer.  It’s not even Labor Day this year, the unofficial last day of summer.  But flipping the calendar from August to September is a psychological milestone.  Even in an unusual year like this where the grass is lush and green and the flowers abound there are subtle signs that fall is imminent.  The days are already shorter.  Even on hot days the nights are cooler.  Some birds are getting ready to leave and some of the insect life is dying off.  The crickets and frogs are still singing but there is a certain desperate edge to their choruses.

So here we are at the end of the silly season and pretty soon politics will begin dominating the news as the pretend process of enacting all the psycho legislation that Biden and the rest of the nation-wreckers have teed up is displayed for us in the headlines.  And once that charade is done it’s time for the Republicans to miraculously make a comeback and win back control of the House and maybe Senate in 2022.  Of course, that won’t undo any of the damage done.  Fake elections will have been enshrined as the law of the land and various other atrocities will be enacted.  But, by gum, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell will be handing out PAC money to their loyal toadies the way nature intended it to be.  And then it will be time for Mitt Romney to start talking about Senate investigations into the failures in the Afghanistan withdrawal.  And the recommendations of that investigation will be to double the defense budget to make sure that next time we never leave a country like Afghanistan again.

But I’m guessing that a lot more Americans aren’t buying into any of this anymore.  A lot of us have seen this movie before.    Does anyone believe that our defense budget isn’t big enough?  Does anyone think we need another aircraft carrier?  Does anyone believe that we all need a third dose of COVID vaccine?  Does anyone believe that putting the first tranny Moslem on the Moon is what NASA should be doing with their budget?  Does anyone believe that eliminating all testing from our schools will bring about equal opportunity for kids in the ghetto?  Does anyone believe that defunding the police will make black kids safer?  Does anyone believe that mandating what percentage of women or minorities or sexual deviants make up the board of directors of a corporation will make it a more efficient or even a more moral company?  Does anyone believe that a country that has tolerated endless affirmative action is afflicted with “systemic racism?”

I could go on forever.  The point is we are reaching a tipping point.  Soon more people will be done with the charade than follow it.  At some point there won’t be enough people who believe in this stuff to keep the thing going.  More people will be looking for ways to avoid the fallout of living in a madhouse than will be trying to keep it going.  For instance, when public schools don’t teach, parents who care about their kids will opt out of them, even if they have to scrimp to pay for private schools.  Eventually the public school system will become untenable.  No employer will hire a public-school graduate.  The local taxpayers will refuse to pay the salaries of people who don’t perform any useful service to the community.

When a city defunds the police, the middle class will move out.  The very rich who can afford private security and the very poor who have no choice will stay.  But the city will become a dysfunctional wasteland the way Detroit has.

And the eventual outcome when these breakdowns continue long enough is that somewhere someone is going to see an opportunity to challenge the system and provide people with an alternative.  If a governor decides to insulate his citizens from the dysfunction that the federal government sponsors, he’ll be the most popular leader in America.  And if he succeeds in resisting the federal government in this effort more than half of the other states will join him.

And if no one comes along to do this a lot of Americans will leave.  We were born and raised in a free country.  If we’re going to be serfs we might as well go somewhere where they treat the serfs better.  We might as well go where they don’t indoctrinate our kids into believing that they were born evil because of the color of their skin.  And when we leave America will become Brazil.

Good-bye To All That

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I borrowed the title of this post from a book written by Robert Graves after the end of WW I.  Graves was referring to the smashing of the pre-war civilization in Britain after the horrors of the trench had discredited all the institutions that had led England into and kept it’s young men trapped in the meat grinder that was that war.

World War I had disillusioned a whole generation of men on the competency and legitimacy of the social order that had sent their generation to their deaths.  The fitness of the ruling class had been exposed as an illusion.  This radicalized the population and undermined the control that the old upper-class order had formerly possessed.

In a similar way, the Elites in both the Democrat and Republican parties and in the institutions that they control like the media, the federal agencies, academia and the corporate boardrooms have lost all legitimacy and competency in the minds of the normal members of the American public.

They’ve shown themselves to be completely incompetent at performing the functions they supposedly are experts at.  They can’t win wars.  They can’t be trusted to manage a pandemic.  They can’t maintain the economy of the most prosperous country on the face of the Earth.

The only thing they are competent at is dividing people into warring factions and rigging fraudulent elections.

If tomorrow, ISIS-K took General MIlley captive and demanded some large amount of cash, like fifty or a hundred bucks to get him back alive, sure I’d probably say we should pay it but I’d definitely recommend that we hold out for a price reduction.  But if they catch Pelosi, I’d tell them they can keep her.  I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for her.

So when the next atrocity occurs, when some Afghan refugee that they plunk down in San Francisco blows up the local gay bar in the name of ISIS, well, they can send the CIA or the FBI to Afghanistan to straighten things out themselves.  It’s not going to be my grandsons going.  I can tell you that for sure.

And that goes for the Ukraine or Belarus or Myanmar or any other “critical” hot spot anywhere on this planet.  If human rights are being wronged or women aren’t feeling empowered or LGBTQ people are having their feelings hurt, I recommend they call Putin or Xi.  I’ve lost all sympathy and motivation.  All of my sympathy and interest is concentrated on taking care of my own.  And anyone who wants to be included in that set, more or less, has to agree with me on what things are important.  And everyone else is on his own.

I used to be the most jingoistic American patriot I knew.  I thought Iraq and Afghanistan was payback for 9-11.  I imagined that George W Bush was going to hammer the bastards that attacked us so they’d never come back again.  Instead, he invited them into our country in unprecedented numbers and killed off our soldiers in an effort to make the middle-east into middle America.  And now they want us to care about Afghani refugees.  Let them go live with George Bush.

Being disillusioned is a gut-wrenching process.  But it also provides clarity and eventually that is valuable.  It won’t be so easy for the politicians to manipulate us next time.  And it won’t cost us as much money when we don’t have to pay to build up third-world hell-holes into modern countries.  Let the Iranians pay for the Afghanis to have internet access.  Let the Russians and the Chinese build and maintain sewage systems in Zimbabwe.

Come to think of it, let Merkel and Macron pay for the tanks to keep Putin out of Berlin and Paris.  I no longer see any rationale in maintaining those dying cultures.  They’ve already self-suicided by opening the floodgates to the third world.  I’m more interested in places like Hungary and Poland who take care of their own people.  I admire those countries and hope some areas of our own country will do similar things.

So, excuse me if I don’t watch the Olympics to cheer on the American athletes as they take a knee or turn their backs on the American flag.  Pardon me if I don’t support whatever charity is flying the rainbow flag over their headquarters.  Forgive me if I burst out laughing when some guy in a sun dress comes on tv to tell me how to raise my family.

I’ve said good-bye to all that and am ready to turn the page.

27FEB2021 – And the Truth Shall Set You Free

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Anyone older than thirty has probably seen the classic Peanuts cartoon of Charlie Brown and Lucy enacting the football fake.  Lucy tells Charlie Brown that she’ll hold the football for him to kick but when he is running full throttle and just winding up his leg to kick, she pulls it away and he lands on his back in confusion, pain and despair.  And the most horrible part is that this is the hundredth time that Charlie Brown has fallen for Lucy’s assurance that this time it will be different.  Schulz must have modeled this plot on Republican politicians and their voters.  The stupid party, and stupid refers to the voters not the grifters they vote for, have been falling for the football fake for about sixty years.

But hallelujah, for some of us at least, the game is over.  I don’t want to hear about the Supreme Court, balancing the budget or making the world safe for democracy.  All I want is revenge.  The only thing that will get me to the ballot box is voting out any Republican weasel that has stabbed us in the back.  I’d vote for an avowed cannibal if it meant I could banish Mitt Romney to the company of Salt Lake City Californians.  Hell, I’d vote for Caligula if I could see Liz Cheney deprived of a paycheck and forced to get a job as a DMV clerk.

Let’s face it, we live under a Uni-Party.  Giving it two names allows the actors to stage the little puppet show theater spectacle that they put on for our benefit.  Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy strut around waving their hands and then breathlessly report back to us on their efforts.  They admonish us to send more money and vote harder so that they can take back the Senate and the House in 2022 and finally make the world safe for mom, apple pie and the good old traditional Republican sodomites instead of these new-fangled, communist transgendered kind.  Once you’ve seen behind the curtain the only objective is figuring out how to expose the puppet’s strings so that the rest of the audience can share in the joke.

Here’s an example.  Liz Cheney is a neocon.  She hates Donald Trump because he knocked out Jeb Bush and prevented her from getting some cushy job in the Bush III administration’s intelligence apparatus back in 2017.  So instead, she’s dependent on the voters of Wyoming whom she despises to get her re-elected every two years.  Kevin McCarthy knows this but he gave her cover after she voted against President Trump in the Impeachment Show.  She should have been pulled out of her leadership spot.  Who knows, maybe letting her take a kick in the pants might even have allowed her to apologize to the voters back home, gotten re-elected and rethought her place in the world.  But McCarthy’s loyalty is to the system and Liz Cheney has connections to the system that are just as strong as his, maybe stronger, so he caved.

Now my loyalties are to normal people trying to make a living and raise their kids.  They are being assaulted on every side by every elitist run institution and by their camp followers in the managerial and bureaucratic establishments.  A Republican politician’s only motivation should be doing every single thing in his power to break the stranglehold these institutions have over his constituents’ lives.  If it’s not then he is just part of the problem.  And because he is flying under a false flag, he should be treated as all traitors are, with swift justice.  It’s the only way to discourage traitors.

So, there you have it.  We’re in no position to dream about the promised land where everything is run by our side and progressives are cast into the outer darkness and have to live on Styrofoam packing peanuts and wall paper glue.  Progressives run everything and our party is made up of finks and crooks.  But at least some of us know it.

And because we know what’s what, we can at least stop making our enemies our “leaders.”  We can at least withhold consent from those who hate us.  And maybe just maybe we’ll find some men who actually will help us.  Looking at the history of these things, it’ll probably be a Caesar.  He’ll want a lot.  But at this point I don’t think it could be any worse than what we have now.  I’m willing to roll the dice.

So, let’s say this is an optimist’s take.  At least now I won’t be kicking at any imaginary footballs.