So here's the Heir's promised followup to our Hail To The Chief a week ago.  As was with Obama, the Heir fully expects the progressives to tear Biden apart on anything they can, just because they could.  He doesn't buy, even for one second, that the progressives have somehow miraculously gained some measure of magnanimity because of the country's experience with Trump.  He highly doubts the progressives ever said, oh, I guess it's partly our fault Trump got in there and was as bad as he was.  Maybe if we as a movement didn't get with Big Tech or Ed Snowden, or looked the other way when the culture was steeped in personal corruption during the 2010s, unreparated in the 2020s, maybe we wouldn't have had Trump, but now that we have, now we should probably make some kind of concessions???  No, ain't gonna happen, is the Heir's thinking.  Instead, he fully expects the progressives to use a kind of "born-again" logic that somehow the past doesn't "objectively" exist, and therefore any of their actions in that same past they don't need to be held accountable.  So one way in which the Heir's observing the progressives making good on their upcoming War On Biden is via the social justice issue, in trying to kind of focus-group the talking point of Not Good Enough.  What if Biden's DOJ under either Merrick Garland or Mr. Garland's current acting predecessor implements all of BLM's recommendations they issued last year to answer for and prevent excessive force?  Not Good Enough.  What if Biden indicates he would never legalize pot nationally or Defund The Police?  Well then he's just Trump Lite.  This is probably tentative, and maybe not the final Anti-Biden Progressive talking point that would actually pick up steam, but the Heir's 90% sure there's going to be something.  And once there is, he's not going to be the least bit surprised.

The Heir believes that the coverage regarding these new variants is considerably blown out of proportion.  Because he heard it on audio, he's able to isolate where he thinks the media got it wrong.  If there was accompanying visual, everyone else is going to go, oh my gosh, there's these variants, we're all doomed!  Instead, he believes this to be a case of Mozart Study Syndrome, in which the layperson media glances over a synopsis of initial studies done on the variants, and comes up with an almost completely different takeaway from the study writers' own conclusions, and then put words in the writers' mouths accordingly.  Like with the Mozart Study back in the 90s, the Heir hopes the writers will come back and say, no we never said the variants were "more contagious," we said it could be more easily caught for those who don't have the proper antibodies, as opposed to the coronavirus proper, or something that's similarly nuanced and measured as per actual professionals' wont.  So the Heir thinks the media should honor the memory of Jamal Khashoggi, and not give themselves a black eye for their tendency *not* to level with their readers/listeners when it comes to medical accuracy.

We wish Biden/Harris the best of luck.  We do expect to follow up in coming days about what the Heir at least thinks we should expect for a post-Trump America.  Stay tuned.

We at the Bachelor condemn the violence at the Capitol a couple days ago, even though the Heir wasn't entirely sure it was over until about this morning.  But he wants to add a couple points to let all of you know that this isn't your boilerplate condemnation.  He also criticizes the progressives' apparent stance leading up to the riots of "our criticism of Trump was only and cynically political all this time so now that he's leaving office let's pretend he never existed."  The Heir's pretty sure that if the progressives really cared about law and justice, they wouldn't have turned a blind eye to what one in hindsight might see as discernible signs that something bad was going to happen in the form of Trump Pardonees like Michael Flynn, and George Papadopoulos, and the Heir's thinking also Roger Stone making speeches at rallies preceding the riots, one of which was the one that Trump made the apparent incitement to violence.  Seeing how at least five people died, including a Capitol police officer, the Heir's wondering whether those Pardonees could be implicated in involuntary manslaughter type charges, as well as aiding and abetting incitement to violence, thereby undoing their pardons with new charges.  If so, the Heir doesn't think the prosecutors should hold back on the Pardonees' criminal records in an opening statement in a trial, even on things they were pardoned from.  It's important that in this way at least the law not recognize the pardons.  The Heir believes the pardons were corrupt simply because Trump made them, period, because the crimes that were pardoned are a bad example for the children.  It's not even about a specific theoretical reason why Trump made the pardons, so the Heir thinks the analysts need not look too deeply into that.  So you heard that one right, that the Heir is getting with the Rachel Lovejoy defense, What About The Children.  Interestingly, the Heir observes that's the reason Betsy DeVos gave for her resignation, that she sees the riots themselves as a bad example for impressionable children, the Heir not being a Betsy DeVos fan by any means, seeing how Marco's Grandmother wants DeVos on charges for the past four years.  So besides getting me the Mentor to post the above, the Heir's thinking about what kind of actionable response he wants to write to his congresswoman with.

"Okay, Mentor, gimme some good ideas on this one.  Oh I meant to say please on that one, and to have reworded my request entirely so I'm not looking like such a spoiled brat, so that Trump isn't being a bad influence here.  Remember that thing at the Boy Scouts jamboree four years ago?  What was he *thinking*!?" 

 Happy New year from The Bachelor!

So here's the Heir's take on predictions that China will overtake the US economically by 2030.  Even if it does happen in the way the economists forecast, the Heir doesn't believe it'll last, maybe 2-3 years at the very most, and then he believes the US and China will be roughly tied for first before swapping first place every other year or so.  The Heir references the Atlantic article Why The US Will Outcompete China along with a Pew Research poll showing Unfavorable Views Of China Reach Historic Highs, but he also cautions the westernized type-a economists not to view cultural interactions with the severely limiting assumptions as he sees them doing.  For one thing, those who care about ongoing US independence need to brainstorm those things the US can do that China can't and never will.  For example, free speech and free and fair elections.  This past election the Heir observes as the most secure election that has possibly ever taken place.  This should set aside our reservations about our election process enough for China to be sick with envy that we even have elections at all.  Secondly, free speech demonstrations like the ones with Black Lives Matter.  Even with things like Lafayette Square, you still can't have our kinds of demonstrations in China.  If you tried, BLM's leadership would be captured and tortured and held indefinitely in a labor camp.  That's something China should be ashamed of, and should be dangled in front of them any time they want to play economic hardball, because then we'd make it clear to them we know whom we're dealing with.  This is the reason why the Heir believes China is in the basement on public opinion around the world as per the Pew poll, because public image does ultimately matter if China wants to do business with the free world.  Thirdly, the US stands ready to have its first woman of color head of state.  Maybe there was a 2 year empress in China's history 2000 years ago, but nothing like that in the past 100 years.  And you're never going to see the first Uighur Chinese president or the first Tibetan Chinese President like the way we had the first black President in 2008.  These the Heir points out as reasons why if China has any real hope of competing with the US economically, they also have to compete culturally, and that they can't do without a Chinese perestroika of some sort, which China already ruled out in the 2000s under Hu Jin Tao.  So the Heir proclaims, China take your first place if you really think it'll do you any good, because you should be careful what you wish for.

The Heir believes we as a culture need to be more proactive about the Trump Pardons, and is proposing, among other things, a Pardon Watch Committee.  He doesn't have specifics as to who should be on this committee or a charter, but for every hardened criminal Trump pardons, the Heir wants this Committee to propose alternatives for legally pursuing each criminal, until the very last one is brought to justice.  This he sees as an alternative to the more mild objections or endless analysis of the pardons, because he sees the analysis type responses as a waste of time.  The Heir observes that there are number of legal tools at the Committee's disposal, including pursuing state and local charges, bringing class action suits to the criminals' estates, and organizing protests outside each public appearance the criminals make.  One detail the Heir is 70% sure about is the estate suits, because it means America can pursue the criminals even beyond the grave.  He ensures that death is not the ultimate pardon on any given criminal, and that a response to an out-of-time criminal death be officious in nature.  In short, the Heir wants to make it clear to Stone/Flynn/Manafort that they will find absolutely no peace or comfort in the Trump Pardons.

"...until the very last one is brought to justice."

The Heir wants to respond to something an acquaintance of his said online regarding crime.  That person seemed to imply that just because crime stats have been steadily going down over the past 20-30 years crime itself shouldn't be taken seriously enough.  A person replied to the acquaintance saying that concerns about crime are only signs of emotional insecurity on the part of the concerned, and that it's indicative of a certain group of people.  The Heir has never believed that the progressives really believe in law or justice, and with this one he believes they proved it.  For one thing, it's been observed that any time you see crime stats, it's only *reported* stats.  There's crime that goes on that never gets reported, so the Heir doesn't think the decline in statistics is meaningful for this reason alone.  Also, it's never been unusual for progressives to dismiss the concerns of others that the progressives themselves don't share.  So much for compassion.  It was four years ago that the Heir really laid into one of them regarding the importance of sincerity on the part of public figures.  That person dismissed the value of sincerity as something that the Attack Dog News Network would value, but the Heir said, no it's not about the Attack Dog Network, because *I* value sincerity in public figures.  That person looked real embarrassed when the Heir told him that.  So now just before the New Year after a major election, the Heir's looking at those junk political emails that keep getting sent, and now he has an idea that he'll unsubscribe from most of them.  He sees it as a way of getting out of certain kinds of bad relationships.  He doesn't owe the progressives.  He believes they owe *him* and all Americans, and since they've not conceded accordingly, he wants nothing further to do with them.

Indications are to the Heir that the progressives essentially want to act as if Trump never existed once Joe Biden is inaugurated, and the Heir is having none of it.  All it does is confirm to the Heir that for all intents and purposes, the progressives don't care about justice.  I the Mentor will this time around spare you the Heir's rantings about the progressives' connections to Ed Snowden, and how they seem to want to release all offenders no matter how serious the crimes are they committed.  No, instead the Heir wants to remind everyone to heed and follow the Trump Trial once that takes place.  It'll be today's version of the Nuremberg Trials, because the Heir wants to prosecute Bill Barr, and those other trials that Manofort/Flynn/Stone are going to face.  The Heir is going to read the Riot Act to anyone who prefers the Cannibal Son Trial to the Trump Trial.  After all, the Cannibal Son is not suspected of or indicted on financial fraud charges, tax fraud, band fraud, insurance fraud, money laundering.  As the Heir heard Glenn Kirshner say, "Justice Is Coming."

We in the Bachelor offer our congratulations to Joe Biden for winning the election.  It wasn't this landslide as hyped, but we'll take it.  Best of luck to you and your upcoming presidency.

Happy Bachelor Election Night 2020

On the congressional level, the Heir sees the election as a case of Progressive Hubris.  He gets the impression that they sent AOC all over the country even after the Bernie Failure in Michigan back on May or so.  AOC really has no clout outside of her own district, and the Donkeys For The People lost 5 seats when they should have gotten 20 or so.  The Heir is also going to pull the rug out from under Jaime Harrison for that ageist remark he made on Colbert about Lindsey Graham as being "a relic of the Old South."  From that page titled "South Carolina Voter Registration Demographics," the Heir estimates the median age of registered voters to be 58 or so, so you have to watch what you say around the older folk there, since they're largely the ones doing the voting.  That too is a progressive sin, to not just appeal just to younger voters, but to make youth itself a political issue in such a way that the 50+ people feel snubbed and disincluded.  Looks like they've showed the progressives in South Carolina at least.  So that's what the Heir believes the largely progressive intellectual class associated with coastal universities need to put in their pipe and smoke.  As for the Trump-Biden contest while votes are still being counted as of this writing, the Heir doesn't believe it should be as close as it is, mail-in ballots notwithstanding.  He thinks the election should have been over at 9:30pm Election Night with just 12% of all votes counted if what both progressives and conventional wisdom types said was true, that the coronavirus should have killed Trump politically.  Instead, the only credible theory the Heir can come up with is that people are just as likely to vote for a ham sandwich, and do absolutely no measure of merits on a given candidate, that they think nothing of walking into a booth blindfolded and hitting voting machine switches at random.  Those who wish to conserve did it with Trump, and the progressives did it with AOC (and did we also mention Ed Snowden as well???).  But unlike the Westernized observers, the Heir is already looking to the 2022 elections, the year of Soylent Green.  For one thing, he's pretty sure the Russians will get tired of trying to hack us by 2022, but he's also sure that the Elephantine Elitists are likely to pick up 5 seats in the Senate that year, because he's sure the Donkeys For The People will have far more seats to defend than the Elitists will.

Bachelor Election Night 2020

Earlier this evening, the Heir had tea and muffins with Marco's Grandmother, after food shopping for her at Bland Barns.  He expressed his concerns that I the Mentor relayed here on this shares base that people like Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn are heading for not only a pardon, but a complete vindication of a get-out-of-free-jail-card.  Marco's Grandmother reminded him that the charges we hear being made against Manafort Stone & Flynn are not necessarily the only ones, and that additional charges may be pending.  Granted, we're not going to readily hear about those charges for two reasons.  Firstly, the prosecutors don't want to tip off the suspects with what they're working on.  Secondly, Pat Fitzgerald mentioned 15 years ago that the way our system of justice works, if someone's suspected of a crime, the prosecutors don't hold that information up for the public to look at.  They either charge them with a crime, or they don't.  That said, the Heir still wants there to be actual substantive reassurance that MSF won't automatically come off the hook in the case of a pardon, and until he actually hears some, he's going to assume the opposite.  That's probably partly because that the Insurgent Network, for its occasional emphasis on legal eagle geek type analysis, also portrays MSF as absolutely walking in the case of a pardon or some other technicality.  So if that technicality happens, and additional unrelated charges get announced shortly thereafter, the Insurgent Network has to explain to Law And Justice types like the Heir as to why they got it wrong.  Also, the Heir still sees society as personally corrupt because of how the 2010s happened, with the forced obsolescence of Big Tech, and Ed Snowden, and the recruiter spin of "the power of positive thinking."

The Heir: "Hey Mentor.  When we complete The Great Walkup to the counter, let's ask the Chef that if we do nail MSF on those upcoming charges, why did things like forced obsolescence and personal corruption ever happen to begin with?"

So the Heir's going to pull a Flaileef here, and bomb-blast the Donkeys For The People for not doing enough to stop Amy Coney Barrett from going on the Supreme Court.  One of only two things he heard out of Chuck Schumer is that one decades-to-come style talking point.  This is the one where they say Person X going on the Supreme Court would have ramifications for decades to come.  The Heir takes this as disingenuous, because *any* time Person X goes on the Court, it has ramifications for decades to come, though historically the Heir sees that more often than not, "decades" is an exaggeration.  Look at David Souter.  He was only on the Court for two decades, and the Heir isn't going to let the Chuck Schumers of the world get off the hook with saying, yeah but two decades is still decades.  That's because they know full well when you hear "decades to come," you tend to think 3, 4, 5 decades or something, to the point where you'd have an 80 year old Amy Coney Barrett still going strong in, what, I guess that would be 2050 or something?  But what if Justice Barrett also decides to leave relatively early?  That would blot out all conformist analysis.  And here's the other thing Schumer said the Heir wants to go after him for.  It was something to the effect of, you may think this will blow over, but the American people will remember.  The Heir doesn't think the Elephantine Elitists think things will blow over, since if the conventional wisdom is correct, the Elitists put Justice Barrett up there for the purpose of apparently weaponizing the Supreme Court as a kind of third house of Congress, and supposedly for "decades to come."  So that's why the Heir is asking state governments that are trying to make advances in affordable health care and affordability at large and improving people's live to get ready to defy a given decision by the Supreme Court that is perceived to be a purely political move to interfere with those advances.  The Heir also wants the remaining "liberal" Justices in their dissent in such a politicized decision to write that dissent to be actionable by the state governments, as if the dissent were the decision itself.  It's kind of a shame that it may come to that, because it means that the Supreme Court will cease to be the respected institution it is today, as opposed to a bureaucratic obstacle to be done away with like the way people seem to see the Electoral College as being.  That's why we in the Bachelor want to emphasize things like jurisprudence and respect for precedent over weaponized politicization.

"Poh Lit Tiss So Sigh Zay Shun."

We in the Bachelor encourage Cy Vance to appeal his case against Paul Manofort to the New York State Supreme Court, after being rejected at the appellate level on supposedly double jeopardy grounds.  Here's one question Mr. Vance can make before the courts: is it really double jeopardy to try Manofort again if Trump pardons Manofort at the federal level?  Here's why we think it isn't.  The appellate court made their rejection based *only* what they see on paper in the present, and didn't try to explore the case in the event of a pardon.  What they'd say for their side is that a pardon is supposedly hypothetical, while at the same time acknowledging how Trump is going to be pardoning hardened criminals.  That's the appellate court struggling with cognitive dissonance, and approaching the case from as narrow a view possible, also not accounting for the millions of dollars wrongly charged to the taxpayer as yet unrecouped.  We also see the appellate court as failing to make the case that Manofort facing the optics of double jeopardy is an unfair precedent for example for a poor young man from the inner city seeking justice, since the latter does not have anywhere near the legal resources as Manofort does.  Cy Vance has to make sure the courts don't deal him with O.J. type rulings, because that would certainly damage the country.  And it's doubtful to us that the courts would ever regret making such a ruling.  So if Manofort, and Roger Stone and Michael Flynn ever achieve their lifelong dream of a get-out-of-jail-free-card, we in the Bachelor request that BLM petitions Manofort/Stone/Flynn to have a sit-down with the families of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor so those guys can appreciate how the rest of the country can only struggle for the justice they so easily achieve.  It's just not going to be over if the court cases are over, since there will still be law-and-justice anger in the country long after the Trump era.