A real prediction, or just hot air?

There are times for sure when you want to believe predictions that come from “experts” who not only claim to know many things, but who have track records to demonstrate to predict the future.

I am not sure about what I have just read regarding what is percolating in the political mind of James Carville.

Carville is a political pistol to be sure. He says Donald Trump is a “soft man” who will be unable to tolerate the shellacking his Republican Party will suffer in the midterm election that’s just around the corner. So … Carville said that Trump will quit the office and hand it over to Vice President J.D. Vance.

Part of me wants to happen. Trump is a fool, a buffoon, a dangerous wanna-dictator who has no business being anywhere near the nuclear codes. Vance … ? He’s another cat altogether.

He’s also a fool, but not quite the buffoon that Trump has shown himself to be. He is able to string sentences together. He makes them sound like they make sense even if they don’t.

According to the Irish Star: Trump simply lacks the strength to face the crushing defeat headed his way, Carville argues: “He’s a soft man.” Concerns have also mounted over Trump’s health, with noticeable signs including drowsiness, swollen ankles, and dark bruises on his hands. Current projections indicate that the Democrats have a 76.9% chance of securing a majority of seats in the House, a number that has climbed consistently in recent months. The president will bear the brunt of his party’s collapse, Carville says: “They’re going to blame [Trump] – the whole culture is going to change. The whole conversation is going to change.”

Vance clearly wants to be elected to the presidency in 2028. I don’t know that factually, but it makes a whole lot of sense for him to position himself as a possible frontrunner. But he’s going to carry a lot of the baggage that Carville and others say will doom Trump to feckless lame-duck status once the dust clears from the midtern election.

Carville once guided Bill Clinton to a decisive victory in 1992. He developed the “war room” where all the key Clinton campaign decisions were made. He goes through life seemingly feeling as if certain things are going to happen. As often as not, they do. That gives this prediction a bit more weight than others might have.

I am just going to sit on my hands and watch Trump as carefully as I can from my distance far from the center of the universe.

And I suppose I can hope that if Democrats get control of both congressional chambers, then an impeachment and probable conviction in a Senate trial would spur Trump to pack it in.

Let’s all get ready to rumble.

TxDOT proposes huge project for Lavon Lake

You could’ve knocked me over with a feather duster when I saw the headline in this week’s issue of the Princeton Herald that said, “TxDOT proposes widening Lake Lavon Bridge.”

This, boys and girls, is the kind of news that tells me the government gurus in Austin actually take what is happening in Collin County seriously enough to commit — at least in writing — to improving our transportation infrastructure that is becoming almost a one-eyed monster for those of us who have to travel on our roads and highways.

The Texas Department of Transportation is proposing a $230 million expansion of Farm-to-Market Road 3286 and FM 546. It would replace an existing two-lane bridge that most days becomes a scenic parking lot as vehicles inch their way across the lake in either direction. The Herald reported that TxDOT plans to “widen nearly five miles of roadway between Lucas and the Princeton area.”

Here’s part of the deal, though, and it gives me a bit of a hint of concern. TxDOT says the project is years away and it has designated zero money for the work that will be required.

That makes me wonder how TxDOT can propose and then stand behind the $230 million figure it hopes to spend on this enormous project.

I’ll tell ya, however, TxDOT has gotten a lot of people’s attention. TxDOT had a hearing at Southfork Ranch in Parker and a resident who lives on the Peninsula said, “We need just another way to get off the Peninsula because it’s so much traffic. It starts like at 5:30 in the morning.”

So … TxDOT plans a rescue mission to give some relief to those of us who grumble daily about getting caught in traffic. It’ll be a while, but damn, this is good news!

AI … more frightening all the time

If only I knew more about artificial intelligence, well, then I could make a more cogent argument about why it scares the bejabbers out of me.

My knowledge of AI is limited, so I’ll go with what I know. It ain’t much.

I have watched video presentations of people saying things that I know in my heart they never could say. Yet AI providers are filling our screens and I-phones with images of them saying it. The development of artificial intelligence goes way beyond my pointed head’s ability to understand it. All I see and hear is the product they develop.

I made my living back in the day providing information about the communities I called home. From Portland, Ore., to S.E. Texas, to the Texas Panhandle, I relied on actual living, breathing human beings to tell me what they believed to be the truth about our communities and the people who gave them life. I could fact-check them quickly and determine the veracity of what they said. I then could take that verified information and report it to the world.

These days it’s a vastly different game. I can listen to a news report and wonder out loud and consciously whether I was being fed information from a human being or whether it was coming from an AI-generated creature.

I hate having to make that determination. I very well could be all wet in making these assumptions about AI. I don’t making them, as long as I am relying only on my limited knowledge of what AI is, or will become.

I keep hearing that AI has all kinds of benefits. To be candid, I know yet know what they are. Having said that, I guess I will just have to go through my life being constantly wary of what I am hearing.

Is it true or is it the product of artificially produced intelligence?

God help me …

If only we understood the truth

Flash back about six decades, to Jan. 6, 1961, when Vice President Richard Nixon performed a task that Donald Trump sought to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from performing.

Nixon had just lost a razor-thin election to President-elect John Kennedy. He might have had reason to contest the results from Cook County, Ill., but chose instead to let the numbers stand, giving JFK a narrow win in and ultimately the presidency. The vice president on Jan. 6 of ’61, certified the Electoral College count giving Kennedy and Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson the keys to the Oval Office.

Prior to affirming the count, Nixon stood before his colleagues and said it was the first time in a century that a sitting VP had to certify an election result in which he was the losing candidate for president. However, he told the nation, that singular act spoke more eloquently about the greatness of the nation that it could conduct a peaceful transition of power from one party to the other, and then carry out the nation’s business.

Nixon understood something that Donald Trump never will grasp. Trump launched an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, damn near succeeding in stopping the Electoral College count. And I’ll be damned if Trump is still bitching about an election he contends was stolen from him.

Trump seemingly will never grasp the very notions that give this country its standing as the world’s indispensable nation.

Richard Nixon, of course, went on to be elected president in 1968 and then got himself into serious trouble by covering up a scandal that unfolded before the world in real time. That shining moment in 1961, though, stands out as a singular act that will stand for all time as a moment in which this great nation exhibited a profound moment of political grace.