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Your Big Prediction for 2014
At the end of today’s Ricochet podcast, James asked all of us what our big predictions for 2014 were. Mine: Republicans will take control of the Senate.
Will it happen? I don’t know, but the fact that President Obama is appointing Senator Max Baucus our Ambassador to China— and thereby putting an incumbent Democrat in a Montana seat that otherwise would have been vacant come next November—tells me that the White House doesn’t find the notion implausible.
How about you? What’s your big prediction for 2014?
Image of Mayan humiliation via Shutterstock
Published in General
The first six months of 2014 will see Obama’s approval drop even more as the Obamacare debacle continues.
Obama will double down in his speeches and use at least one personal pronoun in each paragraph. Why? Because Valerie Jarrett will convince him that he is the most fascinating man in the world.
When the actual ObamaCare policies are used and people find out that they are not indemnity policies but have exclusions and denials for medical necessity, the ensuing outrage will dwarf that which occurred after the rollout.
Will occur in the second half of ’14.
Tag this comment Troy and hold me to it.
Wait, what?
I thought Baucus was/is retiring anyway, and very specifically after having blurted out in Spring 2013 that Obamacare was shaping up to be a “trainwreck.”
So I figure that Baucus’ appointment as our ambassador to the world’s largest open-air prison is President Jarrett’s way of making sure that:
a) Baucus stays “on-team” for the foreseeable future;
and
b) Baucus is too far away from local Montana media and therefore largely unavailable to jinx the election of another Democrat with interviews asking him about Obamacare etc.
So, yeah, there’s a Senate seat up for grabs in Montana now, sure. But the White House is probably trying to signal to Montana voters that the 2014 election ought to be about getting rewards (like Baucus reaped rewards) and not about stirring things up for the sake of small-r republican and large-R Republican principle.
Staff announces the Ricochet 2.0 launch will be pushed back a bit to 2015, “just a few more bugs to work out”.
Israel takes out Iran’s nukes. It’s either next year or never. Bibi knows it. Bibi is a serious leader, unlike the Keystone Cops in Washington.
Per my #3 comment above, please see here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/beijing-ploy_771481.html
North Korea falls apart causing an international incident between China, South Korea, and Japan.
More of the same…
After seeing the latest Law Talk art work, Troy Senik will ask Sen. George Mitchell to arrange a cease fire. He will then call a friend at the NSA to find out how much it will cost to completely wipe out Google’s image cache.
Rob Long will be named Kim Jung-Il’s honorary uncle.
Peter Robinson will begin sponsoring the Ricochet podcast himself to promote his new business, “One Last Cardigan.”
James Lilieks will open a real diner – The Segue.
I will watch movies with robots.
I will hate, initially, the new Doctor Who.
The Walking Dead will continue to suck …. brains.
U.S. international policy will have seemingly been designed by a 12-year-old.
Chris Christie will have to plead with Tom Cotton to be his running mate to inoculate himself on amnesty and other troublesome issues with the right. Cotton will vouch for Christie’s bona fides and put him over the top.
Final number will be 8 pickups in the senate.
Troy enters the state of wedded bliss.
Mitt will convince Ann to take one more stab at it in 2016 and hire Lee Atwater’s ghost to run his campaign.
Andrew Cuomo will announce his intentions to take on Hillary with the full backing of Chuck Schumer, Michael Bloomberg, and Corey Booker.
Some members of this administration are brought up on charges or resign in disgrace over corruption. At least one scandal reaches the point where even the press reports it as criminal. Well, a guy can dream can’t he.
Despite GOP gains in the House in the 2014 election, John Boehner is ousted as Speaker.
Score ’em yourself. As usual, I’m often early in my predictions.
My prediction for 2014 is that the big story will be nothing that’s presently on the radar. For example, as of this writing, the interest on the U.S. 10 year treasury bond has popped up to 2.93%. If it goes to, say, 4%, the cost of carrying the U.S. public debt will consume a larger and larger part of the budget and risk triggering a “debt spiral”. Almost nobody is talking about this.
I write science fiction. Here are some story ideas, before they happen.
You pick the outlier in this collection. ·
The elephant in the room so large and pondering that only a RINO cannot see it.
This might keep me up tonight.
The Seattle Seahawks win the Super Bowl and the San Antonio Spurs win the NBA Championship.
Phil Robertson launches an exploratory committee for the 2016 Presidential election.
John Boehner will weep bitter tears – for no discernible reason.
A man wearing a plaid flannel onesie and accosting passersby to sign his petition will be arrested in Lafayette Park, but released when DC police verify that he really is Joe Biden.
John, I am talking about it. That makes us 2 lonely voices.
The Affordable Care Act will turn out to be so effective and wonderful that the media will start referring to it as Obamacare again.
Due to leftist policies the economy will suddenly rebound, unemployment will drop to 2%, racism will disappear, and Hillary Clinton will ride the wave into the presidency, with Vice President Pajama Boy (as he has no training for any real jobs).
Tyler Perry will win an Oscar for lifetime achievement.
James Lileks will take ecstasy at Burning Man, strip naked and jump onto the stage with Joni Mitchell for a duet of Big Yellow Taxi.
Peter Robinson will stop asking questions after his “one last question.”
Jonah Goldberg will have his laugh surgically corrected.
The Hemingways will stop arguing.
Rob Long will move to Panorama City.
Jon Podhoretz will host the Oscars, but walk off the stage when Tyler Perry comes up to accept his Lifetime Achievement Award.
My podcast, the Pretentious Movie Snobs will win the 2014 Poddy Award for Most Foul-Mouthed Movie-Related Podcast.
Obama’s continued foreign policy fumbling will accelerate to relativistic speeds. While things will deteriorate on all fronts (Iran, China, Russia, Syria, and North Korea) I think the biggest failure will come in Syria. My prediction is that the Opposition will solidify into a full Jihad movement, forcing the administration into openly supporting the Assad regime, thus making his failure complete.
Rob Long talking about Ricochet 2.o, “If you like your Ricochet, you can keep your Ricochet.”
Nonsense! This will be the year that Paul Allen’s misery ends as the Blazers finally win their second championship.
Per James of England, I find my third wife. ;-)
Enraged over Jonah’s continued taunting over his verified Twitter account John Podhoretz will walk out of the GLoP podcast.
The Duck Dynasty International Media Empire.
Kim Jong Un puts a hit out on Rob Long for dissing him. Rob is forced to go full Rushdie and ends up living in a bunker in southwestern New Hampshire near Steyne and O’Roarke. He is forced to cut wood for heat, hunt for meat and grow his own vegetables. He grows a beard, loses weight and is asked to join the cast of the Robertson’s new show, Fowl Play on the new Fox Outdoors channel.
The Obamas buy a place on the Atlantic in northeastern Long Island and Michelle agrees to run for Hillary’s open NY Senate seat in 2016 when Hillary takes the presidency provided, Barrack actually quits smoking this time.
Peter Robinson, on the way back from a Dartmouth Trustee meeting, stops in to see Rob in his new outpost to find him sitting there with Steyne and O’Roarke drinking home made hooch and playing War using an old worn deck of cards. Dartmouth later finds out that Peter remains friends with the reviled right wing outcast, Long, and plots emerge, rumored to have Peter removed from the board. Result: uncertain.
Conservatives will continue to have to have stitches in their lower jaws, which continue to drop to the ground as the failures of the Affordable Care Act are successfully blamed on John Boehner, Mitt Romney, George Bush and Ronald Reagan.