Ten things the 2016 election cycle has ruined for me

I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a political junkie but I try to keep my inner junkie inside most of the time. However, come election time she scratches her way out to join in all the fun. This year was especially something to look forward to because well, it wasn’t going to be the same old same old. Right? And just when I thought I might really enjoy this election cycle, not only did things go off the rails, there are no freaking rails.

And instead of all the fun I looked forward to, the cycle has simply ruined things for me. Following is my list:

The color orange. It’s not that orange was my favorite color but now I can’t look at it without seeing Trump’s orangey pink skin. You’d think that “one of the richest men in the world” could afford a better tanning bed, spray tan and make up artist. He probably should stop purchasing his products in CHYNAH.

Cheetos. And other favorite orange food—dreamsicles, tangerines, papaya, mangoes, orange lifesavers, orange Jell-O – and I can’t even look at raw chicken.

The word great. Likewise the words: terrific, fantastic, really, winning, best, hell even the word, word has lost all charm and appeal. And liar, loser and lying have virtually no meaning anymore either.

Election years. I have always enjoyed presidential election years because of the drama, surprises and unpredictable situations you never see coming. This year however, it is nothing but a flat out slug fest between candidates, supporters and media outlets. It’s ugly and keeps getting uglier. Even when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, somebody unearths a new bottom. And it’s about as much fun as root canal without anesthesia.  Although we got a little comic relief when the Libertarians added live stripping to their convention. What’s next? Lap dances by candidates?

The myth that most people have common sense. Seriously, can anybody believe that common sense is a live and well in America when the presumptive candidates are the two most reviled people in the country?

 

Taco salads. This picture:
Is he going to eat that thing or molest it? Either way, feeling pretty sorry for the salad, no matter its fate.

Hair. Whether it’s the old man comb-over, the grandma shellacked bullet head, or the Muppet style shag, all hairstyles are dead to me now.

Facebook. Social media always has political stuff but generally is easy to scroll right past. And I’ll get in there sometimes and bat things around myself. But this year it is wall to wall and there’s no scrolling past it. That’s all that is in my feed. From erroneous, crazy, gross, vile memes, to trolls swarming, name calling, to non-stop propaganda on every topic under the sun – it’s a jungle out there.

The Internet. I used to love the Internet. Each day when you logged on you never knew what you were gonna get. These days though you can’t swing a dead politician without hitting a story or meme on trump, trumpers, trumperism, trump tweets, trump train, anti-trump, nevertrump, alwaystrump, “what’s trump done this time?,” neverhillary, onlyhillary, who’s hillary?, indict hillary, feeling berns…. Where are those cute cat videos that used to be so popular?

Reality TV. It’s not that I’m a big fan of reality TV but I once found it somewhat amusing. But since reality TV is running for president, the spoofy goofy nature of the medium isn’t quite as funny. And definitely amusing. And I find myself constantly muttering, “Is this a joke?”

What about you? Are you sick of this already? Has this election business ruined stuff for you? Are you looking for good cat videos? Feel free to add to the list or voice your gripes in the comments. The election cycle isn’t even close to over yet folks, and we’ve got a long five months ahead of us – give us strength.

Politics, mob rule and social media—what I’ve learned

So in the last few weeks I’ve been paying attention to politics on Facebook. I’d been very intentionally ignoring it up til then because we were miles away from the actual election and I don’t need to decide what I believe in since I already know.

So one day, a few weeks ago, I started to actually look at the political stuff in my feed, scan the articles, read some of the comments and move on. It was intense. I mean, I’ve been a political junkie on and off for many years but things were more intense than I’d seen them since people in Florida were counting chads.

As is my habit, I made a general statement/observation about a certain set of supporters of a certain candidate. To me it was light, somewhat humorous and meant to illicit a laugh. Instead I was attacked. This not only stunned me but made me reexamine my statement to see if it’d been really inflammatory. Nope. Still seemed relatively mild to me. And then from there, I was hooked and frankly until the last couple of days, haven’t come up for air.

So after my foray into the depths of the political trenches I’ve learned the following:

1. Some of your friends are willing to toss you aside for a stranger who makes promises they can’t keep.
2. People can become so invested in someone they are willing to call you every and any name in the book including skank, whore, bitch, and worse.
3. The anonymity of the Internet emboldens people to spew hatred, vitriol and insanity everywhere they travel.
4. Some people will believe absolutely anything despite a mountain of facts that categorically disprove that belief.
5. There is no low too low for some people.
6. Logic often has no place in politics and frequently is the first victim to be thrown under the bus.
7. Some people are more than happy to ruin others’ lives simply because the do not agree with them.
8. Free speech is relegated, apparently, to only the chosen few.
9. Fairness, objectivity, and truth is a matter of opinion.
10. You cannot convince an angry person of anything.
11. To some, winning justifies any tactic, no matter how abhorrent, despicable and dirty.
12. Many people don’t actually do any research on the candidate they champion and when that is pointed out, you better be wearing full body armor.
13. There are a lot of angry people out there who are misdirecting their anger at total strangers on the Internet.
14. I long for the days when cute cat videos were the most popular thing on the Internet.
15. Apparently anybody can run for president these days and people will treat them like they know what they’re talking about. Hey – maybe I should run.
16. I trust my dog more than most politicians.
17. Going to a political rally is a lot more dangerous than it used to be.
18. Orange has become a really popular color – not with me, I look terrible in orange.
19. According to the polls, the presumed candidates for the November election are two of the most disapproved of people in America.
20. So far, nobody has attacked any candidates’ pets, but give it time.

How about you? Enjoying the current political happenings? Have you been trolled, flamed, attacked or is it just a barrel of laughs as far as your concerned? Learned anything or is just politics as usual? Feel free to observe, vent or yammer in the comments.

 

Peace out, Writer Chick

Godspeed, Maggie

We lost an amazing woman today in Margaret Thatcher.  AKA the Iron Lady.

Whether you loved her or hated her, she was an historic figure, a pioneer for women in politics and a staunch and loyal friend to America.

I just finished reading this incredible speech, given by Lady Thatcher and thought you might enjoy reading it too.

I for one, will miss her.

Godspeed, Maggie.

Writer Chick

 

Fifty Percent is NOT a Mandate Mr. Reid and Mr. Boehner

While everyone is driving themselves mad trying to figure out what went wrong for conservatives on Tuesday night and coming up with one ridiculous theory after another, most people are missing a very vital detail.  Although Mitt Romney came up about 3 million votes short (according to estimates of voter numbers) Mr. Obama lost 10 million voters that he had in his first election.   Think about that, does that constitute any kind of mandate? Hell no, Harry Reid,  it doesn’t.  And what’s more it says that he lost constituents across the board.  To have lost that many voters means to me that he will not be given the same blank check he got in his first term.  In fact, all he got was more time to ‘fix things’ in the words of his supporters.  He just didn’t have enough time to fix all the things that were wrong when he came into office the first time.  That is all the voters are giving Mr. Obama – time to fix it. Not a longer leash to drag us further into the toilet and under the rule of the United Nations.

So while we’re all running around blaming ourselves for not being ethno-centric enough, or female friendly enough, or appealing to the iPhone generation enough and blathering on about multi-culturalism and diversity, we are missing the fact that the electorate ain’t to dang happy with Obama either.

It’s not our demographics, (too many old white men? Seriously, did you just say that?) or our views that are alienating people, it is us going soft on our own principles of Economic Freedom and Personal Liberties, and Equal Opportunity for all Americans.  This ridiculous idea that surfaces every time we lose an election that says we have to become more like liberals if we want the party to survive is annoying as hell and I want you guys to all stop that.  Because it just isn’t true.

And while we’re on the topic of squishy…this guy  has to go. That Obama was reelected in no way establishes as a fact that the American people want Obamacare.  As this poll shows among many other interesting things.

For my money this guy  should be Speaker of the House and the fact that Boehner is so dismissive tells me he might be a little worried that that very thing might happen.  Paul Ryan would certainly have my support if he decided to challenge the current speaker for the position.

Now we know all you guys up there on Capital Hill think that now the election is over you’re all just going to go back to slinging mud, go along to get along and profess to mandates that don’t exist and we, the little people, are just going to throw up our hands and let you – but you should think again.  None of you has earned a mandate or bragging rights in this election and we all know that – so do you.   Realize that you have awakened the sleeping giant that is the American people and you’ll be hearing from us on a pretty regular basis from here on out.

 

Writer Chick

Copyright 2012

So We Lost – Now What?

 

Despite the grumblings I am reading on the Internet on various forums and conservative sites, there was nothing wrong with our candidate except that he believed in fair play and honest tactics to win a race fair and square.  His downfall and ours was that we aren’t willing to win at any cost.

At least, if you are to believe some people that was our problem, others say that our problem was not being ethnic friendly enough, not enough tech-savvy, not reaching out to this group or that.  Not seeing the plus that Obama got out of Storm Sandy (Really? A hurricane won Obama the election?)

Personally, I believe that it goes much deeper than these and many other reasons being offered.  To put it succinctly: The error in Romney’s campaign was that he was off a couple of percentage points on that 47% thing – and also didn’t realize that that couple of percentage points meant that he could not campaign appealing to reason and rational thought – but rather should have campaigned to fear and feelings. Yes, you read that right, fear and feelings. If you look at the exit polling data you will see that ’empathy’ ranked high on the reasons why Obama was reelected. Because people ‘felt’ he understood them more and their problems. I suppose that should have been obvious, hell Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain” won him two elections. And the sad truth is that more people feel in this country than think and that was the elephant in the room that none of the conservatives figured out.

In going forward I say we dispose of this ‘can’t we all get along’ crap that the talking heads are spewing and just say, NO!  Unfair you say? Well when the libbies lose, they don’t reach across the aisle, ever. They revolt. So then, so should we.

We should go on strike. We should resist. We should say no. We should be true to our principles of economic freedom and personal liberties.  Not agree to further loss of our Constitutional rights nor march into societal servitude.  If we do so, I think they will be surprised to discover that the Santa Claus era will soon end. Since Obama now has nothing to stop him from executive-ordering his way and this country into utter ruin, then ruin will come. And not too many freebies will come from those ruins because there won’t be much left to loot and pillage. And what little remains will certainly be reserved for the self appointed kings and queens of this once great Republic.

The country will crash; there is no doubt of that. So, we of the self-sufficient genes, will look after our own, prepare, and go about our business – while the craven needy masses ultimately tear themselves apart because the gravy train has run out of rations. When the smoke clears then perhaps we can start again.

And then that bright tomorrow that Mitt Romney spoke so eloquently of will be there for those of us who could envision it from the beginning.

Writer Chick

copyright 2012

Talk about a flash from the past

My friend Jenny sent me this cartoon from the 1930’s – gives one pause, I must say.

 

What do you think, is history repeating itself?

Writer Chick

The Tea Party “Downgrade”???

Yup, that’s the new buzz. It’s the Tea Party’s fault that Standard and Poor’s downgraded the U.S. triple A credit rating to a double A rating. Excuse me? I mean it’s laughable to hear the very people who have driven this country to the brink of bankruptcy calling out the Tea Party for having their credit rating downgraded.

If I’m not mistaken it is Tea Party activists and supporters who want the reckless spending to end. It’s the Tea Party who wants to cut spending, reform laws, return the country to it’s Constitutional charter – and this is what caused a down grade in credit rating. I think perhaps those on the Hill who hold this belief should go out into the private sector, apply for and get a few hundred credit cards. Then proceed to charge them all to the max. Then he or she should refuse to pay those credit card bills while insisting that each of the credit card companies increase their spending limits because there is yet more that he or she wants to buy – must buy. Then after about 6 months of this, he or she should pull his or her credit report and see whether their credit rating has changed.

You see it’s elementary Watson, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, eventually both Peter and Paul catch up to you.

Once again, the libbies think by throwing around what they believe to be a snappy catch phrase that they will get the public on their side. That the public (meaning you and me) are just a bunch of dumb bunnies who believe everything they hear on t.v. and especially what the libbies say because they are after all for the ‘little guy’ given the fact that they are all bagillionaires and have more tax shelters than Carter has pills – I suppose that makes sense.

The reason and the only reason that the libbies and even some of the pubbies vilify the Tea Party is because it scares them. Because the Tea Party isn’t some corporation or radical underground group – the Tea Party is simply a lot of very concerned American citizens who believe in the Constitution and the wisdom of the framers – but most of all believe in America. And they are paying attention. And they are urging their friends and family members to pay attention too. And dang nab it, it’s working. It’s a career politician’s nightmare – and electorate who pays attention and knows their constitutional rights. God forbid, these wiley characters should keep them from conducting business as usual in their back rooms with their special handshakes and winks and nods. God forbid, they should be dragged kicking and screaming to actually doing their jobs and following the rule of law.

Well congrats to the Tea Party, you have successfully scared the bageebers out of people who thought they were bullet proof. But really congrats to the American people, they can call us hobbits, or terrorists, extremists, down-graders, or even nosy Nancie’s – makes no difference to me. And personally, I think tea tastes a whole lot better than Kool Aid.

Eventually they may figure out that public servants serve at the pleasure of the governed – the people – you and me in other words. Until then, I say party on Tea people, party on.

Writer Chick
Copyright 2011

On the Debt Ceiling…

“The national debt-ceiling law should be judged by what it actually does, not by how good an idea it seems to be. The one thing that the national debt-ceiling has never done is to put a ceiling on the rising national debt. Time and time again, for years on end, the national debt-ceiling has been raised whenever the national debt gets near whatever the current ceiling might be. Regardless of what it is supposed to do, what the national debt-ceiling actually does is enable any administration to get all the political benefits of runaway spending for the benefit of their favorite constituencies — and then invite the opposition party to share the blame, by either raising the national debt ceiling, or by voting for unpopular cutbacks in spending or increases in taxes.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Words of wisdom from a brilliant man. Think about it.

Bin Laden is Dead

Bin Laden is dead. God bless our military.  GW Bush has been vindicated.  The irony that it happened under the watch of a anti-war president is not lost on me.  One down, several thousand to go.  Well done troops! Well done!

Politics Moving

Hi Kids,
It’s been a while and truth be told I don’t know if any of you are still reading. My bad. Part of the problem is time constraints but mostly the problem is that all I’ve wanted to write about lately is politics. And while some of you enjoy those posts, many don’t. So, I’ve decided to move all my political opinions here. Yup, another blog – just what I need. Anyway, if you’re dying to know what I think of the current political scene feel free to wander on over.

And one more thing, Theme Friday is coming back, this Friday. Stay tuned.

WC