Thursday, October 20, 2016

Debate reaction

The third and final presidential debate is over, and – frankly – I don’t have a clue who won.

But the media and social media exploded over Donald Trump’s statement that on whether he would accept the results of the election that he would leave people in suspense until Nov. 9.

How short are the memories of the American people? How many people expected Al Gore in 2000 not to accept the results of the election? He didn’t … and he and the Democratic party really did their best to overturn the results of the election in Florida by stopping the count and then demanding a selective recount.

Lawyers representing Al Gore totally ignored the legitimate and legal process in every state – including Florida – for contesting counts and demanding recounts. Unfortunately, to follow the law, it would have been after the initial counts would have reported that George W. Bush had won in Florida, and hence in the Electoral College. That would never stand, so the nation was treated to about six weeks of legal battles that a) should not have happened the way they did, and b) ultimately did not change the results of the election that would have been the results had the law been followed.

Now, if you don’t think that is what happened, you need to go back and look at the timeline of events and review what the Florida state rules say about vote counts, etc. You also need to go back and look up the stories buried in the fall of 2001 about a recount in Florida sponsored by a host of major news organizations (looking at a variety of permutations) that still came down with a Bush victory. Granted not a huge one, but it only takes one vote to tip the scale one way or another.

Trump really has made the same case … except for the hyperventilation of those who freak at his every statement.

If the Trump campaign follows the laws laid down in each state, in my humble opinion, he is welcome to challenge the outcome in any state and not concede the election based on initial returns and counts.

If you all have a problem with this; get over it.

It is how he won the nomination … by playing by the freaking rules. If he continues to play by the rules, then he is welcome to have at it.

As for the rest of the debate: it pretty much was what I expected, although I have to agree that Trump gave his best performance of the three debates.

I also thought the moderator did the best he could in trying circumstances.

But who won? Elifino. I guess we will get that answer when the vote counts are completed after Nov. 8. 

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Trump reaction

Note: this section will not be G-Rated … Not even PG … it will be at least R …

WARNING: There will be obscenities and profane language past this point. I have been politic; you have been warned!

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON! America (especially in its national media) is going fucking bonkers because one of its political leadership candidates talks of bawdy things (in a younger iteration) and shows that he is a God-damn, arrogant, loud-mouthed, profane, self-centered, self-absorbed, ruthless, son-of-a-bitch … so what else is new. Get the fuck over it. It ain’t the first time it has happened.

People are going ape-shit crazy calling him to withdraw his candidacy because he told some broadcast flunky off mic that he likes to fondle pretty women … what a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Damn, if there is a male in the room over, let’s say, 45 who hasn’t engaged in bowdlerized, locker-room talk about women and braggadocio about what they would like to do … excepting possibly those men who are gayer that the three-dollar bill … I probably would call them a liar and be right. I can’t say much about people younger than that because I haven’t sat in on many of their conversations, but what I have heard makes me think they aren’t much different.

Folks, take a fucking chill pill. The God-damned politically correct shit has to stop.

The problem with Trump is that he actually talks like he is one of the plebeians … you know, us common folks who actually worked for a God-damn living and not made a living getting paid by the government/state for a career.

I find all this faux-horror at Trump’s tax returns, his sexually explicit talks with people (especially those with recording devices, which is stupid, but then, what the hell, we live in a gotcha by the balls society these days), so freakingly fucking hypocritical that it sort of makes me want to stage a French Revolution here in the US? Trot out the guillotine for the “aristocracy”!!!!

Where is the Red Queen when we need her? Off with their fucking heads! 

I guess I have fallen a long way from my perch among the elites of the world as a college graduate who was the editor of one of the 1600 daily newspapers (at the time) in the USofA, assistant editor at another, editor at a three-times a week paper, and editor of four different weekly newspapers, not including a weekly and an every-other-day newspaper I produced in a war zone.

I no longer have much patience with progressives and those who education or position places them above the fucking masses. I am reminded to tell them, despite your fucking smarts, or God-damn worthless pieces of paper, social, economic or political positions, you stupid over-educated dumbshit assholes, you still put your panties on one leg at a time just like the rest of us idiots.

You know the people you find deplorable may be crude and rude, but they are people. They might not have high-fluting degrees or education, or even money or wealth, but they still are functioning human beings, who can – when called upon – actually have a thought or two in their head … and those thoughts just might be worth listening to. A lot may be stupid or silly thoughts, but given the facts, their common sense will usually win out.

So, Trump is a ruthless, fucking billionaire (or just a multi-millionaire, what does it matter) corporate slob of a businessman, that has never stopped such people from running and serving in public office before. Cue the damn Virginia planter class or the fucking Ivy League country club shit heads

The question you really should be asking yourself, you fucking dumbbells, is has he broken the law? How did he make those billions? By himself or surrounding himself and delegating to a vast corps of really competent deplorables?   I really don’t think he did it selling favors, like a former Senator from New York and Secretary of State, along with her sexually obsessed husband who is an ex-president now, who actually did “it” with a God-damn intern in the Oval Office … or was it her oval orifice … shit, I don’t even know any more ... much less really give a shit.

How many laws, lies, and other shit does Trump’s leading opponent have to break, say and do before you get the message that she really is a bunch of crappola. Do you really want that crappola? Do you really want the fucking status quo candidate to keep things running down the same God-damn track we have been going for the last 10 or so years … so be it … vote for the piece of shit.

Another question: Why is the “establishment” fucking going freaking ape-shit over the possibility of Trump being president? What is it they really are so fucking scared-shitless about? Do they know something about the checks and balances built into our system of governance that we don’t know that makes them think we can’t survive a loose-cannon? What is it that we have had for the last 25 fucking years? Cannons lashed down so tight their pussies squeak? I think they are just afraid he will upset the status quo and maybe, just maybe, fucking change the way things have been run in our fucking capital for that last shitting century or so. Maybe that is the change we need, fucking stupid America.

Now I am not saying anybody should vote for the jerk Trump, or anyone else, but I am saying look at what they say they want to do … ask yourself if those things are what you really want done or if they really are sustainable or just pipe dreams … or just products of your own envy of those who have shit you don’t. … then reach down and vote for the candidate who can win AND do the least amount damage to what freedoms you, as an individual, still have in this country.

One last point, a historical one: The last time the elite was in this much of an uproar, I think, was 1828. You know when that rude, crude and obscene Tennessean Andrew Jackson was elected and the Virginia planter class and the New England lawyers had a hissy fit over this frontier braggart capturing the White House. He was a populist too, if I remember my history correctly and really changed the course of politics and the shape of the American democratic republic. Is that what they are so afraid of?

Anyway, I apologize for my fucking profanity, but I am becoming more and more like the old fucking grunt soldier I was part time, rather than the urbane, cosmopolitan, liberal arts college-educated elite journalist I once was.

Still, I raise my rye on the rocks to all of you who are a) Americans and b) deign to read this rant. (tonight is was Canadian rye, tomorrow night it will be my Gordon’s vodka … I alternate nights on which poison I drink on the rocks).

May you all find your path blessed by the Divine, and you have the strength and courage to endure whatever travails may lie ahead of you personally and (if it so applies) as an American.

 

Footnote: This is a succinct summation why I don't give a fucking rat's ass about Trump's "hot-mic moment". OK, I am done