I am a Democrat, a liberal one at that. I am also a political and news junkie. While many people have fallen in love with Bernie Sanders this year, I was admiring him from when he was in the House. People will say socialism can never work here because of this reason or that. I don’t know enough about economics to know but people in Netherlands where they have one of the happiest populations on earth seem ok with it. Continue reading
Well, not really but I was accused of that this morning after I posted a column I wrote about Hillary Clinton for Firebrand Left. My general thesis is that if you like Hillary Clinton, you don’t care what the transcripts of her speeches say and if you do not like her, nothing in those speeches will change your mind. I stand by this. But it led some people on Facebook to get really pissy.
If you would like to see the exchange, please check it out here. You can read my original column about the transcripts here. I wrote a follow up piece about how Hillary and Bernie supporters need to treat each other better here.
Now, you may know that Susan Sarandon endorsed Bernie Sanders. While I think that’s great for him, I have to take issue to part of her endorsement speech. She claimed that one reason she is supporting him because she doesn’t “vote with (her) vagina.” Well, that’s good for her, I guess.
Now, I cannot get that out of my head. For instance, I wanted to watch the Superbowl but my pushy vagina wanted to watch some feminist clap trap on PBS so that’s what I watched. I had to miss the puppy, baby, monkey commercial. Dang, my vagina is so annoying sometimes.
Anyway, please check out my links and let me know what you think.
How to Be a Serial Killer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I promised to post updates on my health situation so here is the next one.Before I get to that, a note to my friends and family: Some of what you read here may seem scary and it is but there is no reason to worry because I am really fine.
The good: I haven’t had any more grand mal seizures since the last one I wrote about here. The bad: I have had a number of much smaller seizures — they are super short and I remain conscious. The ugly: why does the media insist on continuing to give Donald Trump a platform? No, he has nothing to do with my medical issues but he really annoys me.
My real problem, however, is from the time the seizures hit until later in the day it becomes really hard for me to speak. Now, I can still understand everything and know what I want to say, I just can’t say it. It wears off eventually but if you see me and I am super quiet, you know why.
The universe really wants me to be quiet. Since last year, I have lost my voice to laryngitis more times than I can count. And mean lost it completely. When that gets bad, I sound like a sick dolphin. I have even written comedy about it — one night when this was happening, my mother called and said, “I just hope you don’t have to call 911.” Oh, thanks, she knows one of my biggest fears in the world is being killed (and probably tortured) by a serial killer. That night I had friends text me every few hours to make sure I was still alive. (Side note: I knew someone in high school who was killed by a serial killer. I hate to admit this but when her brother told me my second thought after I am so sorry for your loss, can I do anything, call me anytime was if I know someone killed by a serial killer, the odds are greatly reduced that I will be.)
For some reason these posts about what I am dealing with now are much harder to write than when they are about past events. That brings me to why I do it; the support I have received here has been really helpful. It also means I don’t have to explain everything to everyone who asks. I am truly ok but my reality is a little different and it is taking some getting used to.
And now I have a favor to ask of you. As much as I appreciate the support everyone has given, the concern I hear in people’s voices when they call is a little overwhelming. I have great doctors and everything is being done to get the situation under control. This may seem odd as I have told you all everything here but I cannot talk about my health all the time.
Thanks for reading, being there and helping me deal with this. Once again, I promise, I am really, really, really ok.
Donald Trump was never in the 2012 presidential campaign for the long haul. I am not saying he had no interest in being president, I think he did. He probably still does. But this is my take of how this all went down.
The 2012 campaign began almost the day after the election in 2008 but it really started up after the 2010 campaign. Speculation about who was going to run on the GOP side seemed to be everywhere. If there is anyone who understand the adage that “no press is bad press,” it’s Mr. Trump. I grew up on Long Island where we seemed to get a ring side seat to the Trump Show. I think he had been asked to do this and thought his campaign would be credible; a credible stunt. Now, because he has a considerable ego, had been considering this, maybe his real interest was at 10 percent. Anyone who has worked on a presidential campaign has seen the cottage industry that springs up when someone looks like they are running for president. Would be candidates end up surrounded by a growing chorus of people telling him to run. I used to wonder about candidates who have no chance, do they have no one in their life who can tell them this is a bad idea? No, no there is not.
So after a bit of this, Mr. Trump’s seriousness may have grown but I can guarantee that he did some checking into this – before he announced he was looking into it – and one of the very first things he would have learned, was that he would have to release his financials and anyone who has ever really followed his career understands that this was never going past the summer. Add to that his discomfort at shaking hands (a campaign must-do) and hatred of being seriously questioned (another campaign must-do) and you’ve got your three strikes.
I think Mr. Trump started this thinking it would get decent press and raise ratings (can they ever be too high? Not to him). He starts out talking about the issues that he thinks makes him a credible candidate – the economy and our relationship with China. He makes progress in the polls but the progression is more of a stable growing of support (good for politics, not so much for TV ratings) but not the meteoric rise he was looking for (bad for a campaign of a year and a half but good for TV ratings). What’s been the hottest topic for many on the right? President Obama’s birth certificate. Mr. Trump takes a hard turn right and into loonie land, his polls numbers soar and the media eats this up like crazy.
Note to the news media: you have what, 17 months left of this campaign to cover? Ask yourselves if you took his candidacy more seriously – or claimed to – to give you an excuse to cover something interesting. If your answer is that he repeated (over and over and over) how serious he was – his stunt would not have worked without that. If you really believed this, you would take Chris Christie at his word when he tries to make that same claim the other way. Oh, and I also have a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.
With his poll & ratings numbers soaring (not sure about his actual show but he dominated the 24 hour news cycle), the White House sees some of the crazy rhetoric is having an effect on what average people were starting to think about the President’s place of birth. They release the long form certificate. Mr. Trump is a allowed a small victory lap before his Icarus (thank you Chris Cillizza) candidacy crashes to earth. We all know what happened next, Mr. Trump is eviscerated a few days later at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and to add that last nail, his NBC show is interrupted by the announcement that President Obama caught and killed Osama bin Laden. Done.
I would like to draw a clear comparison between this media type candidacy and that of Mike Huckabee. Governor Huckabee was the clear front runner, which means as much as that can in 1.5 years out. He also wanted to be president but this is a long grueling process. One thing I always try to remind people about campaigns is that there are two things that you always run out of. While you can theoretically make more money (as hard as that is), you can’t get more time. Once the race starts, you get a finite amount and that’s all you get. I think he looked at his life and weighed the real chances – even locking in the GOP nod would not guarantee him the prize, and it probably just seemed to be too much. I am only laying all that out to show just how genuine his reasons for ending his campaign were. No, Cenk Uygur, he did not “get too fat and happy to run.” That’s just petty and mean.
PS. Dear Mr. Trump, this might be a good time to revisit that plan you had to save the Mets. That’s a financial/sad situation that really might need you.
No, I am not a member of the Tea Party. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Occam’s Razor could be tattooed on my forehead. I think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and we went to the moon. Anyway, you get the point.
In late 2008, I was working as a freelance writer/PR person. For a very brief period I wrote for a Sunday morning, political round table television show (won’t say which one but the host is super obnoxious and, for once, I am not talking about David Gregory — hint two: it’s also not Chris Matthews, whom I have never met).
In one morning meeting the host told us (there were two writers and the host in the room) what he wanted the theme of the next show to be. They then recanted a tale of political intrigue that defied logic. The then President-elect was planning go go back to Hawaii to retrieve his real birth certificate from Kenya that was cleverly hidden under the left, third drawer of his grandmother’s study (seriously, how would that detail get out?). The host went on to explain the people who had been hired, sometime earlier in the President’s life, to cover up his real birth place and forge a new birth certificate, which is the one that was released.
To me, this story was/is/will forever be, absurd beyond belief. My first reaction was to laugh really hard and I said, “THAT’s the story your’re going with? Really?” I also pointed out how absurd that was. Being really new to writing for TV, this was probably not my best plan and the host’s reaction backed me up on that point. They back peddled a bit and then said, “I didn’t say it was true, I just said people are saying this.” Right. I am not saying he’s a liar, I am just saying other people are.”
In a subsequent conversation, we had a back and forth that went like this:
Host, “You, you are obsessed with Obama!”
Me: “No. No, really, I am not. If anyone has Obama-fatigue, it is me.”
Host: “Obama fatigue, where did you get that?”
Me: “I just said it.”
Host: “I cannot figure you out.”
There would be few more of these pleasant exchanges as soon after, I was informed my services would no longer be needed at the program.
I am not saying I was fired for not supporting this birther nonsense. I am just saying some people are.
(Note: I am a Obama supporter. I voted for him in 2008 and will do so again in 2012. On the morning of the above conversation, I had seen two disturbing pieces of memorabilia — a toilet seat with the First Family on it and some sort of random OTC medication that claimed to be “Obama’s favorite.” My fatigue was more attributable to that than any thoughts I had about the now President.)