All of the media is gawping in shock this morning over the remarks Donald Trump made at last night's Alfred E. Smith dinner. Even my hubby was shocked, but I get it. I know exactly why The Donald did what he did, said what he said.
My mother taught me well that there are right times and right places. Swearing in church is a wrong time / wrong place. Kneeling for prayer in a pig sty, same. Last night might not have been the right time or place, but it was an opportunity too good to pass by.
Before going farther, my position on the people who call themselves journalists is that they are, almost all of them, blatant bald-faced liars. Any credibility they might have had is gone - 100% - because of their collusion with the most corrupt, evil political campaign I have ever seen. Granted, that's only about 50 years' worth, but I remember reading about the Kennedy / Nixon mix-up in my teens, and the questions that still swirl around Johnson's implication in the Kennedy assassination. Carter / Reagan, Reagan / Mondale, Bush / Dukakis, etc. NOTHING stinks compared to this one.
For the past year, and we have proof positive through Wikileaks, Hilliary's slavering, slobbering lackeys at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the New York Times, Washington Times, etc., have engaged in unrelenting character assassination.
They won't touch Hilliary. Oh, no. She owns them, they know it, and they fear her.
In fact, just the other day, CNN asked a pol a question about Donald Trump. When the man just mentioned Wikileaks, the satellite feed "mysteriously" cut out. If it wasn't so flagrant, so obvious, it might have been funny. But it's not.
For eighteen months these television outlets (they do not have any right to call themselves "news media" and they certainly have NO RIGHT to call themselves "journalists" since they are far less than intellectually honest) have gone after Trump in concerted, deliberate way.
They have not pointed out in good natured humor the little things, the human failings and foibles we all have, as they have with Clinton (few and far between though they be). No, they have made things up entirely.
The "bimbo eruptions" (if I may borrow a derogatory phrase from the women's advocate Mrs. Clinton) for instance. Why, if those charges against Mr. Trump are legitimate, didn't those women come forward long ago, at the time it happened? Not even one or two surfaced over the years - why suddenly, a few weeks before the election?
After all, Trump didn't have the power, as Bill Clinton did, to affect the futures of those women in meaningful way. I can say with certainty, after watching him and listening to him for the past year, that Trump would not stoop to the kind of intimidation and the threats of physical harm many of Bill's accusers say came their way from Hilliary. He's just not like that. He'd talk about it. He'd call them names, say mean or nasty things, or sued the paper or outlet that released the stories, but that would be it.
No, without those false accusations, the heads of the television stations didn't have anything to make people hate Trump. They have performed character assassination against Trump and against Melania. Written lies and spoken have flooded the airwaves - proof nowhere to be found - and he's had no venue in which to strike back.
Until last night when he was handed a golden opportunity, and he took it.
Hilliary and her ankle licking, butt sniffing lapdogs of the press were all in the same room. None were in position to do anything about it, so what better time or place to lay it all out? To tell them that he knows, as does the rest of America, how corrupt, morally and ethically bankrupt these people have become. In a matter of a few words, he unburdened himself. He called out those hate-filled people and lanced the boil of resentment that has simmered in many Americans who have watched this circus, disgusted and offended.
And I, despite the inappropriateness of the time and place, applaud him - standing O, Mr. (future) President.
As for the "news" outlets? They have done their profession irreparable harm. Never again will I believe a single word they say - even if they say it's raining while outside my windows water is falling from the sky. Once a liar, always a liar and you can never be sure that a liar isn't lying when their lips are moving.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts
Friday, October 21, 2016
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
There's Equality & Then There's...
I've got my ear plugs ready and waiting. I suspect that in a couple of weeks or less, the screeches from a large part of the female population, mostly leftists, are going to become painfully loud.
Already, a number of go-along-to-get-along voices on the right are warning Trump to 'tone it down' or 'dial it back'. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for those of us who don't get upset when he says 'boo', it ain't gonna happen. Trump is going to be Trump and that's why I'll vote for him. Twice if I could.
The deal is, I don't want what the women who constantly rant about 'equality' want in our next president. I want a man with a set leading this country, not a spineless wuss who is likeable.
I have no doubt that these same women do not expect or want Hilliary to be polite and sincere and nice to Trump. You can wager that Hilliary is going to come out and play that woman card for all it's worth, until it's all worn out, and Trump is going to meet her right there, in the middle. She is going to be nasty and unpleasant, she is going to pull out all the stops and do what she's always done when confronted by an adversary. As my hubby would say, and as I agree with him having paid attention to her and her antics for the past twenty-five years or so, she is going to 'bitch out' and it is not going to be pleasant to see.
Based on her approach, Trump is not going to sit back, hold the door and be a 'gentleman'. Trump is going to treat Hilliary exactly as he would treat a male opponent in this upcoming race. It doesn't get more equal than that so all I can and will say to the women who take umbrage at his manner of expression, brace yourselves. It's going to get a whole lot worse than it's been. If you want equality, you are going to get it. In spades and, when it comes, don't you dare complain about it. It's what you've said you want so suck it up and get over it.
You see, my attitude toward him and his rhetoric is simple: I am not dating him. My daughter is not dating him. Neither of us are living with him. He is not someone I cook for, clean for, do laundry for. I don't go home to him at the end of the day, and it's a good thing I don't because I don't like a lot of what he says or the manner in which he says it. Therefore, because I have that arm's length relationship, I do not have to like him.
In my view, that's the difference between 'women' and 'girls'.
Women recognize that we don't have to love or admire the male, that we can take his verbal bullying and coarse actions. We can let it pass over us because we're bigger than the words.
Girls don't get that. They get knickerknotted at the first 'mean' or unpleasant thing someone says - as if it's a personal assault. As if they're that important.
Now, with that said, the flip side is what I do like about him. He has the courage of his convictions. When he thinks he's right, he's ready, willing and able to drive a stake into the ground and say, "here". If he thinks he's right, he's not going to back down and bow to the popular sway of the masses - he will do what he thinks is right. He will also, however (and this is BIG), listen to his advisers. He's done it in his business, which is why his primary business is as successful as it is, and I have every confidence he will when it comes to the presidency. It's already showing in how he's pivoting in this election.
He's no longer using the same inflammatory rhetoric he was a couple of months ago. He's begun making reasoned speeches, using the ever-popular teleprompters so he's sure to stay on message. He's already stated that he wants someone with political cred to be his VP - and that is a very smart move.
When people say that Trump "isn't nice" it annoys me to no end because we are not voting for Prom King in this election. This is not supposed to be a popularity contest. We are not voting for Nicest Dude or Cleanest Mouth or Most Polite in Company. We are voting for a leader - someone who is going to take his place on the world stage, nominally at the head of the table. We do not need a "nice guy" who's going to wring his hands and waffle at every bad turn. We need someone decisive, someone who is going to put our interests first, for a change. We need someone with the stones to go toe-to-toe with the bad actors on this planet and out-bully them - not back down and cower in a corner someplace. Although I'm not entirely sure the Oval Office has corners...
All I hope is that the first wave of cacophony from the scorched females in this country won't deafen me at the outset, that I'll have time to get the earplugs in place before the second caterwaul.
Now - have a lovely and quiet day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter:
Already, a number of go-along-to-get-along voices on the right are warning Trump to 'tone it down' or 'dial it back'. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for those of us who don't get upset when he says 'boo', it ain't gonna happen. Trump is going to be Trump and that's why I'll vote for him. Twice if I could.
The deal is, I don't want what the women who constantly rant about 'equality' want in our next president. I want a man with a set leading this country, not a spineless wuss who is likeable.
I have no doubt that these same women do not expect or want Hilliary to be polite and sincere and nice to Trump. You can wager that Hilliary is going to come out and play that woman card for all it's worth, until it's all worn out, and Trump is going to meet her right there, in the middle. She is going to be nasty and unpleasant, she is going to pull out all the stops and do what she's always done when confronted by an adversary. As my hubby would say, and as I agree with him having paid attention to her and her antics for the past twenty-five years or so, she is going to 'bitch out' and it is not going to be pleasant to see.
Based on her approach, Trump is not going to sit back, hold the door and be a 'gentleman'. Trump is going to treat Hilliary exactly as he would treat a male opponent in this upcoming race. It doesn't get more equal than that so all I can and will say to the women who take umbrage at his manner of expression, brace yourselves. It's going to get a whole lot worse than it's been. If you want equality, you are going to get it. In spades and, when it comes, don't you dare complain about it. It's what you've said you want so suck it up and get over it.
You see, my attitude toward him and his rhetoric is simple: I am not dating him. My daughter is not dating him. Neither of us are living with him. He is not someone I cook for, clean for, do laundry for. I don't go home to him at the end of the day, and it's a good thing I don't because I don't like a lot of what he says or the manner in which he says it. Therefore, because I have that arm's length relationship, I do not have to like him.
In my view, that's the difference between 'women' and 'girls'.
Women recognize that we don't have to love or admire the male, that we can take his verbal bullying and coarse actions. We can let it pass over us because we're bigger than the words.
Girls don't get that. They get knickerknotted at the first 'mean' or unpleasant thing someone says - as if it's a personal assault. As if they're that important.
Now, with that said, the flip side is what I do like about him. He has the courage of his convictions. When he thinks he's right, he's ready, willing and able to drive a stake into the ground and say, "here". If he thinks he's right, he's not going to back down and bow to the popular sway of the masses - he will do what he thinks is right. He will also, however (and this is BIG), listen to his advisers. He's done it in his business, which is why his primary business is as successful as it is, and I have every confidence he will when it comes to the presidency. It's already showing in how he's pivoting in this election.
He's no longer using the same inflammatory rhetoric he was a couple of months ago. He's begun making reasoned speeches, using the ever-popular teleprompters so he's sure to stay on message. He's already stated that he wants someone with political cred to be his VP - and that is a very smart move.
When people say that Trump "isn't nice" it annoys me to no end because we are not voting for Prom King in this election. This is not supposed to be a popularity contest. We are not voting for Nicest Dude or Cleanest Mouth or Most Polite in Company. We are voting for a leader - someone who is going to take his place on the world stage, nominally at the head of the table. We do not need a "nice guy" who's going to wring his hands and waffle at every bad turn. We need someone decisive, someone who is going to put our interests first, for a change. We need someone with the stones to go toe-to-toe with the bad actors on this planet and out-bully them - not back down and cower in a corner someplace. Although I'm not entirely sure the Oval Office has corners...
All I hope is that the first wave of cacophony from the scorched females in this country won't deafen me at the outset, that I'll have time to get the earplugs in place before the second caterwaul.
Now - have a lovely and quiet day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter:
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Ladies, May I Have Your Attention For Minute?
I am going to speak plainly about Donald Trump and his alleged problem with women. Dead honest in my opinion: it is not his problem. It's ours, the women, who are the problem.
America has bigger problems than ugly words. These problems are real and have nothing whatsoever to do with 'feeling' or 'emotion'. They are existential and they are going to make or break this country in the next few years. Either America gets itself back on its feet or we go under. It is that serious in my view.
Are you better off today than you were ten or twelve years ago? I genuinely hope you can answer yes to that, but I sincerely doubt you can, honestly.
Do you feel more secure, as settled and as comfortable as you did ten or twelve years ago? Or are you like me and like millions of others like me? Do you, as I do, worry about tomorrow and next week, never mind next year or retirement?
Do you worry about your kids' future? Do you wonder if they're going to be able to live and work and enjoy their lives as you used to do?
What about your grandchildren? Are they going to live the kind of life you want for them?
Given these problems, don't we have bigger fish to fry than to worry about someone saying stupid or ugly things about people?
I don't like everything Trump says but I recognize an ass is an ass is an ass and he tends to hit that mark too often for my comfort, but then I look past it - to those big existential threats to our security and well-being.
You know the problems in your own life. Your home - probably still under-water compared to your mortgage and its value. Your job - are you secure, confident you'll still have a job a year from now? How's that retirement looking?
What about your kids? How are they doing? Did they go to college and pile up a mountain of debt and find a job in their field that pays enough for them to pay that debt down - or are they working somewhere in the service industry?
This country is faced with big existential problems, yet I listen to the chattering class on television and all they're talking about (so it seems) is Donald Trump's "trouble with women".
And what is that "trouble" do we suppose? Well I know exactly what it is. Women get upset when someone says something stupid or ugly. Or they get upset by it because they take it personally and then can't get over themselves far enough to recognize that an ass is an ass is an ass and what he says does not have to be taken seriously.
Given the real and existential problems in this country, does it really matter that Trump made ugly remarks about Rosie O'Donnell (who deserved them) or Carly Fiorina or anyone else? Aren't we bigger than that?
After all, if talking nice would solve all the problems in the world - hunger and unemployment and the housing situation and international warfare and trade and the like, hell, I'd be all over him too. But it doesn't and it won't.
The sad reality is that while words have meaning and they can hurt our feelings, those words cannot solve the bigger issues in front of us.
Yes, negotiation is a matter of words but I suspect, given the number of sensitive negotiations Trump has been involved with, he knows what words work and what don't.
Yes, diplomacy is a matter of words - but I am not looking for the next Diplomat. I am looking for the next President. I am quite confident that in the setting of delicate negotiation, Trump is perfectly capable of being delicate, of saying the right thing at the right time in the right way.
Personally, I do not give the first little rip about what Donald Trump says - he can spew ugliness all day long for all I care because when he stops talking, I do care about what he can do for this country if we give him a chance. And, based on the choices from this smorgasbord, he is the only person who can get things back on track and rolling again.
Given the big problems facing this country I ask you: do you really want more of the same or do you want something better?
Ladies, if you want more of the same, knock yourself out but do not whine around about how bad things still are four years from now. You will have asked for it.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
America has bigger problems than ugly words. These problems are real and have nothing whatsoever to do with 'feeling' or 'emotion'. They are existential and they are going to make or break this country in the next few years. Either America gets itself back on its feet or we go under. It is that serious in my view.
Are you better off today than you were ten or twelve years ago? I genuinely hope you can answer yes to that, but I sincerely doubt you can, honestly.
Do you feel more secure, as settled and as comfortable as you did ten or twelve years ago? Or are you like me and like millions of others like me? Do you, as I do, worry about tomorrow and next week, never mind next year or retirement?
Do you worry about your kids' future? Do you wonder if they're going to be able to live and work and enjoy their lives as you used to do?
What about your grandchildren? Are they going to live the kind of life you want for them?
Given these problems, don't we have bigger fish to fry than to worry about someone saying stupid or ugly things about people?
I don't like everything Trump says but I recognize an ass is an ass is an ass and he tends to hit that mark too often for my comfort, but then I look past it - to those big existential threats to our security and well-being.
You know the problems in your own life. Your home - probably still under-water compared to your mortgage and its value. Your job - are you secure, confident you'll still have a job a year from now? How's that retirement looking?
What about your kids? How are they doing? Did they go to college and pile up a mountain of debt and find a job in their field that pays enough for them to pay that debt down - or are they working somewhere in the service industry?
This country is faced with big existential problems, yet I listen to the chattering class on television and all they're talking about (so it seems) is Donald Trump's "trouble with women".
And what is that "trouble" do we suppose? Well I know exactly what it is. Women get upset when someone says something stupid or ugly. Or they get upset by it because they take it personally and then can't get over themselves far enough to recognize that an ass is an ass is an ass and what he says does not have to be taken seriously.
Given the real and existential problems in this country, does it really matter that Trump made ugly remarks about Rosie O'Donnell (who deserved them) or Carly Fiorina or anyone else? Aren't we bigger than that?
After all, if talking nice would solve all the problems in the world - hunger and unemployment and the housing situation and international warfare and trade and the like, hell, I'd be all over him too. But it doesn't and it won't.
The sad reality is that while words have meaning and they can hurt our feelings, those words cannot solve the bigger issues in front of us.
Yes, negotiation is a matter of words but I suspect, given the number of sensitive negotiations Trump has been involved with, he knows what words work and what don't.
Yes, diplomacy is a matter of words - but I am not looking for the next Diplomat. I am looking for the next President. I am quite confident that in the setting of delicate negotiation, Trump is perfectly capable of being delicate, of saying the right thing at the right time in the right way.
Personally, I do not give the first little rip about what Donald Trump says - he can spew ugliness all day long for all I care because when he stops talking, I do care about what he can do for this country if we give him a chance. And, based on the choices from this smorgasbord, he is the only person who can get things back on track and rolling again.
Given the big problems facing this country I ask you: do you really want more of the same or do you want something better?
Ladies, if you want more of the same, knock yourself out but do not whine around about how bad things still are four years from now. You will have asked for it.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Let's Take a Break & Play A Game
Let's all take a big deep breath, okay? It's only April - just a couple of months into the 'political season' - and I'm already tired. This has been a hellacious week for my candidate and it's not letting up.
Everything from 'humunah, humunah, humunah' from Trump and a refusal to deny from Cruz.
For Trump it was abortion and nukes. Trump tried to talk it back.
For Cruz it's the National Enquirer and allegations that he's been getting some on the side. Cruz refused to deny.
Nonetheless, as usual, Trump is leading the pack in media mentions - but that's as it always is because the man simply doesn't know when to zip his lip. He's a good guy - I'd bet my life on it - but he talks too damned much and this week has been worse than usual.
Past stuff is well-known. Offering to pay legal fees for brawl participants. That has been a never-ending story. More recently though are his tongue-stomps on abortion. He didn't just trip over his tongue - he stomped on it and it was not pretty.
However, the media double-standard is staggering.
While the MSM has been blasting Trump non-stop for speaking badly, they just ignored that Ted Cruz framed a joke that really isn't that funny. On Jimmy Kimmel's show, he suggested that he would like to back a car over Donald Trump. Now if he had said that about Hilliary or Berns or Obie-One, the MSM would have been all over it - and not in a good way. But no, because it was Trump, that's okay. No one mentioned it - it got a complete pass.
I hate double-standards. In my world, fair is fair. That means you cannot say one thing and do another. If you're going to hold Person A to a standard, Person B has to be held to that same standard. It annoys the hell out of me that the media just doesn't get that. Instead, they're out there doing what they always do - making something out of nothing to Donald Trump's detriment.
So... ahhhh. After that deep cleansing breath, let's play a game. It's the Hiring Game. I'll lay out the rules as we go. Put on your thinking cap and think about your answers - don't just answer off the cuff. Okay, ready? Here we go.
You are screening people for an important job. You started with twenty applicants and are now down to just four. All four are viable prospects. There's another, over there, behind the screen - but he's not really viable. He just refuses to leave. The others are real possibilities but each has their problems and there are no other options. You've been watching them for weeks, filtering through what they've said and done, and here's what you've learned:
Applicant One is a compulsive liar and he's mean - a bully. During the first interview phase, he sent out a mailer that shamed people, made them feel bullied if they didn't do what he wanted them to do. He lied about another potential candidate, and got away with it. He has, arguably, made a death threat about another person under consideration - and got away with that, too. Recently, you've heard rumors that he's been unfaithful to his wife - and he has not come out and denied it, even when he's been asked directly. The most he's done is call the story 'garbage'.
Applicant Two is running from a felony conviction. She mishandled confidential information, data that was so sensitive that its getting out there into the world could cost people their lives. Now she's praying that her former boss will protect her from criminal indictment, but it looks like it might be a losing battle.
Applicant Three is a self-admitted spendthrift. He just loves spending other people's money without restraint. He will take your money, even though you've hired him, and he will give it away to anyone and everyone who holds out their hand. He has no idea, after you run out of money, how he's going to keep that gravy train going - tax the rich only goes so far, after all. But that's okay. Now, this moment, is all that counts.
Applicant Four is fundamentally honest, often too honest. Instead of filtering his words, he almost always says exactly what he thinks, regardless of whether or not those words are in his best interest. Some people take offense to what he says, and then spend days whinging about it.
The media has been sniffing around his ankles, searching for any major or minor chink in his armor, but haven't found anything except the words he chooses to use. If they could find something, anything, other than what's publicly known, they would use it with glee, but so far, their searching and probing hasn't revealed anything
Good, bad or indifferent, these are the final four candidates for this important job. 1) A liar, bully and cheat; 2) a criminal; 3) a spendthrift; and 4) an unbridled tongue. Which one will you hire?
I know which one I prefer, but that's me. So let's look a little more closely at our options, shall we?
Candidate Number 1: A first term Senator. As far as we know he's no better than the last first term Senator who held this post.
That guy was purely incompetent - in over his head at every turn, doing the wrong thing every time he made a move - a visit to Cuba and attending a ballgame instead of coming back to work when one of our allies was under attack. Doing the wave with the Cuban dictator and the tango with Argentina's first lady. Making a deal with an untrustworthy opponent, and not enforcing the conditions when that opponent repeatedly violates that deal that is now being closely scrutinized by Congress.
This candidate is hoping to replace that first term Senator, but he's a first term Senator, too. He has no more real world experience than the last guy. Will he be any better?
On top of that, he's proven himself to be a liar. Lying about that other candidate's dropping from the job interview process. Lying about the other interviewees.
Last, but nowhere close to least, is that he's being accused of messing around with women not his wife. How can someone trust a guy who will toss his own wife and children to the side in his rush to boff another Babe or two? How loyal will he be to you and me? A stellar character, to be sure.
Candidate Number Two: Hilliary Clinton's woes are well-known. 'nuff said.
Candidate Number Three: Freebies for everyone for everything and no idea how to pay for them.
Taxing the rich won't do it - they don't have enough money for pay for all the free stuff Bernie is promising. Even if Washington took everything everyone with anything owns, it wouldn't be enough. Free medical care, free education and, I'm sure when the demand gets loud enough, free housing. No one will have to work or pay taxes because everything will be free, right?
Candidate Number Four: He's a shoot-from-the-lip specialist. He says what's on his mind, no filter and that causes problems. He's also loyal - a good quality for which he doesn't get credit.
When one of his employees did what the Secret Service should have done, he stood by his man. After all, the guy hadn't been convicted in a court of law - just in the court of public opinion. He also didn't rat out the Secret Service - which wasn't doing his job when this employee did what they should have done. That's honorable. It shows loyalty - a character trait I respect and value.
On the other hand, he does speak too openly, too often without thinking things through or considering what he should say instead of what he really believes. That's causing him problems - and it's all that gets talked about - until I have to shut off my television because I'm so sick of the distortion that I want to puke.
So of these, given that these are your only choices, which would you hire?
Okay, ready? Now answer the fundamental question: Why would you pick that individual over the others? What makes your pick more palatable or viable than any of the others?
Fair questions, right?
Even if Trump were to get into office and put forward a SCOTUS nominee, do you not suppose the Senate Judiciary Committee who has 'yea' or 'nay' power over that nomination wouldn't question the candidate long and hard on this issue? That committee is not a purely right-wing body - it is run by the party that controls the Senate but includes people of all mindsets. It is not a rubber-stamp for any presidential nominee. The likelihood that abortion will be overturned, become a criminal act, is just about 0.0000%. The American people who support or at least acknowledge the need for it won't stand for its repeal.
Personally, I am aligned with Trump on the evil nature of the act - I do not agree with punishing the women or their doctors. It's an evil necessity and while I was once a pro-abortion thinker, my attitude has changed. It has evolved. From being pro-abortion I went to the opposite end of the spectrum - no abortion for any reason. Then, I've softened and now, while I still don't like it, I understand the necessity for it.
I suggest that before you walk into the voting booth this season that you sit down and stop and think about why you're picking one candidate over another. Get past the emotional 'feel-good-ism' - I like this guy. Answer the questions: what makes him like-worthy and will he be better than the other guy?
So that's the hiring game. Not fun but important and I hope you played along thoughtfully.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Everything from 'humunah, humunah, humunah' from Trump and a refusal to deny from Cruz.
For Trump it was abortion and nukes. Trump tried to talk it back.
For Cruz it's the National Enquirer and allegations that he's been getting some on the side. Cruz refused to deny.
Nonetheless, as usual, Trump is leading the pack in media mentions - but that's as it always is because the man simply doesn't know when to zip his lip. He's a good guy - I'd bet my life on it - but he talks too damned much and this week has been worse than usual.
Past stuff is well-known. Offering to pay legal fees for brawl participants. That has been a never-ending story. More recently though are his tongue-stomps on abortion. He didn't just trip over his tongue - he stomped on it and it was not pretty.
However, the media double-standard is staggering.
While the MSM has been blasting Trump non-stop for speaking badly, they just ignored that Ted Cruz framed a joke that really isn't that funny. On Jimmy Kimmel's show, he suggested that he would like to back a car over Donald Trump. Now if he had said that about Hilliary or Berns or Obie-One, the MSM would have been all over it - and not in a good way. But no, because it was Trump, that's okay. No one mentioned it - it got a complete pass.
I hate double-standards. In my world, fair is fair. That means you cannot say one thing and do another. If you're going to hold Person A to a standard, Person B has to be held to that same standard. It annoys the hell out of me that the media just doesn't get that. Instead, they're out there doing what they always do - making something out of nothing to Donald Trump's detriment.
So... ahhhh. After that deep cleansing breath, let's play a game. It's the Hiring Game. I'll lay out the rules as we go. Put on your thinking cap and think about your answers - don't just answer off the cuff. Okay, ready? Here we go.
You are screening people for an important job. You started with twenty applicants and are now down to just four. All four are viable prospects. There's another, over there, behind the screen - but he's not really viable. He just refuses to leave. The others are real possibilities but each has their problems and there are no other options. You've been watching them for weeks, filtering through what they've said and done, and here's what you've learned:
Applicant One is a compulsive liar and he's mean - a bully. During the first interview phase, he sent out a mailer that shamed people, made them feel bullied if they didn't do what he wanted them to do. He lied about another potential candidate, and got away with it. He has, arguably, made a death threat about another person under consideration - and got away with that, too. Recently, you've heard rumors that he's been unfaithful to his wife - and he has not come out and denied it, even when he's been asked directly. The most he's done is call the story 'garbage'.
Applicant Two is running from a felony conviction. She mishandled confidential information, data that was so sensitive that its getting out there into the world could cost people their lives. Now she's praying that her former boss will protect her from criminal indictment, but it looks like it might be a losing battle.
Applicant Three is a self-admitted spendthrift. He just loves spending other people's money without restraint. He will take your money, even though you've hired him, and he will give it away to anyone and everyone who holds out their hand. He has no idea, after you run out of money, how he's going to keep that gravy train going - tax the rich only goes so far, after all. But that's okay. Now, this moment, is all that counts.
Applicant Four is fundamentally honest, often too honest. Instead of filtering his words, he almost always says exactly what he thinks, regardless of whether or not those words are in his best interest. Some people take offense to what he says, and then spend days whinging about it.
The media has been sniffing around his ankles, searching for any major or minor chink in his armor, but haven't found anything except the words he chooses to use. If they could find something, anything, other than what's publicly known, they would use it with glee, but so far, their searching and probing hasn't revealed anything
Good, bad or indifferent, these are the final four candidates for this important job. 1) A liar, bully and cheat; 2) a criminal; 3) a spendthrift; and 4) an unbridled tongue. Which one will you hire?
I know which one I prefer, but that's me. So let's look a little more closely at our options, shall we?
Candidate Number 1: A first term Senator. As far as we know he's no better than the last first term Senator who held this post.
That guy was purely incompetent - in over his head at every turn, doing the wrong thing every time he made a move - a visit to Cuba and attending a ballgame instead of coming back to work when one of our allies was under attack. Doing the wave with the Cuban dictator and the tango with Argentina's first lady. Making a deal with an untrustworthy opponent, and not enforcing the conditions when that opponent repeatedly violates that deal that is now being closely scrutinized by Congress.
This candidate is hoping to replace that first term Senator, but he's a first term Senator, too. He has no more real world experience than the last guy. Will he be any better?
On top of that, he's proven himself to be a liar. Lying about that other candidate's dropping from the job interview process. Lying about the other interviewees.
Last, but nowhere close to least, is that he's being accused of messing around with women not his wife. How can someone trust a guy who will toss his own wife and children to the side in his rush to boff another Babe or two? How loyal will he be to you and me? A stellar character, to be sure.
Candidate Number Two: Hilliary Clinton's woes are well-known. 'nuff said.
Candidate Number Three: Freebies for everyone for everything and no idea how to pay for them.
Taxing the rich won't do it - they don't have enough money for pay for all the free stuff Bernie is promising. Even if Washington took everything everyone with anything owns, it wouldn't be enough. Free medical care, free education and, I'm sure when the demand gets loud enough, free housing. No one will have to work or pay taxes because everything will be free, right?
Candidate Number Four: He's a shoot-from-the-lip specialist. He says what's on his mind, no filter and that causes problems. He's also loyal - a good quality for which he doesn't get credit.
When one of his employees did what the Secret Service should have done, he stood by his man. After all, the guy hadn't been convicted in a court of law - just in the court of public opinion. He also didn't rat out the Secret Service - which wasn't doing his job when this employee did what they should have done. That's honorable. It shows loyalty - a character trait I respect and value.
On the other hand, he does speak too openly, too often without thinking things through or considering what he should say instead of what he really believes. That's causing him problems - and it's all that gets talked about - until I have to shut off my television because I'm so sick of the distortion that I want to puke.
So of these, given that these are your only choices, which would you hire?
Okay, ready? Now answer the fundamental question: Why would you pick that individual over the others? What makes your pick more palatable or viable than any of the others?
Fair questions, right?
Even if Trump were to get into office and put forward a SCOTUS nominee, do you not suppose the Senate Judiciary Committee who has 'yea' or 'nay' power over that nomination wouldn't question the candidate long and hard on this issue? That committee is not a purely right-wing body - it is run by the party that controls the Senate but includes people of all mindsets. It is not a rubber-stamp for any presidential nominee. The likelihood that abortion will be overturned, become a criminal act, is just about 0.0000%. The American people who support or at least acknowledge the need for it won't stand for its repeal.
Personally, I am aligned with Trump on the evil nature of the act - I do not agree with punishing the women or their doctors. It's an evil necessity and while I was once a pro-abortion thinker, my attitude has changed. It has evolved. From being pro-abortion I went to the opposite end of the spectrum - no abortion for any reason. Then, I've softened and now, while I still don't like it, I understand the necessity for it.
I suggest that before you walk into the voting booth this season that you sit down and stop and think about why you're picking one candidate over another. Get past the emotional 'feel-good-ism' - I like this guy. Answer the questions: what makes him like-worthy and will he be better than the other guy?
So that's the hiring game. Not fun but important and I hope you played along thoughtfully.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Sunday, April 3, 2016
The MSM is Chock-full of Mental Defectives
Can you believe this? Less than two weeks ago, ISIS blew up an airport and a subway station in Brussels. They killed more than thirty people and injured several hundred more, but the biggest issue in American politics this week is not the existential threats of terrorism, our porous border, jobs or the economy.
No. According to the so-called 'news' outlets, the only and the BIGGEST threat to our country is that Donald Trump made more than a few stupid, ill-informed statements* about abortion.
*Sorry, Donald, but I'm like you - I call 'em as I see 'em and there is no other explanation for what you said - stupid (you should never have tried to answer that question) and ill-informed (because you didn't have your facts straight until after the fact: Roe v. Wade is the law, period, end of story).
So is this election really all and only about abortion? Are we so insulated from the rest of the world that we can discuss and dissect what goes on in women's wombs to the exclusion of everything else?
Well, based on what I'm hearing and seeing from the MSM yes, it is.
After all, since this blew up last week during interviews with Anderson Cooper on CNN and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, every single one of the chattering class on television, and the nattering class in the print media, have talked about nothing else. It's as if ISIS and the rest of it doesn't exist.
However, to the intelligent people out here in the real world, this whole discussion of the past week is a pure non-issue.
Roe v. Wade was decided by SCOTUS more than forty years ago. Unless and until something brings another case in front of the court it is a waste of time, oxygen and energy to talk about it. Even if it did end up back in front of SCOTUS, it is right next door to impossible that it would be struck down or overturned.
Still, instead of spending time talking about the really important things that matter to people out here, outside of New York and Washington - like jobs, like taxes, like government regulations, like terrorists blowing innocent people to smithereens, like North Korea and its nukes, like ISIS working on developing chemical weapons in a chem lab in Iraq, like Iran and its ballistic missiles, like... That is one hell of an impressive list of substantive issues - but, instead of focusing on those things, the MSM is all caught up in women's wombs. Give me a break.
I'm sorry - but I really do not give the first little rip about what goes on with some other woman's womb. Like it or not, agree with it or not, it is none of my business and I do not want to talk about it any more.
Hello! * Knock, knock, knock * CNN, Pravda-USA, MSNBC I've got news for you guys - the issue of women's reproductive rights is dead and settled - has been for about four decades now - can we just let it go? Can't we please focus on the economy, national security, safety and the big ticket issues that really matter to the majority of adults in this country?
Can we please talk about the important grown-up stuff for a change?
I hope so.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
No. According to the so-called 'news' outlets, the only and the BIGGEST threat to our country is that Donald Trump made more than a few stupid, ill-informed statements* about abortion.
*Sorry, Donald, but I'm like you - I call 'em as I see 'em and there is no other explanation for what you said - stupid (you should never have tried to answer that question) and ill-informed (because you didn't have your facts straight until after the fact: Roe v. Wade is the law, period, end of story).
So is this election really all and only about abortion? Are we so insulated from the rest of the world that we can discuss and dissect what goes on in women's wombs to the exclusion of everything else?
Well, based on what I'm hearing and seeing from the MSM yes, it is.
After all, since this blew up last week during interviews with Anderson Cooper on CNN and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, every single one of the chattering class on television, and the nattering class in the print media, have talked about nothing else. It's as if ISIS and the rest of it doesn't exist.
However, to the intelligent people out here in the real world, this whole discussion of the past week is a pure non-issue.
Roe v. Wade was decided by SCOTUS more than forty years ago. Unless and until something brings another case in front of the court it is a waste of time, oxygen and energy to talk about it. Even if it did end up back in front of SCOTUS, it is right next door to impossible that it would be struck down or overturned.
Still, instead of spending time talking about the really important things that matter to people out here, outside of New York and Washington - like jobs, like taxes, like government regulations, like terrorists blowing innocent people to smithereens, like North Korea and its nukes, like ISIS working on developing chemical weapons in a chem lab in Iraq, like Iran and its ballistic missiles, like... That is one hell of an impressive list of substantive issues - but, instead of focusing on those things, the MSM is all caught up in women's wombs. Give me a break.
I'm sorry - but I really do not give the first little rip about what goes on with some other woman's womb. Like it or not, agree with it or not, it is none of my business and I do not want to talk about it any more.
Hello! * Knock, knock, knock * CNN, Pravda-USA, MSNBC I've got news for you guys - the issue of women's reproductive rights is dead and settled - has been for about four decades now - can we just let it go? Can't we please focus on the economy, national security, safety and the big ticket issues that really matter to the majority of adults in this country?
Can we please talk about the important grown-up stuff for a change?
I hope so.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Ya Know What, Jim? Yesterday Pissed Me Off
Jim Geraghty's dismissive post about Trump supporters being idiots and fools was snot. Pure and simple mucus that belongs wadded up in a piece of tissue at the bottom of a garbage can. And he's just the latest in a long procession of people who think and have written and said the same kinds of things.
What's infuriating is that none of these people have got the first foggiest clue about why so many people are backing Donald Trump.
Thinking about it here, on the receiving end, I got mad yesterday. Really mad because until he and his pinhead friends know what I and what people like me have lived for these past twelve years, he has no right in the world to dismiss us. Until he and the others understand how disenfranchised and disrespected millions of us feel, he would do really well to just shut the fuck up.
Sorry - I'm trying not to do that anymore because I have a bigger vocabulary than that, but that says precisely what I want to say.
Just. Shut. Up. And here's why:
I do not, I never have and I never will draw six or seven figures a year in salary. I make an honest wage, but it is a just-barely-scraping-the-sides-of-the-barrel and enough-to-barely-make-ends-meet wage. And it's not because I'm not good or smart or talented or skilled. It's because it's the best I can find in this economy.
I will never sit down in some fancy Washington or New York restaurant and scarf a portion of a $100, $200 or $1,000 dinner. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford it. I can't even save up for it because I don't have two pennies to scrape together at the end of a month - it all goes to pay my expenses.
I drive a twelve year old Ford station wagon with almost 150,000 on the odometer. I will make that car last just as long as I possibly can, not because I like it but because I cannot afford $200 or $300 or $500 a month in lease expenses. I can't afford to spend $8,000 or $10,000 or more on a 'new' used car, either.
I never have and I never will drive a Mercedes Benz or a BMW or anything other than a basic form of transportation. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. I can't afford it.
I am not quite sixty years old. I have worked since I graduated from high school in 1975. Aside being mainly unemployed for sixteen months, the longest time I haven't worked was the two years I took off to stay home with my daughter, before I had to go back to work to support the family.
If I did manual labor, I'm the kind of person who would have honorable calluses on my hands. I don't have calluses, but I do get up at 4:45 every morning and leave my house by 7:00 every morning and don't get home until 6:30 every night. I have taken one day off in the past year - for the birth of my grandson.
I am, and others like me are, the backbone of this country and its economy. Unlike the pointy airhead pundits who make a living writing drivel about what goes on inside Washington.
I, and others like me, work to help produce goods and services that have meaning.
At the end of the day - who cares about opinion? What does that do for anyone? I can't eat it or drive it or wear it - so why should people who produce nothing but hot air on a computer screen think they can disrespect me and others like me who actually produce things that have real meaning?
And we are the majority who are supporting Trump.
So now, Jim, given those things, given our honest labor that pays an honest day's wages, who the hell are you to call me and others like me idiots and fools?
And I'll take it further - you don't get it, okay. Here is why I'm supporting Trump:
In the late 1990's and through 2001, our family was solid middle class. We had a mortgage on a nice house in a nice neighborhood and were doing okay financially. I had a job that paid enough that my husband could stay home and day-trade, taking care of our daughter.
We decided to sell the house we were living in - it was really too big for a family of three, so we bought another house. We used the equity we had built up over the years and bought a slightly more expensive home - not bigger, not better, just more money because prices had gone up. The mortgage on our new house was manageable.
We were just like millions of other middle class Americans. Things were fine through 2005. By then, I had been at my job for ten years. I was earning enough that I could support my husband and our daughter. We could even save a little every month.
Then, in 2006, we started seeing signs the economy was changing. The day-trading had already gone by the wayside - I was the sole support of our family and I was getting nervous.
The company I had been with had its first layoffs in its fifty year history. In the course of twenty minutes, six people were gone. The survivors, me included, took pay cuts or cuts in our hours to keep things going. Gradually it got better and then 2007 hit.
The housing bubble burst and the economy collapsed in on itself.
The millions of bad loans that Congress, George Bush and Hank Paulson, driven by the Federal Reserve and the banking industry had palmed off on people who never should have qualified for loans came home to roost. No one was repaying the balloons on the loans they had taken out in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 after the banking laws were repealed by Congress. Together these characters, along with Newt Gingrich and Billy-Jeff and others in Washington had destroyed the fiduciary responsibility of the banks to protect their depositors' money.
The Washington insiders, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street had colluded together to create a devastating housing bubble. Those people who should never, ever, ever have received loans had received loans - often for the full value of the property they were buying. No job? No problem! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were there to provide the money needed - just ignore the fact that those institutions were, at the bottom line, publicly funded by other homeowners and workers like me.
In 2007 we elected a first term Senator from Illinois. This man had never run a company. He had never managed a company. He had never, to the best of anyone's knowledge, ever balanced a checkbook - but he was elected to the office of the President.
Immediately, he started blaming Bush for everything that was wrong - and that has not changed eight years later. He did nothing, materially, to change things, to make them better. He didn't consult with business people to figure out what they needed to make their companies stronger and more vibrant. He didn't do his job and work with Congress to re-institute Glass-Steagall and put in place laws that would hold the banks and investment companies accountable.
No! He bailed them out. He took whatever was left of our hard-earned money and handed it over to the too-big-to-fails that had created this mess - paying no attention whatsoever to the devastation that was taking place in the real world outside of Washington and New York. Oh, sure, he gave it lip service - but lip service doesn't keep a roof over a families head. It doesn't put clothes on their back, shoes on their feet and food on their table.
The economy continued to fall apart through 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 - more layoffs, unemployment soared, companies by the hundreds of thousands down-sized or just closed their doors. There were no new jobs for the people unemployed by the malfeasance of George Bush, Hank Paulson, Congress and the continuation of bad policy by the new administration.
But who cares! Let's get Obamacare going - never mind that it will destroy whatever small companies might be left in America. Who cares about the employers of millions of people or the millions of people who will lose their jobs because of the onerous requirements? I don't because it's my legacy!
Never mind that start to finish the vast majority of the American people screamed that we didn't want it - but it was shoved down our throats anyway - to the detriment of families and businesses and the medical care providers.
The company I worked for had more wage freezes and layoffs - 2008, 2010 and 2012. In the last, I was caught up. Eight people - almost the last of the non-partners / owners - were included in that layoff. I had been there for seventeen years. Some had been there more than twenty and twenty-five years. They had been looking forward to retiring in a few years and... wham! Unemployment, the potential of losing their homes, evisceration of their 401ks.
In eight years since that first term Senator took office, this economy hasn't even begun to recover. Regardless of what anyone inside Washington and the nattering class says - this economy has not recovered.
Unemployment, if you dig through the piles of manure the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the government cover it with every month, is horrible.
Do you realize that under current employment counting rules if a professional who is on unemployment works just one hour - just sixty minutes - in a week and is paid just $20 - the BLS counts him or her as employed for that week?
If someone works as a temporary employee - at one-half or one-quarter of their former wage - for just an hour in a week, they are counted as 'employed'.
How does that work? Come on! That's not a sustainable wage. That won't buy lunch in a lot of places in this country, so how can those people be called 'employed'? Yet they are.
For me, after losing my job in 2012, it took me more than two months to find even a $14 hour temporary job - less than half of what I had been earning, with no benefits - for two days.
And that wasn't because I wasn't trying. The day after I was told I no longer had a job, I put together my resume. I called the employment agencies - seven of them - and made appointments. That week after losing my job, I was in front of agency people, selling them on my skills, yet it took two months for me to find even a $14 per hour job.
I did well there. I did well enough there that that company specifically asked for me when they needed coverage the next several times. I had the same thing happen with other employers so by November, I was working fairly regularly.
Then I got lucky - so I thought. I got an offer - but they were going through an internal restructuring so it would 'be a few weeks' but I shouldn't accept any temp work because 'they might need' me right away. Eight weeks went by with me supporting my family on $11.50 per hour unemployment while waiting for this job that paid almost what I had been making at my last job. To me, given the economy, it was a good wait.
Finally, in January 2013 I started work and I worked until... sequestration. March 2013 began the government intervention that cost millions of government and government contractors their jobs - me included.
May 1st saw me back on unemployment, back to knocking on doors, calling the temporary agencies two and three times a week, spending hours every week cruising Monster and Craig's List and Indeed and company websites searching for anything that would pay even a little more than the unemployment benefits I was receiving.
In the meantime, the siding on our house began to rot - we couldn't afford to paint or fix it. Our bedroom window broke - we can't afford to replace it. The roof is on its last legs - not quite leaking but it will be in a year or two or three.
In October 2014 I became a criminal thanks to my federal government. Obamacare kicked in but I make too much to qualify for subsidies and too little to afford almost $900 per month in premiums plus the $6,000 deductible for my husband and me. This year, in my taxes, I "get" to pay a penalty for being uninsured.
For nearly three years I lay awake at night, worrying - how am I going to pay the bills? Will I be able to keep this job or will I be let go? Will I ever find another job? How are we going to make it?
Now I have a job - it's a regular job but I am making thirty percent less than I made just four years ago. I still cannot afford those insurance premiums. I am still a criminal. I cannot afford to save. I cannot afford even basic repairs to my house. The value on the biggest asset that I own that is finally starting to look like it might go back to where we bought it twelve years ago but at this point, the only way I might realize that potential is if I throw about $60,000 that I no longer can afford into it for the repairs that have gone wanting for so long - $30,000 for new siding, $20,000 for a new roof, new paint and new carpet.
In the years since I lost my job in 2012 we have gone, as so many others have gone in this past decade, from comfortable middle class to barely making it. Even now, because I don't earn enough to be comfortable, we unplug appliances when we're not using them. We have taken light bulbs out of fixtures to save money. We don't run the heat until the house gets below sixty degrees. We don't run the air conditioner unless it's over 100 degrees outside. We don't drive unless we absolutely have to, because we can't afford it, even though gas is now at a reasonable price.
Before this mess began in 2006 / 2007, we could go out to dinner occasionally. Nothing big, nothing expensive, but we could. Now we can't. I honestly cannot remember the last time we ate out - and that last time was Jack In The Box. Not because we wanted to, but because it was all we could afford.
So before these erudite airheads tell me that I'm an "idiot" for voting for someone outside the norm, they should sit down and talk to people like me. They should walk the walk of a life like mine before opining on how "wrong" I am.
I am voting for Donald Trump because the same-old, same-old of Washington politicians and a one term Senator have not been good for me, for people like me, or for this country. I am desperate to try something - anything new and another one term Senator is not an option.
So take my advice, Jim - and pass the word to your buds: just shut up until you know what you're talking about.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
What's infuriating is that none of these people have got the first foggiest clue about why so many people are backing Donald Trump.
Thinking about it here, on the receiving end, I got mad yesterday. Really mad because until he and his pinhead friends know what I and what people like me have lived for these past twelve years, he has no right in the world to dismiss us. Until he and the others understand how disenfranchised and disrespected millions of us feel, he would do really well to just shut the fuck up.
Sorry - I'm trying not to do that anymore because I have a bigger vocabulary than that, but that says precisely what I want to say.
Just. Shut. Up. And here's why:
I do not, I never have and I never will draw six or seven figures a year in salary. I make an honest wage, but it is a just-barely-scraping-the-sides-of-the-barrel and enough-to-barely-make-ends-meet wage. And it's not because I'm not good or smart or talented or skilled. It's because it's the best I can find in this economy.
I will never sit down in some fancy Washington or New York restaurant and scarf a portion of a $100, $200 or $1,000 dinner. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford it. I can't even save up for it because I don't have two pennies to scrape together at the end of a month - it all goes to pay my expenses.
I drive a twelve year old Ford station wagon with almost 150,000 on the odometer. I will make that car last just as long as I possibly can, not because I like it but because I cannot afford $200 or $300 or $500 a month in lease expenses. I can't afford to spend $8,000 or $10,000 or more on a 'new' used car, either.
I never have and I never will drive a Mercedes Benz or a BMW or anything other than a basic form of transportation. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. I can't afford it.
I am not quite sixty years old. I have worked since I graduated from high school in 1975. Aside being mainly unemployed for sixteen months, the longest time I haven't worked was the two years I took off to stay home with my daughter, before I had to go back to work to support the family.
If I did manual labor, I'm the kind of person who would have honorable calluses on my hands. I don't have calluses, but I do get up at 4:45 every morning and leave my house by 7:00 every morning and don't get home until 6:30 every night. I have taken one day off in the past year - for the birth of my grandson.
I am, and others like me are, the backbone of this country and its economy. Unlike the pointy airhead pundits who make a living writing drivel about what goes on inside Washington.
I, and others like me, work to help produce goods and services that have meaning.
At the end of the day - who cares about opinion? What does that do for anyone? I can't eat it or drive it or wear it - so why should people who produce nothing but hot air on a computer screen think they can disrespect me and others like me who actually produce things that have real meaning?
And we are the majority who are supporting Trump.
So now, Jim, given those things, given our honest labor that pays an honest day's wages, who the hell are you to call me and others like me idiots and fools?
And I'll take it further - you don't get it, okay. Here is why I'm supporting Trump:
In the late 1990's and through 2001, our family was solid middle class. We had a mortgage on a nice house in a nice neighborhood and were doing okay financially. I had a job that paid enough that my husband could stay home and day-trade, taking care of our daughter.
We decided to sell the house we were living in - it was really too big for a family of three, so we bought another house. We used the equity we had built up over the years and bought a slightly more expensive home - not bigger, not better, just more money because prices had gone up. The mortgage on our new house was manageable.
We were just like millions of other middle class Americans. Things were fine through 2005. By then, I had been at my job for ten years. I was earning enough that I could support my husband and our daughter. We could even save a little every month.
Then, in 2006, we started seeing signs the economy was changing. The day-trading had already gone by the wayside - I was the sole support of our family and I was getting nervous.
The company I had been with had its first layoffs in its fifty year history. In the course of twenty minutes, six people were gone. The survivors, me included, took pay cuts or cuts in our hours to keep things going. Gradually it got better and then 2007 hit.
The housing bubble burst and the economy collapsed in on itself.
The millions of bad loans that Congress, George Bush and Hank Paulson, driven by the Federal Reserve and the banking industry had palmed off on people who never should have qualified for loans came home to roost. No one was repaying the balloons on the loans they had taken out in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 after the banking laws were repealed by Congress. Together these characters, along with Newt Gingrich and Billy-Jeff and others in Washington had destroyed the fiduciary responsibility of the banks to protect their depositors' money.
The Washington insiders, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street had colluded together to create a devastating housing bubble. Those people who should never, ever, ever have received loans had received loans - often for the full value of the property they were buying. No job? No problem! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were there to provide the money needed - just ignore the fact that those institutions were, at the bottom line, publicly funded by other homeowners and workers like me.
In 2007 we elected a first term Senator from Illinois. This man had never run a company. He had never managed a company. He had never, to the best of anyone's knowledge, ever balanced a checkbook - but he was elected to the office of the President.
Immediately, he started blaming Bush for everything that was wrong - and that has not changed eight years later. He did nothing, materially, to change things, to make them better. He didn't consult with business people to figure out what they needed to make their companies stronger and more vibrant. He didn't do his job and work with Congress to re-institute Glass-Steagall and put in place laws that would hold the banks and investment companies accountable.
No! He bailed them out. He took whatever was left of our hard-earned money and handed it over to the too-big-to-fails that had created this mess - paying no attention whatsoever to the devastation that was taking place in the real world outside of Washington and New York. Oh, sure, he gave it lip service - but lip service doesn't keep a roof over a families head. It doesn't put clothes on their back, shoes on their feet and food on their table.
The economy continued to fall apart through 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 - more layoffs, unemployment soared, companies by the hundreds of thousands down-sized or just closed their doors. There were no new jobs for the people unemployed by the malfeasance of George Bush, Hank Paulson, Congress and the continuation of bad policy by the new administration.
But who cares! Let's get Obamacare going - never mind that it will destroy whatever small companies might be left in America. Who cares about the employers of millions of people or the millions of people who will lose their jobs because of the onerous requirements? I don't because it's my legacy!
Never mind that start to finish the vast majority of the American people screamed that we didn't want it - but it was shoved down our throats anyway - to the detriment of families and businesses and the medical care providers.
The company I worked for had more wage freezes and layoffs - 2008, 2010 and 2012. In the last, I was caught up. Eight people - almost the last of the non-partners / owners - were included in that layoff. I had been there for seventeen years. Some had been there more than twenty and twenty-five years. They had been looking forward to retiring in a few years and... wham! Unemployment, the potential of losing their homes, evisceration of their 401ks.
In eight years since that first term Senator took office, this economy hasn't even begun to recover. Regardless of what anyone inside Washington and the nattering class says - this economy has not recovered.
Unemployment, if you dig through the piles of manure the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the government cover it with every month, is horrible.
Do you realize that under current employment counting rules if a professional who is on unemployment works just one hour - just sixty minutes - in a week and is paid just $20 - the BLS counts him or her as employed for that week?
If someone works as a temporary employee - at one-half or one-quarter of their former wage - for just an hour in a week, they are counted as 'employed'.
How does that work? Come on! That's not a sustainable wage. That won't buy lunch in a lot of places in this country, so how can those people be called 'employed'? Yet they are.
For me, after losing my job in 2012, it took me more than two months to find even a $14 hour temporary job - less than half of what I had been earning, with no benefits - for two days.
And that wasn't because I wasn't trying. The day after I was told I no longer had a job, I put together my resume. I called the employment agencies - seven of them - and made appointments. That week after losing my job, I was in front of agency people, selling them on my skills, yet it took two months for me to find even a $14 per hour job.
I did well there. I did well enough there that that company specifically asked for me when they needed coverage the next several times. I had the same thing happen with other employers so by November, I was working fairly regularly.
Then I got lucky - so I thought. I got an offer - but they were going through an internal restructuring so it would 'be a few weeks' but I shouldn't accept any temp work because 'they might need' me right away. Eight weeks went by with me supporting my family on $11.50 per hour unemployment while waiting for this job that paid almost what I had been making at my last job. To me, given the economy, it was a good wait.
Finally, in January 2013 I started work and I worked until... sequestration. March 2013 began the government intervention that cost millions of government and government contractors their jobs - me included.
May 1st saw me back on unemployment, back to knocking on doors, calling the temporary agencies two and three times a week, spending hours every week cruising Monster and Craig's List and Indeed and company websites searching for anything that would pay even a little more than the unemployment benefits I was receiving.
In the meantime, the siding on our house began to rot - we couldn't afford to paint or fix it. Our bedroom window broke - we can't afford to replace it. The roof is on its last legs - not quite leaking but it will be in a year or two or three.
In October 2014 I became a criminal thanks to my federal government. Obamacare kicked in but I make too much to qualify for subsidies and too little to afford almost $900 per month in premiums plus the $6,000 deductible for my husband and me. This year, in my taxes, I "get" to pay a penalty for being uninsured.
For nearly three years I lay awake at night, worrying - how am I going to pay the bills? Will I be able to keep this job or will I be let go? Will I ever find another job? How are we going to make it?
Now I have a job - it's a regular job but I am making thirty percent less than I made just four years ago. I still cannot afford those insurance premiums. I am still a criminal. I cannot afford to save. I cannot afford even basic repairs to my house. The value on the biggest asset that I own that is finally starting to look like it might go back to where we bought it twelve years ago but at this point, the only way I might realize that potential is if I throw about $60,000 that I no longer can afford into it for the repairs that have gone wanting for so long - $30,000 for new siding, $20,000 for a new roof, new paint and new carpet.
In the years since I lost my job in 2012 we have gone, as so many others have gone in this past decade, from comfortable middle class to barely making it. Even now, because I don't earn enough to be comfortable, we unplug appliances when we're not using them. We have taken light bulbs out of fixtures to save money. We don't run the heat until the house gets below sixty degrees. We don't run the air conditioner unless it's over 100 degrees outside. We don't drive unless we absolutely have to, because we can't afford it, even though gas is now at a reasonable price.
Before this mess began in 2006 / 2007, we could go out to dinner occasionally. Nothing big, nothing expensive, but we could. Now we can't. I honestly cannot remember the last time we ate out - and that last time was Jack In The Box. Not because we wanted to, but because it was all we could afford.
So before these erudite airheads tell me that I'm an "idiot" for voting for someone outside the norm, they should sit down and talk to people like me. They should walk the walk of a life like mine before opining on how "wrong" I am.
I am voting for Donald Trump because the same-old, same-old of Washington politicians and a one term Senator have not been good for me, for people like me, or for this country. I am desperate to try something - anything new and another one term Senator is not an option.
So take my advice, Jim - and pass the word to your buds: just shut up until you know what you're talking about.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Every Candidate Has Flaws
Can we agree that all political candidates are flawed? Can we admit that
there is no such thing as the perfect candidate except, maybe, the Manchurian Candidate?
But we don’t really have a Manchurian Candidate in this election cycle. Instead
we have a field of highly flawed individuals.
On the left, Hilliary is an out-and-out un-convicted criminal. That, I hope, is just a matter of time before it’s resolved. Bernie is plain clueless about how to pay for all the freebies.
Despite a decent background and good experience, I just cannot get behind a floppy waffle like John Kasich. He comes across as micron thin in character, and I don’t trust him.
‘TrusTed’ Cruz lies. Pure and simple, he plays fast and loose with the truth while declaring that he’s honest as the day. Besides that, he always comes across the screen as slimy – just the unctuous tone of voice puts my nerves on edge. When I saw him at the Town Hall in Wisconsin yesterday, he started talking about women’s issues and the tone of his voice changed. He lowered the volume, slowed it down – he was talking down to those women and they fell for it. It was a disgusting moment that turned my stomach.
Unfortunately, Trump has a bad tendency to speak too quickly – without preparation or a hint of forethought - and then he has to walk backward while covering the blush of humiliation. That hard and fast ‘do not shoot from the lip’ lesson is something that politicians learn pretty quickly and the fact that Trump is not a politician is, at times, painfully obvious. Take the comments on abortion yesterday during the MSNBC Town Hall.
There is no doubt, regardless of which side of the issue you're on, that was a gigantic flub by The Donald. Was it devastating? That remains to be seen, but it does show that he has got to spend more time thinking about possible responses to the hot button issues, developing clear and rational answers, and less time Tweeting. He has also got to get back ahead of things, get back on his message and keep it there.
If he had developed a solid position on the issue before yesterday, he wouldn't have been caught as he was. The worst thing he did was open his mouth and try to answer Chris Matthews's question. I really hate to say it, but the old saw ‘better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt’ was proved true by my candidate yesterday.
This is not going to change my mind or my vote. In the final analysis, given that the law is what it is, I think this is a non-issue.
Still, instead of trying to answer, he could have said, 'you know, Chris. I really hadn't thought through that in great detail because right now, today, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. It’s the law and it’s not a law that’s going to be changed. The people wouldn’t stand for it.'
That would have been honest, it would have given him room, and he wouldn't now be watching his poll numbers plummet in Wisconsin and other places. It's going to be an uphill battle to regain that ground because anything he does and says is 100% wrong per the media. Even if he helped a little old lady across eight lanes of traffic and rescued a sick puppy along the way, they'd find something to criticize.
There is one opportunity, just one, to salvage something of what happened during that Town Hall yesterday.
He has got to come out now, today, and say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t give the voters my best effort yesterday. When Chris asked me the question about abortion I was still thinking about the nuclear question. That was such strange exchange it threw me, but that doesn’t excuse what I said about abortion.
‘Obviously, Roe v. Wade is and will be the law of the land whether we agree with it or not. I should never have said a word in answer to that question. This is part of my learning about being a politician. Sometimes on the campaign trail, when I’m trying to make a good impression, I speak when I would do better to stay quiet.
‘I’m not a politician and that’s why I sometimes make mistakes. I’m a manager, an administrator. I run things, big things and I build great things. That’s why I’m in the race. I want to try to get the government under control, to make it more efficient and reorganize it so it works better for everyone. The policy matters are critical and that is why I’m surrounding myself with brilliant and experienced advisors who know these things.’
This kind of a statement answers the question from the other night on CNN when Anderson Cooper asked if Trump ever apologizes, and it shows both humility and humanity. For a moment it would take him off the pedestal and show the base his feet of clay.
A release like this wouldn’t salvage Wisconsin, but it might help going forward. People understand that he’s a human being. Knowing that even a presidential candidate can drop the façade long enough to admit that he’s wrong would be, in my view, endearing. It might even make the women a little less hostile.
Another thing that might help woo women is if he could convince Melania to help him by speaking to women’s groups. Maybe she is already, but I’m following the news closely because I am so anxious about this election, and I haven’t heard a breath about her being involved. Just meeting with small groups like Soroptimists and Rotary and Kiwanis would be fine – they don’t have to be talks in front of roaring crowds, but introduce Donald to the women. Help them to see him as she sees him – what she likes, his strong points and the little kindnesses. She could talk about what qualities he has that would make him a great president.
As for the nuclear issue, the idea of Japan and South Korea having nuclear weapons is actually a good idea. Why not?
After all, let’s say North Korea gets a working nuclear missile system. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a forward warning / forward intervention system in the form of nukes in Japan and South Korea? That might well prevent a nuclear warhead from reaching the United States – which is Kim’s stated goal.
So, no. That doesn’t bother me. It bothers me more to think that whack job in Pyong Yang is going to get a nuke or two and we don’t have our systems up-to-date and ready to go.
I don’t know that these things would resolve yesterday’s foot-in-mouth situation, but it might help. There’s no way to undo it but if he does nothing, hoping it just goes away, it won’t. It’s all over the networks already and we can count on it being an issue going forward by both his GOP opponents and by Hilliary. If he has answers in his pocket, honest and human, it could take the water off the boil.
Once he gets past the nomination, he can tackle the nonsense Hilliary throws at him one-on-one instead of five against one with the media taking sides.
I know he’s already tried to walk it back, but one thing I’ve noticed about Trump is that his brain works faster than his tongue. He often (almost always) speaks before he thinks and that leads to messes like this one.
And, as much as I admire the man, he often speaks in ‘clouds’ of words. There is a lot of fluff surrounding the central point, and that’s frustrating to me. I wish he would be more incisive and clear because the dust makes his points hard to find.
So there’s room for improvement in his presentation skills. That does not mean that I want any change in his plans or policy ideas. It’s just that I’d like him to be better prepared for those ‘gotcha’ moments the press is so darned good at.
In any case, this too shall pass. Next week it’ll be something else and then this will resurface in attack ads but, if he’s prepared with great, clear statements, I think he can weather them, particularly if he gets back to driving the conversation.
Have a wonderful day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
On the left, Hilliary is an out-and-out un-convicted criminal. That, I hope, is just a matter of time before it’s resolved. Bernie is plain clueless about how to pay for all the freebies.
Despite a decent background and good experience, I just cannot get behind a floppy waffle like John Kasich. He comes across as micron thin in character, and I don’t trust him.
‘TrusTed’ Cruz lies. Pure and simple, he plays fast and loose with the truth while declaring that he’s honest as the day. Besides that, he always comes across the screen as slimy – just the unctuous tone of voice puts my nerves on edge. When I saw him at the Town Hall in Wisconsin yesterday, he started talking about women’s issues and the tone of his voice changed. He lowered the volume, slowed it down – he was talking down to those women and they fell for it. It was a disgusting moment that turned my stomach.
Unfortunately, Trump has a bad tendency to speak too quickly – without preparation or a hint of forethought - and then he has to walk backward while covering the blush of humiliation. That hard and fast ‘do not shoot from the lip’ lesson is something that politicians learn pretty quickly and the fact that Trump is not a politician is, at times, painfully obvious. Take the comments on abortion yesterday during the MSNBC Town Hall.
There is no doubt, regardless of which side of the issue you're on, that was a gigantic flub by The Donald. Was it devastating? That remains to be seen, but it does show that he has got to spend more time thinking about possible responses to the hot button issues, developing clear and rational answers, and less time Tweeting. He has also got to get back ahead of things, get back on his message and keep it there.
If he had developed a solid position on the issue before yesterday, he wouldn't have been caught as he was. The worst thing he did was open his mouth and try to answer Chris Matthews's question. I really hate to say it, but the old saw ‘better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt’ was proved true by my candidate yesterday.
This is not going to change my mind or my vote. In the final analysis, given that the law is what it is, I think this is a non-issue.
Still, instead of trying to answer, he could have said, 'you know, Chris. I really hadn't thought through that in great detail because right now, today, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. It’s the law and it’s not a law that’s going to be changed. The people wouldn’t stand for it.'
That would have been honest, it would have given him room, and he wouldn't now be watching his poll numbers plummet in Wisconsin and other places. It's going to be an uphill battle to regain that ground because anything he does and says is 100% wrong per the media. Even if he helped a little old lady across eight lanes of traffic and rescued a sick puppy along the way, they'd find something to criticize.
There is one opportunity, just one, to salvage something of what happened during that Town Hall yesterday.
He has got to come out now, today, and say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t give the voters my best effort yesterday. When Chris asked me the question about abortion I was still thinking about the nuclear question. That was such strange exchange it threw me, but that doesn’t excuse what I said about abortion.
‘Obviously, Roe v. Wade is and will be the law of the land whether we agree with it or not. I should never have said a word in answer to that question. This is part of my learning about being a politician. Sometimes on the campaign trail, when I’m trying to make a good impression, I speak when I would do better to stay quiet.
‘I’m not a politician and that’s why I sometimes make mistakes. I’m a manager, an administrator. I run things, big things and I build great things. That’s why I’m in the race. I want to try to get the government under control, to make it more efficient and reorganize it so it works better for everyone. The policy matters are critical and that is why I’m surrounding myself with brilliant and experienced advisors who know these things.’
This kind of a statement answers the question from the other night on CNN when Anderson Cooper asked if Trump ever apologizes, and it shows both humility and humanity. For a moment it would take him off the pedestal and show the base his feet of clay.
A release like this wouldn’t salvage Wisconsin, but it might help going forward. People understand that he’s a human being. Knowing that even a presidential candidate can drop the façade long enough to admit that he’s wrong would be, in my view, endearing. It might even make the women a little less hostile.
Another thing that might help woo women is if he could convince Melania to help him by speaking to women’s groups. Maybe she is already, but I’m following the news closely because I am so anxious about this election, and I haven’t heard a breath about her being involved. Just meeting with small groups like Soroptimists and Rotary and Kiwanis would be fine – they don’t have to be talks in front of roaring crowds, but introduce Donald to the women. Help them to see him as she sees him – what she likes, his strong points and the little kindnesses. She could talk about what qualities he has that would make him a great president.
As for the nuclear issue, the idea of Japan and South Korea having nuclear weapons is actually a good idea. Why not?
After all, let’s say North Korea gets a working nuclear missile system. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a forward warning / forward intervention system in the form of nukes in Japan and South Korea? That might well prevent a nuclear warhead from reaching the United States – which is Kim’s stated goal.
So, no. That doesn’t bother me. It bothers me more to think that whack job in Pyong Yang is going to get a nuke or two and we don’t have our systems up-to-date and ready to go.
I don’t know that these things would resolve yesterday’s foot-in-mouth situation, but it might help. There’s no way to undo it but if he does nothing, hoping it just goes away, it won’t. It’s all over the networks already and we can count on it being an issue going forward by both his GOP opponents and by Hilliary. If he has answers in his pocket, honest and human, it could take the water off the boil.
Once he gets past the nomination, he can tackle the nonsense Hilliary throws at him one-on-one instead of five against one with the media taking sides.
I know he’s already tried to walk it back, but one thing I’ve noticed about Trump is that his brain works faster than his tongue. He often (almost always) speaks before he thinks and that leads to messes like this one.
And, as much as I admire the man, he often speaks in ‘clouds’ of words. There is a lot of fluff surrounding the central point, and that’s frustrating to me. I wish he would be more incisive and clear because the dust makes his points hard to find.
So there’s room for improvement in his presentation skills. That does not mean that I want any change in his plans or policy ideas. It’s just that I’d like him to be better prepared for those ‘gotcha’ moments the press is so darned good at.
In any case, this too shall pass. Next week it’ll be something else and then this will resurface in attack ads but, if he’s prepared with great, clear statements, I think he can weather them, particularly if he gets back to driving the conversation.
Have a wonderful day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Loyalty and Interchangeable Parts
When the chips are down and someone has my back, there is no better feeling in the world. It is HUGE to know that you don't have to look for the axe while dodging the bullet and when someone I work for treats me as he expects to be treated, that is a blessing that cannot be described. It shows character of the best sort.
When Corey Lewandowski was charged with simple battery stemming from that March 8th mess with the Breitbart female, Trump didn't throw him in front of the train. No. He did and he has stuck by him - even though it might end up costing him in the press and at the ballot box in some small way. No - he showed the kind of loyalty that's impossible to find in most boss-employee relationships these days.
He also didn't call out the Secret Service - which should have been called out. After all, if the Secret Service had been doing their job, she would never have gotten through that line. If the Secret Service had been doing what they were supposed to be doing, one of them would have pulled her away.
She should never have been able to get as close to Trump as she did. She was holding a pen in her hand - what if that hadn't been a pen? What if it had been a knife or something else? Where was the Secret Service at that moment? They weren't there so Corey Lewandowski did what the Secret Service should have done.
I have seen the tape of that so called 'battery' and there's nothing there. Yes, Corey Lewandowski reached out and pulled that Breitbart female back (sorry, I don't care enough about her to find or pay attention to her name, she isn't worth it). However, what that tape clearly shows is that she put her hand on Donald Trump before anyone laid a finger on her.
In that case, because he didn't want to be touched - you can see it in the video when he pulls away from her - he could have filed battery charges against her. But he's rational. He's sane. He is not some vapid little girl who is willing to play the VICTIM card because she was touched in a scrum of other people and pulled away from that man's boss.
Let's say that kind of thing happened during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or at a sporting event or any other crowded place. Do you suppose she would be screaming 'foul' and levying charges? Hell no!
No. I'm afraid her biggest issues are that she's an insecure little twit with the brains of roadkill and she hates Donald Trump.
Out of all of this, the take-away is top-down loyalty. The hallmark of a great character. I value loyalty and I do not like people who are not loyal. They can't be trusted.
On the other side, in interviews yesterday both John Kasich and Ted Cruz said they would fire Lewandowski if he worked for them. Okay, Kasich first said he would suspend him, but then he did say he would fire him. In other words, they will sacrifice anyone and anything if they think it might impact the public's impression of them. Now there's a hallmark of character.
As for the rest of it that's swirling around, it seems the Washington Insiders and their minions in the guise of Fox News (aka Pravda-USA) and CNN really do want just another interchangeable part in the Washington machine sitting in the White House.
After all - who is it that the Elites and their slavering minions are pushing (foisting) on us? Why it's Ted Cruz! He of the scandal-ridden campaign.
Heck - it's only March - this election cycle only got started at the end of January with the Iowa caucuses - and he's racked up claims of three different scandals: Fraud, Corruption and Sex. By God he's hitting on all cylinders!
On the fraud front, this is true and legitimate: Paul Pate, the Iowa Secretary of State was something less than happy with the Cruz campaign for that little matter of the "voter violation" forms. Those were those official looking mailers sent out by the Cruz campaign prior to the caucuses. Pate went so far as to call it 'a false representation of an official act' which is, according to Iowa law, a criminal act.
By all rights, since that was a criminal act under Iowa law, the Cruz campaign should have received a bit more than a finger-wag and a 'tut-tut'. They didn't, though, because I'm sure the RNC / GOP weighed in and said 'shut up' or words to that effect.
Potential voters weren't all that happy, either. The following is excerpted from a January 31, 2016 article in the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ted-cruzs-iowa-mailers-are-more-fraudulent-than-everyone-thinks
Isn't that nice. Ted Cruz is 'bullying' cripples and 'shaming' the elderly into going to the polls.
The corruption is something I haven't been able to verify, but it's being claimed across the blog-o-sphere. According to more than one internet 'source', the Cruz campaign gave a cool half-a-million dollars to Carly Fiorina's campaign. Let's hit that again: Per rumor one presidential campaign gave $500,000 to a competing campaign. These other bloggers are claiming that it was 'hush' money relating to Accusation Number 3.
Now I don't like smearing people - it's not comfortable for me, so I did try to track down the source of this information.
I spent the better part of an hour on the FEC website where I did find one contribution of a bit more than $499,300 given to the Carly for America super PAC in February, but I haven't been able to nail it to the Cruz PAC. I'll keep trying, or you can if you'd like. It would make an interesting coda to this disgusting campaign.
Then we have the sex scandal. This is a 'burn my eyeballs out' kind of thing. I really don't want to even imagine that. Still, if this man is proclaiming his high and mighty morality on the one hand and doin' the deed with women not his wife on the other, that's a problem. A big one because if you are going to talk the talk then you had damned well better be walkin' the walk.
This is being looked into by any number of moles, so I won't except to say it's out there. If it does have legs, I'm sure the National Enquirer will produce the next installment in their next issue.
What is annoying is that he's lying again.
He's doubled-down on the accusation that Trump floated it when, in fact, it's well documented that it was the Rubio campaign that came up with this. It's obvious why he's doing this, but it's more than a tad disingenuous to keep pounding it when even the cable news services have been told it was Rubio.
Whatever. In the end, once the millipede stops walking and the shoes stop dropping we'll figure it out. Those people who dislike Ted Cruz aren't going to be swayed by the 'poor me' dishrag with which he's wiping his tears. I'm just disgusted by the man's conscious duplicity.
It is interesting that the National Enquirer has put itself on the line in a big way. I don't know what the statute of limitations is for defamation but if Cruz were to lose the election he could easily sue - claiming damages including his failed bid for the White House.
Roger Stone has also thrown the gauntlet, declaring on television, "If it's not true, sue me!"
Real or not, Ted Cruz is at least keeping pace with the Hilliary scandal wagon - one a month. Can he keep it up? With April just around the corner, we'll find out.
What is more interesting than the sleaze factor are two points.
First, Cruz is being swamped with scandal allegations but none of them are sticking and no one in the news is paying attention. Why aren't these allegations being spoken of? You know that if it was Trump they would be talking about nothing else in the most salacious terms possible.
Second, if these allegations are false, why isn't he actively denying them?
I dunno. Maybe because he'll look too Bill Clinton-ish, 'I did not have sex with that woman... Ms. Candy Wrapper.'
In the meantime, the Cruz campaign is still doing what it does. They're playing both sides against the middle, trying not to offend anyone. Just last night, for instance, when asked on CNN if he would back the GOP nominee regardless of who it is, he fudged. He spent a good thirty seconds hemming and hawing and then took a strong dodge to the side.
Trump, on the other hand, was clear. No, he will not honor that pledge because he made it in good faith and that good faith has been violated again and again by the other parties.
With all that's happened, with all that is happening it's hardly surprising. After all, Trump isn't behind closed doors with the Elites and GOP trying to figure out how to steal this election without pissing off and losing the front-runner's constituency. That pledge is worthless.
Now, if the GOP and the money-men were honest dealers, if they weren't conspiring against the leader of the pack, it would be dishonorable for that leader to blow off a promise. But when that promise was made by him in good faith and the other parties leave the deal... well, all bets are off.
As for why the Elites are backing a flawed, scandal-ridden candidate, it's easy.
Those scandals, and any others they uncover, put Cruz in a really bad place. They can bribe him - threaten him with disclosure and humiliation, and thereby keep him in line.
If they could find anything on Trump, anything at all, don't you think they would? Don't you think, given the hatred for Trump, that they would blow it up and make hay with it all day long? Instead, the best they're able to do is to accuse Trump of being loyal to his campaign manager.
Now that is a crazy messed up world.
Anyway. Just another day in paradise, right?
Hope it's lovely!
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
When Corey Lewandowski was charged with simple battery stemming from that March 8th mess with the Breitbart female, Trump didn't throw him in front of the train. No. He did and he has stuck by him - even though it might end up costing him in the press and at the ballot box in some small way. No - he showed the kind of loyalty that's impossible to find in most boss-employee relationships these days.
He also didn't call out the Secret Service - which should have been called out. After all, if the Secret Service had been doing their job, she would never have gotten through that line. If the Secret Service had been doing what they were supposed to be doing, one of them would have pulled her away.
She should never have been able to get as close to Trump as she did. She was holding a pen in her hand - what if that hadn't been a pen? What if it had been a knife or something else? Where was the Secret Service at that moment? They weren't there so Corey Lewandowski did what the Secret Service should have done.
I have seen the tape of that so called 'battery' and there's nothing there. Yes, Corey Lewandowski reached out and pulled that Breitbart female back (sorry, I don't care enough about her to find or pay attention to her name, she isn't worth it). However, what that tape clearly shows is that she put her hand on Donald Trump before anyone laid a finger on her.
In that case, because he didn't want to be touched - you can see it in the video when he pulls away from her - he could have filed battery charges against her. But he's rational. He's sane. He is not some vapid little girl who is willing to play the VICTIM card because she was touched in a scrum of other people and pulled away from that man's boss.
Let's say that kind of thing happened during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or at a sporting event or any other crowded place. Do you suppose she would be screaming 'foul' and levying charges? Hell no!
No. I'm afraid her biggest issues are that she's an insecure little twit with the brains of roadkill and she hates Donald Trump.
Out of all of this, the take-away is top-down loyalty. The hallmark of a great character. I value loyalty and I do not like people who are not loyal. They can't be trusted.
On the other side, in interviews yesterday both John Kasich and Ted Cruz said they would fire Lewandowski if he worked for them. Okay, Kasich first said he would suspend him, but then he did say he would fire him. In other words, they will sacrifice anyone and anything if they think it might impact the public's impression of them. Now there's a hallmark of character.
As for the rest of it that's swirling around, it seems the Washington Insiders and their minions in the guise of Fox News (aka Pravda-USA) and CNN really do want just another interchangeable part in the Washington machine sitting in the White House.
After all - who is it that the Elites and their slavering minions are pushing (foisting) on us? Why it's Ted Cruz! He of the scandal-ridden campaign.
Heck - it's only March - this election cycle only got started at the end of January with the Iowa caucuses - and he's racked up claims of three different scandals: Fraud, Corruption and Sex. By God he's hitting on all cylinders!
On the fraud front, this is true and legitimate: Paul Pate, the Iowa Secretary of State was something less than happy with the Cruz campaign for that little matter of the "voter violation" forms. Those were those official looking mailers sent out by the Cruz campaign prior to the caucuses. Pate went so far as to call it 'a false representation of an official act' which is, according to Iowa law, a criminal act.
By all rights, since that was a criminal act under Iowa law, the Cruz campaign should have received a bit more than a finger-wag and a 'tut-tut'. They didn't, though, because I'm sure the RNC / GOP weighed in and said 'shut up' or words to that effect.
Potential voters weren't all that happy, either. The following is excerpted from a January 31, 2016 article in the New Yorker:
The Cruz mailers have been widely
condemned by Iowans. “I just wonder how many of these went out to people
who might seriously believe they committed a violation or were
embarrassed that their neighbors might know about their alleged voting
record,” Braddock Massey, a Rubio supporter who lives in West Des Moines
and received one of the mailers, said.
Donna
Holstein, who was listed on one of them, was upset to learn that she
had been given a failing grade and that her neighbors might be told
whether she participates in the caucus. She told me that she has voted
consistently but that she can’t this time because of a disability.
“I’m
crippled, so I can’t go to the caucus,” Holstein said. She was not
happy about being shamed in front of her neighbors. “That’s what you
call a bully,” she said about Cruz’s tactics. “I wish he would quit.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ted-cruzs-iowa-mailers-are-more-fraudulent-than-everyone-thinks
Isn't that nice. Ted Cruz is 'bullying' cripples and 'shaming' the elderly into going to the polls.
The corruption is something I haven't been able to verify, but it's being claimed across the blog-o-sphere. According to more than one internet 'source', the Cruz campaign gave a cool half-a-million dollars to Carly Fiorina's campaign. Let's hit that again: Per rumor one presidential campaign gave $500,000 to a competing campaign. These other bloggers are claiming that it was 'hush' money relating to Accusation Number 3.
Now I don't like smearing people - it's not comfortable for me, so I did try to track down the source of this information.
I spent the better part of an hour on the FEC website where I did find one contribution of a bit more than $499,300 given to the Carly for America super PAC in February, but I haven't been able to nail it to the Cruz PAC. I'll keep trying, or you can if you'd like. It would make an interesting coda to this disgusting campaign.
Then we have the sex scandal. This is a 'burn my eyeballs out' kind of thing. I really don't want to even imagine that. Still, if this man is proclaiming his high and mighty morality on the one hand and doin' the deed with women not his wife on the other, that's a problem. A big one because if you are going to talk the talk then you had damned well better be walkin' the walk.
This is being looked into by any number of moles, so I won't except to say it's out there. If it does have legs, I'm sure the National Enquirer will produce the next installment in their next issue.
What is annoying is that he's lying again.
He's doubled-down on the accusation that Trump floated it when, in fact, it's well documented that it was the Rubio campaign that came up with this. It's obvious why he's doing this, but it's more than a tad disingenuous to keep pounding it when even the cable news services have been told it was Rubio.
Whatever. In the end, once the millipede stops walking and the shoes stop dropping we'll figure it out. Those people who dislike Ted Cruz aren't going to be swayed by the 'poor me' dishrag with which he's wiping his tears. I'm just disgusted by the man's conscious duplicity.
It is interesting that the National Enquirer has put itself on the line in a big way. I don't know what the statute of limitations is for defamation but if Cruz were to lose the election he could easily sue - claiming damages including his failed bid for the White House.
Roger Stone has also thrown the gauntlet, declaring on television, "If it's not true, sue me!"
Real or not, Ted Cruz is at least keeping pace with the Hilliary scandal wagon - one a month. Can he keep it up? With April just around the corner, we'll find out.
What is more interesting than the sleaze factor are two points.
First, Cruz is being swamped with scandal allegations but none of them are sticking and no one in the news is paying attention. Why aren't these allegations being spoken of? You know that if it was Trump they would be talking about nothing else in the most salacious terms possible.
Second, if these allegations are false, why isn't he actively denying them?
I dunno. Maybe because he'll look too Bill Clinton-ish, 'I did not have sex with that woman... Ms. Candy Wrapper.'
In the meantime, the Cruz campaign is still doing what it does. They're playing both sides against the middle, trying not to offend anyone. Just last night, for instance, when asked on CNN if he would back the GOP nominee regardless of who it is, he fudged. He spent a good thirty seconds hemming and hawing and then took a strong dodge to the side.
Trump, on the other hand, was clear. No, he will not honor that pledge because he made it in good faith and that good faith has been violated again and again by the other parties.
With all that's happened, with all that is happening it's hardly surprising. After all, Trump isn't behind closed doors with the Elites and GOP trying to figure out how to steal this election without pissing off and losing the front-runner's constituency. That pledge is worthless.
Now, if the GOP and the money-men were honest dealers, if they weren't conspiring against the leader of the pack, it would be dishonorable for that leader to blow off a promise. But when that promise was made by him in good faith and the other parties leave the deal... well, all bets are off.
As for why the Elites are backing a flawed, scandal-ridden candidate, it's easy.
Those scandals, and any others they uncover, put Cruz in a really bad place. They can bribe him - threaten him with disclosure and humiliation, and thereby keep him in line.
If they could find anything on Trump, anything at all, don't you think they would? Don't you think, given the hatred for Trump, that they would blow it up and make hay with it all day long? Instead, the best they're able to do is to accuse Trump of being loyal to his campaign manager.
Now that is a crazy messed up world.
Anyway. Just another day in paradise, right?
Hope it's lovely!
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Paul Ryan - The Fluffy Optimist
I was browsing the 'net today, looking at the headlines, reading the stories I found interesting, and I came across part of a speech given to Washington interns by Paul Ryan. I started reading and... my eyes glazed, refused to focus.
It was classic Ryan - idealistic and barely in touch with reality. Just more of what I've come to expect from him - fluff without a shred of substance that can hold up under pressure without putting people to sleep. What's encouraging is that I'm not the only one who thinks it's a load of crap. So do most other media outlets - Google it: paul ryan speech to interns.
Don't get me wrong - he's a very smart guy. Really smart. But he would make an excellent accountant someplace. He's too detaily and weedy and he's a blathering bore - even when he's trying to sound optimistic.
It's a lot like the Republican Establishment. Blather empty phrases and emptier promises and hope no one notices. They do it among themselves so much they've lost sight of the fact that we're smarter than that. There are only so many lies and fabrications we'll swallow and, for now, we're full up.
The lack of attention being paid to their cries and screams of derision regarding this election cycle - widely ignored by real people - led them to hold their Pinhead Confab last Thursday. The result? Well...
Kasich doesn't stand a chance - even if he gets to the convention. He's desperate and weak and the people will not vote for him in the general. Election to Hilliary.
Cruz is a sleaze, but he's an owned sleaze. He's as much in bed with the lobbyists and the people who run Washington as anyone else. Hell! $40M and counting owned - so he's distasteful but at least they can control him. 'Cross your fingers, boys, maybe he can beat Hilliary.'
Trump is a non-starter for them. He's challenging them at every turn, calling them out, speaking what's on his mind, taking no prisoners. And, despite what all of the chattering class are saying, I think when the general comes around and Trump is the nominee, he will have no trouble with Hilliary. After all, the woman is a walking baggage carousel. Pick a subject, there's a scandal and you can bet that Trump will go after all of them in one way or another.
So the Pinhead Confab concluded that their only possible hope is Cruz. Being desperate to keep the Barbarian from the Citadel, they've decided to make an uneasy truce with Cruz. He's not palatable because he's too rigid and intractable, but at least he's one of them - owned as they are by the Donor Class. So, they hold their noses as they gather 'round their... candidate.
What Ryan and the others don't get is that politics as usual - no matter how they sugarcoat the turd - is not doing it this year. We're not biting.
Trump correctly said on more than one occasion that Cruz has no friends in the Senate - that no one of his Senate colleagues was stepping up to endorse him. And it was true. Otherwise, where was all of the clamor to be first in line? He's been in the race for a full year - since March 23, 2015 when he announced his candidacy at Liberty University. Yet no one got on his bandwagon in all that time?
In what I suspect was a move of uneasy resignation, a toe in the water, Lindsey Graham came forward last week. The lamb to the slaughter no doubt sent by his Donor Class betters.
After all, he had already endorsed Jeb! who failed in spectacular fashion so, with his endorsement sitting on the shelf, he picked Cruz. Somehow, I just don't think his heart is in this. Today, during an interview on MSNBC, he waffled and said that Kasich would make a better president.
What!? He's endorsed Cruz, but... Well there's confidence for you.
And this is a major part of the problem in Washington. Instead of our employees - and they are supposed to be our employees (public servants) since we hire them through the election process and pay their salaries and benefits through taxation (theft worthy of another post all on its own) - standing for what's right, they run for what's expedient. In this case, they see the writing on the wall.
As much as they detest Cruz, they despise Trump more. Which means they will each sell another chunk of their souls and character to rally behind a man they wouldn't go to lunch with a month ago, even if Cruz was buying.
It was during last week's Pinhead Confab that they even tried to refloat the Hindenburg. There was chatter over the weekend suggesting that Paul Ryan could be 'floated' into the convention mix as the alternate candidate. That sugarcoated turd was ignored. The Hindenburg didn't rekindle, it just crashed.
Naturally, because of the deafening silence, Ryan 'declined'. Although I would wager my life that if anyone outside the Beltway had sat up, taken notice and shouted a resounding yeah!, he would now be in the headlines.
As a result, for better or for worse, Cruz is now their guy. But hey! At least a goodly part of his soul and character are owned. He will be taking calls from the K Street lobbyists and doing their bidding. At least that should make the Pinheads happy. It would be no change from what's been - we would still have a sugarcoated turd shoved down our throats if the Pinheads have their way.
So I'm back to watching the polls with fluttering nerves. I really do not want another interchangeable part to take the big chair in the Oval Office. I want a Trump presidency because I think he's going to shake things up, knock a few heads, and get us back on better footing than we've been.
As for you, if you're worried about the intestinal fortitude of your Congressman or woman backing a man who's got a tenuous attachment to truth, might I suggest you send along a few of these:
That would at least free up their hands.
Have a wonderful day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
It was classic Ryan - idealistic and barely in touch with reality. Just more of what I've come to expect from him - fluff without a shred of substance that can hold up under pressure without putting people to sleep. What's encouraging is that I'm not the only one who thinks it's a load of crap. So do most other media outlets - Google it: paul ryan speech to interns.
Don't get me wrong - he's a very smart guy. Really smart. But he would make an excellent accountant someplace. He's too detaily and weedy and he's a blathering bore - even when he's trying to sound optimistic.
It's a lot like the Republican Establishment. Blather empty phrases and emptier promises and hope no one notices. They do it among themselves so much they've lost sight of the fact that we're smarter than that. There are only so many lies and fabrications we'll swallow and, for now, we're full up.
The lack of attention being paid to their cries and screams of derision regarding this election cycle - widely ignored by real people - led them to hold their Pinhead Confab last Thursday. The result? Well...
Kasich doesn't stand a chance - even if he gets to the convention. He's desperate and weak and the people will not vote for him in the general. Election to Hilliary.
Cruz is a sleaze, but he's an owned sleaze. He's as much in bed with the lobbyists and the people who run Washington as anyone else. Hell! $40M and counting owned - so he's distasteful but at least they can control him. 'Cross your fingers, boys, maybe he can beat Hilliary.'
Trump is a non-starter for them. He's challenging them at every turn, calling them out, speaking what's on his mind, taking no prisoners. And, despite what all of the chattering class are saying, I think when the general comes around and Trump is the nominee, he will have no trouble with Hilliary. After all, the woman is a walking baggage carousel. Pick a subject, there's a scandal and you can bet that Trump will go after all of them in one way or another.
So the Pinhead Confab concluded that their only possible hope is Cruz. Being desperate to keep the Barbarian from the Citadel, they've decided to make an uneasy truce with Cruz. He's not palatable because he's too rigid and intractable, but at least he's one of them - owned as they are by the Donor Class. So, they hold their noses as they gather 'round their... candidate.
What Ryan and the others don't get is that politics as usual - no matter how they sugarcoat the turd - is not doing it this year. We're not biting.
Trump correctly said on more than one occasion that Cruz has no friends in the Senate - that no one of his Senate colleagues was stepping up to endorse him. And it was true. Otherwise, where was all of the clamor to be first in line? He's been in the race for a full year - since March 23, 2015 when he announced his candidacy at Liberty University. Yet no one got on his bandwagon in all that time?
In what I suspect was a move of uneasy resignation, a toe in the water, Lindsey Graham came forward last week. The lamb to the slaughter no doubt sent by his Donor Class betters.
After all, he had already endorsed Jeb! who failed in spectacular fashion so, with his endorsement sitting on the shelf, he picked Cruz. Somehow, I just don't think his heart is in this. Today, during an interview on MSNBC, he waffled and said that Kasich would make a better president.
What!? He's endorsed Cruz, but... Well there's confidence for you.
And this is a major part of the problem in Washington. Instead of our employees - and they are supposed to be our employees (public servants) since we hire them through the election process and pay their salaries and benefits through taxation (theft worthy of another post all on its own) - standing for what's right, they run for what's expedient. In this case, they see the writing on the wall.
As much as they detest Cruz, they despise Trump more. Which means they will each sell another chunk of their souls and character to rally behind a man they wouldn't go to lunch with a month ago, even if Cruz was buying.
It was during last week's Pinhead Confab that they even tried to refloat the Hindenburg. There was chatter over the weekend suggesting that Paul Ryan could be 'floated' into the convention mix as the alternate candidate. That sugarcoated turd was ignored. The Hindenburg didn't rekindle, it just crashed.
Naturally, because of the deafening silence, Ryan 'declined'. Although I would wager my life that if anyone outside the Beltway had sat up, taken notice and shouted a resounding yeah!, he would now be in the headlines.
As a result, for better or for worse, Cruz is now their guy. But hey! At least a goodly part of his soul and character are owned. He will be taking calls from the K Street lobbyists and doing their bidding. At least that should make the Pinheads happy. It would be no change from what's been - we would still have a sugarcoated turd shoved down our throats if the Pinheads have their way.
So I'm back to watching the polls with fluttering nerves. I really do not want another interchangeable part to take the big chair in the Oval Office. I want a Trump presidency because I think he's going to shake things up, knock a few heads, and get us back on better footing than we've been.
As for you, if you're worried about the intestinal fortitude of your Congressman or woman backing a man who's got a tenuous attachment to truth, might I suggest you send along a few of these:
That would at least free up their hands.
Have a wonderful day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Friday, March 18, 2016
Why is Donald Trump so scary?
It seems that everyone who is talking about him is afraid of Donald Trump - of what he says and what they think he'll do.
Why? It's simple: He represents change.
Americans have been crying out for change for years. Every poll about Congressional approval shows that more than half the population thinks Congress sucks. Still, they go out and vote for their same Congressional representatives every election because it's the 'other guy' who's the problem. Every poll about the President's job performance is just as bad but we re-elected Obie-One despite the problems of his first term.
No one who is outside of Washington likes what's going on inside Washington because it is not doing well for us out here, outside the Beltway. But we still don't really want change. Not even when we're not happy.
So here we have a catalyst for change. For big changes if you listen to what the man is talking about.
Renegotiating trade deals. Changing our medical system so that we have real portability and more control over our medical care and decisions. Keeping us safer. Moving control of and decisions about our children's education from Washington back to the neighborhoods, where it belongs.
There are a lot of changes he's talking about and those changes are big and sweeping and it's why many Americans are 'scared' by him. Or offended, but that's a different subject.
Most people don't like or do well with change even though it can be good for us in the long run. We like ruts. We like routine and same-old, same-old and Donald is anything but same-old, same-old.
In him we have a candidate for president who is successful, powerful in his own way, outspoken and absolutely unlike what we're used to. He's full of bluff and bluster, a 'his bark is worse than his bite' kind of guy. But I don't think any of that is who the man really is. I think what we see during his rallies and debates is an outer persona - the bigger-than-life figure. When I watch interviews with him, that bluff and bluster is absent. He's calm and rational and thoughtful. But that doesn't get replayed again and again and again because it's not as exciting as those moments of outrageous behavior.
Personally I suspect (believe) the private man is far less outrageous, far more introspective and contained in private - within a small group with whom he's comfortable. I say that because The Donald reminds me of someone I worked with for many years.
The man I worked with was someone who had to deal with the political realities associated with his position at a northern California water district. During the 1970's drought, he was blamed and vilified for everything from the lack of rainfall to the rationing enforced on the residents. It got so bad he was to appear at a public hearing and the tension was so high in the room that as soon as his name was announced as the next speaker, the crowd became restless and many began to boo. This man walked up to the front of the room, holding both hands in the air, flipping a double-bird. Not exactly a politic moment - but it worked. It defused the situation because it was so unexpected. The crowd relaxed, laughed and the meeting went on. In the end he didn't do anything but what this man did in situations like that - and I see the same kind of thing in Trump.
Still, we are scared because we are used to all the other candidates who parse their words, picking and choosing them in careful manner. Politicians all take great care not to frighten the people whose votes they want. One of the reasons Rubio and Kasich come across as rehearsed is because they are - they have been taught not to make waves, not to stir the pot.
Trump, on the other hand, says what a lot of us think but don't have the courage or platform to say. They're so accustomed to 'vanilla' niceness that they can't get over the presence of someone who says what's on his mind.
Me? I find it refreshing. It's like a quick dip in a cold pool on a blistering day refreshing. Yes, it makes body parts pucker at first but then, once it sinks in, it's validating.
Aside from that bluntness that many find disturbing is the fact that my brain doesn't screech to a halt at the first obstacle. It seems that a lot of people have their mental clutch slip, catch and seize up when he says something outrageous.
What I see is that most of those outrageous declarations are in the heat of the moment when he's gotten carried away by something. As soon as the thunder passes and he realizes that what he said was ridiculous, he'll walk it back.
Is that a good thing? Yes and no.
Yes because I like the intellectual honesty of someone who can admit when they were wrong. No, because it leads to misunderstanding and fear.
What's different is that a lot of (most) politicians occasionally say stupid things but they don't have the courage to do so. They'll dig in their heels and refuse to admit they were wrong.
That is the big difference that I see between Trump and the others. He doesn't fight the tide like most other pols when he's wrong. Instead, he owns it. Perhaps not 100% as in 'I was wrong', but at least he has the courage to back away from, restate or rephrase which is more than can be said of the vast majority of other long term pols.
What outrages people is often not what he's said. It's what has been perceived that he has said. For instance, that declaration he made about banning Muslims and the fact that it has taken root and sprouted among some. They think, because they weren't paying attention, that Trump wants to ban all Muslims from America forever.
That is not what he said, though. What he did say is that he wants a ban until we know what we're doing. It's not about Muslims or anyone else. It is about us - how we screen people who want to come into the country.
The problem is that the left and the media aren't honest. They don't point out that missing phrase that he spoke: 'until we know what we're doing' That is what the man said in the breath after saying 'ban Muslims'.
And it's easy to understand why someone would say that if you look at how we 'screen' visa applicants. Put generously, the questions on the entry application appear to have been written by a backward three year old and I am not even beginning to make fun of this because it is so serious.
Take a look at this screenshot from the website linked below:
http://www.immihelp.com/visitor-visa/visitors-visa-interview-sample-questions-answers.html
Take a close look at the third question in that list - which you can find if you follow the link provided.
Now, I'm sorry but is that a serious question? Is this how we're screening out potential terrorists? By asking them 'Are you coming here to kill us?'
Yeah, sure. I can just see some ISIS dude sitting across the desk from the embassy wonk, all decked out in his terrorist regalia being asked that question and answering, 'Yes'.
With immigration 'background checks' like that one - what is the point? We might as well airlift known ISIS fighters into the country - or fly them into Mexico and they can walk across our wide open border all by themselves.
This is what led Trump to say we need to ban Muslims - not because he doesn't like Muslims, but because there is a known group of them ready, willing and wanting to do us harm.
There are any other number of stupid statements made by the man, but they can't even begin to be taken seriously by anyone with half a brain. Not unless everyone else in this country can stand up and categorically state that they haven't, at some point in their lives, made some insupportable declaration of 'fact'.
Bear in mind, actions speak louder than words. The fact that he is honest enough to walk back stupid statements tells me his heart is in the right place and that the declaration was spur of the moment rather than an intractable position. He is not a practiced politician. He is a newbie in this realm so hasn't had the training the professionals have had - and I still say that's a good thing.
I hope that when the time comes, and when the inevitable is made clear to the knuckleheaded power-brokers inside Washington that The People want The Donald, those knuckleheads and their media minions will STFU and back him. I think, and there seem to be a growing number of smart people who think that he will do just fine for us.
I hope so anyway.
Now, it's a beautiful spring day outside and I think I'll go for a walk.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Why? It's simple: He represents change.
Americans have been crying out for change for years. Every poll about Congressional approval shows that more than half the population thinks Congress sucks. Still, they go out and vote for their same Congressional representatives every election because it's the 'other guy' who's the problem. Every poll about the President's job performance is just as bad but we re-elected Obie-One despite the problems of his first term.
No one who is outside of Washington likes what's going on inside Washington because it is not doing well for us out here, outside the Beltway. But we still don't really want change. Not even when we're not happy.
So here we have a catalyst for change. For big changes if you listen to what the man is talking about.
Renegotiating trade deals. Changing our medical system so that we have real portability and more control over our medical care and decisions. Keeping us safer. Moving control of and decisions about our children's education from Washington back to the neighborhoods, where it belongs.
There are a lot of changes he's talking about and those changes are big and sweeping and it's why many Americans are 'scared' by him. Or offended, but that's a different subject.
Most people don't like or do well with change even though it can be good for us in the long run. We like ruts. We like routine and same-old, same-old and Donald is anything but same-old, same-old.
In him we have a candidate for president who is successful, powerful in his own way, outspoken and absolutely unlike what we're used to. He's full of bluff and bluster, a 'his bark is worse than his bite' kind of guy. But I don't think any of that is who the man really is. I think what we see during his rallies and debates is an outer persona - the bigger-than-life figure. When I watch interviews with him, that bluff and bluster is absent. He's calm and rational and thoughtful. But that doesn't get replayed again and again and again because it's not as exciting as those moments of outrageous behavior.
Personally I suspect (believe) the private man is far less outrageous, far more introspective and contained in private - within a small group with whom he's comfortable. I say that because The Donald reminds me of someone I worked with for many years.
The man I worked with was someone who had to deal with the political realities associated with his position at a northern California water district. During the 1970's drought, he was blamed and vilified for everything from the lack of rainfall to the rationing enforced on the residents. It got so bad he was to appear at a public hearing and the tension was so high in the room that as soon as his name was announced as the next speaker, the crowd became restless and many began to boo. This man walked up to the front of the room, holding both hands in the air, flipping a double-bird. Not exactly a politic moment - but it worked. It defused the situation because it was so unexpected. The crowd relaxed, laughed and the meeting went on. In the end he didn't do anything but what this man did in situations like that - and I see the same kind of thing in Trump.
Still, we are scared because we are used to all the other candidates who parse their words, picking and choosing them in careful manner. Politicians all take great care not to frighten the people whose votes they want. One of the reasons Rubio and Kasich come across as rehearsed is because they are - they have been taught not to make waves, not to stir the pot.
Trump, on the other hand, says what a lot of us think but don't have the courage or platform to say. They're so accustomed to 'vanilla' niceness that they can't get over the presence of someone who says what's on his mind.
Me? I find it refreshing. It's like a quick dip in a cold pool on a blistering day refreshing. Yes, it makes body parts pucker at first but then, once it sinks in, it's validating.
Aside from that bluntness that many find disturbing is the fact that my brain doesn't screech to a halt at the first obstacle. It seems that a lot of people have their mental clutch slip, catch and seize up when he says something outrageous.
What I see is that most of those outrageous declarations are in the heat of the moment when he's gotten carried away by something. As soon as the thunder passes and he realizes that what he said was ridiculous, he'll walk it back.
Is that a good thing? Yes and no.
Yes because I like the intellectual honesty of someone who can admit when they were wrong. No, because it leads to misunderstanding and fear.
What's different is that a lot of (most) politicians occasionally say stupid things but they don't have the courage to do so. They'll dig in their heels and refuse to admit they were wrong.
That is the big difference that I see between Trump and the others. He doesn't fight the tide like most other pols when he's wrong. Instead, he owns it. Perhaps not 100% as in 'I was wrong', but at least he has the courage to back away from, restate or rephrase which is more than can be said of the vast majority of other long term pols.
What outrages people is often not what he's said. It's what has been perceived that he has said. For instance, that declaration he made about banning Muslims and the fact that it has taken root and sprouted among some. They think, because they weren't paying attention, that Trump wants to ban all Muslims from America forever.
That is not what he said, though. What he did say is that he wants a ban until we know what we're doing. It's not about Muslims or anyone else. It is about us - how we screen people who want to come into the country.
The problem is that the left and the media aren't honest. They don't point out that missing phrase that he spoke: 'until we know what we're doing' That is what the man said in the breath after saying 'ban Muslims'.
And it's easy to understand why someone would say that if you look at how we 'screen' visa applicants. Put generously, the questions on the entry application appear to have been written by a backward three year old and I am not even beginning to make fun of this because it is so serious.
Take a look at this screenshot from the website linked below:
http://www.immihelp.com/visitor-visa/visitors-visa-interview-sample-questions-answers.html
Take a close look at the third question in that list - which you can find if you follow the link provided.
Now, I'm sorry but is that a serious question? Is this how we're screening out potential terrorists? By asking them 'Are you coming here to kill us?'
Yeah, sure. I can just see some ISIS dude sitting across the desk from the embassy wonk, all decked out in his terrorist regalia being asked that question and answering, 'Yes'.
With immigration 'background checks' like that one - what is the point? We might as well airlift known ISIS fighters into the country - or fly them into Mexico and they can walk across our wide open border all by themselves.
This is what led Trump to say we need to ban Muslims - not because he doesn't like Muslims, but because there is a known group of them ready, willing and wanting to do us harm.
There are any other number of stupid statements made by the man, but they can't even begin to be taken seriously by anyone with half a brain. Not unless everyone else in this country can stand up and categorically state that they haven't, at some point in their lives, made some insupportable declaration of 'fact'.
Bear in mind, actions speak louder than words. The fact that he is honest enough to walk back stupid statements tells me his heart is in the right place and that the declaration was spur of the moment rather than an intractable position. He is not a practiced politician. He is a newbie in this realm so hasn't had the training the professionals have had - and I still say that's a good thing.
I hope that when the time comes, and when the inevitable is made clear to the knuckleheaded power-brokers inside Washington that The People want The Donald, those knuckleheads and their media minions will STFU and back him. I think, and there seem to be a growing number of smart people who think that he will do just fine for us.
I hope so anyway.
Now, it's a beautiful spring day outside and I think I'll go for a walk.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Thursday, March 17, 2016
The Fray is Getting a Bit Crowded
After Trump's victories on Tuesday the liberal media and their major stockholders seem to be having major heart palpitations. This morning there was a meeting of The Donors who are most affected. Allegedly, this isn't just a friendly get-together. According to a number of people in the know it's to discuss ways they might be able to 'steal' this election from the GOP front runners.
For Cruz, I don't care. For Trump, I do.
Because the right-leaning insiders who control the GOP don't believe Trump's heart and political views are in the 'right place' according to their standards, they are on the verge of creating a wave of blow-back the likes of which haven't been seen in this country since at least the 1960's. And, what they don't understand, is that it is NOT Donald Trump's fault or doing.
It is solely and strictly because of the nonsense and machinations emanating from the Washington Beltway - which is at the exact epicenter for this whole election year of dissent.
What they have either forgotten or are choosing to ignore because they don't like it, any American citizen has the right and privilege to run for President. The Constitution does not stipulate that you must wheel and deal your way into office, or sell your soul to the highest bidders. Under the Founding documents, The Donald has just as much right to run for office and be elected as anyone else - be it Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or one of the Bush family.
Curly Haugland, the RNC's National Committee's Rules Chairman announced on CNBC yesterday that 'the party will decide who the GOP nominee will be'. He said, flat-out, the RNC Donor Class is going decide who's going to run under the Republican banner after the convention - and the voters can all just go to hell.
That's a jaw-dropper to me and to a lot of other people who have a bigger platform for spreading the news. Already the question has been asked, 'if the party chooses, why bother with primaries?' I think we can agree that's a pretty damned good question. His response? 'That's a very good question.'
Bottom line, based on what my pea-brain is deciphering from all the chatter about this and the brokered convention is that:
In the primaries, candidates win delegates. Some states apportion them to each delegate based on what percent of the vote that delegate won in that state's caucus or election. Other states are 'winner-take-all'. These delegates are 'bound' to that candidate through to the party convention.
If the candidate quits the race, the delegates are released and can either be 'given' to another candidate through endorsement or other wheeling-and-dealing (what we all love about Washington politics, right?).
If a candidate suspends his campaign - as Rubio has done - he still holds onto those delegates and can use them for leverage come a brokered convention.
At the convention they count up the delegates. If one of the candidates has a clear victory with 1,237 delegates won through the primary process, it's over and done. Yippee, we have a candidate and everyone rallies around, pulling out the hatchets buried and knives thrown in the lead-up.
If no candidate has that magic number, then there's horsetrading that takes place. And this is where it could blow up in the face of the GOP / RNC owners. Those owners being the donors and not you and me.
Let's say Donald gets there with 1,157 delegates. He's close - really close - and millions more people have voted for him than have voted against him but what happens?
Well, he's not the clear winner despite millions of voters marking his name however it's done in their polling place. So, they have a ballot - an election within an election. The bound delegates vote for their guy - like him or not - and no one gets the clear majority again - unless someone steps forward with enough delegates and pledges those delegates to the person they want to see win and become the candidate.
It's convoluted as hell and, as with all things associated with the Constitution, is pretty damned brilliant. It's called the Electoral College and it's a tried and true tradition, even though I think it's really going to pinch hard come this summer. The Founders put it in place to keep a simple majority from taking over this country and running it as they see fit, no matter what the other 49% of the population want.
That's how Bush II "won" the still-disputed-in-some-circles 2000 election. The Electoral College looked at him and at Al Gore, decided Bush II was the lesser of two evils and gave him the nod. Which led to Gore famously throwing a tantrum through the courts and his acolytes swearing to this day that the election was 'stolen'.
Well, this year it might just be the Republicans turn to see it happen to them. The difference is, and it is a HUGE difference, is that it is not a party-to-party theft. It would be a theft within the party which will drive me and I suspect millions of other people away from the party for good and all.
Me? If they pull a stunt like that, I will go out the day after the results of the convention are known and I will re-register as an Independent. I will no longer proudly call myself a Republican because the load of straws is really heavy this year. One more and...
I suspect it is and will be the same for a lot of other people, too.
No matter. The GOP will no longer exist as it's been.
The controllers will be outed. The futility of participation will be shown, loud and clear, and the last vestige of decency, fairness and honesty will implode with a resounding kaboom.
Through their obstinacy and demand that the American voters who support Trump fall in line, they will sure as hell guarantee a win for Hilliary Clinton - along with Obie-One's successful nomination of a wild-liberal Supreme Court Justice.
I am sure that is a deal that is already under discussion along the lines of 'if you keep Loretta Lynch from indicting me, I'll let you call the SCOTUS nomination before you leave office'. Why not? Whoever he chooses will probably be palatable to her. It's a win-win for them and, as I said the other day in relation to this, will guarantee that the face of America will change forever - and not for the better.
Our borders will be gone. Our sovereignty will be gone. All of those illegals here already will gain citizenship and the American economy will devolve to a third-world state within a matter of years.
That is what is at stake in this election and I, for one, do not want to see the Donors do this to our country but I will not participate in another exercise in futility if they put up someone like Ted Cruz or Marco or Bush or anyone else who I know cannot stand, fight and win against Hilliary and the rest of the world. Instead, I will carefully and legibly write Donald Trump's name on my ballot and pray that the vast majority of other Americans will do the same.
Now - I wish you a lovely day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
For Cruz, I don't care. For Trump, I do.
Because the right-leaning insiders who control the GOP don't believe Trump's heart and political views are in the 'right place' according to their standards, they are on the verge of creating a wave of blow-back the likes of which haven't been seen in this country since at least the 1960's. And, what they don't understand, is that it is NOT Donald Trump's fault or doing.
It is solely and strictly because of the nonsense and machinations emanating from the Washington Beltway - which is at the exact epicenter for this whole election year of dissent.
What they have either forgotten or are choosing to ignore because they don't like it, any American citizen has the right and privilege to run for President. The Constitution does not stipulate that you must wheel and deal your way into office, or sell your soul to the highest bidders. Under the Founding documents, The Donald has just as much right to run for office and be elected as anyone else - be it Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or one of the Bush family.
Curly Haugland, the RNC's National Committee's Rules Chairman announced on CNBC yesterday that 'the party will decide who the GOP nominee will be'. He said, flat-out, the RNC Donor Class is going decide who's going to run under the Republican banner after the convention - and the voters can all just go to hell.
That's a jaw-dropper to me and to a lot of other people who have a bigger platform for spreading the news. Already the question has been asked, 'if the party chooses, why bother with primaries?' I think we can agree that's a pretty damned good question. His response? 'That's a very good question.'
Bottom line, based on what my pea-brain is deciphering from all the chatter about this and the brokered convention is that:
In the primaries, candidates win delegates. Some states apportion them to each delegate based on what percent of the vote that delegate won in that state's caucus or election. Other states are 'winner-take-all'. These delegates are 'bound' to that candidate through to the party convention.
If the candidate quits the race, the delegates are released and can either be 'given' to another candidate through endorsement or other wheeling-and-dealing (what we all love about Washington politics, right?).
If a candidate suspends his campaign - as Rubio has done - he still holds onto those delegates and can use them for leverage come a brokered convention.
At the convention they count up the delegates. If one of the candidates has a clear victory with 1,237 delegates won through the primary process, it's over and done. Yippee, we have a candidate and everyone rallies around, pulling out the hatchets buried and knives thrown in the lead-up.
If no candidate has that magic number, then there's horsetrading that takes place. And this is where it could blow up in the face of the GOP / RNC owners. Those owners being the donors and not you and me.
Let's say Donald gets there with 1,157 delegates. He's close - really close - and millions more people have voted for him than have voted against him but what happens?
Well, he's not the clear winner despite millions of voters marking his name however it's done in their polling place. So, they have a ballot - an election within an election. The bound delegates vote for their guy - like him or not - and no one gets the clear majority again - unless someone steps forward with enough delegates and pledges those delegates to the person they want to see win and become the candidate.
It's convoluted as hell and, as with all things associated with the Constitution, is pretty damned brilliant. It's called the Electoral College and it's a tried and true tradition, even though I think it's really going to pinch hard come this summer. The Founders put it in place to keep a simple majority from taking over this country and running it as they see fit, no matter what the other 49% of the population want.
That's how Bush II "won" the still-disputed-in-some-circles 2000 election. The Electoral College looked at him and at Al Gore, decided Bush II was the lesser of two evils and gave him the nod. Which led to Gore famously throwing a tantrum through the courts and his acolytes swearing to this day that the election was 'stolen'.
Well, this year it might just be the Republicans turn to see it happen to them. The difference is, and it is a HUGE difference, is that it is not a party-to-party theft. It would be a theft within the party which will drive me and I suspect millions of other people away from the party for good and all.
Me? If they pull a stunt like that, I will go out the day after the results of the convention are known and I will re-register as an Independent. I will no longer proudly call myself a Republican because the load of straws is really heavy this year. One more and...
I suspect it is and will be the same for a lot of other people, too.
No matter. The GOP will no longer exist as it's been.
The controllers will be outed. The futility of participation will be shown, loud and clear, and the last vestige of decency, fairness and honesty will implode with a resounding kaboom.
Through their obstinacy and demand that the American voters who support Trump fall in line, they will sure as hell guarantee a win for Hilliary Clinton - along with Obie-One's successful nomination of a wild-liberal Supreme Court Justice.
I am sure that is a deal that is already under discussion along the lines of 'if you keep Loretta Lynch from indicting me, I'll let you call the SCOTUS nomination before you leave office'. Why not? Whoever he chooses will probably be palatable to her. It's a win-win for them and, as I said the other day in relation to this, will guarantee that the face of America will change forever - and not for the better.
Our borders will be gone. Our sovereignty will be gone. All of those illegals here already will gain citizenship and the American economy will devolve to a third-world state within a matter of years.
That is what is at stake in this election and I, for one, do not want to see the Donors do this to our country but I will not participate in another exercise in futility if they put up someone like Ted Cruz or Marco or Bush or anyone else who I know cannot stand, fight and win against Hilliary and the rest of the world. Instead, I will carefully and legibly write Donald Trump's name on my ballot and pray that the vast majority of other Americans will do the same.
Now - I wish you a lovely day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
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