A Hundred Some Days

A long time ago, in a country far away, there were Democrats in the Midwest.  A longer time ago, Democrats controlled the South.

More recently, Democrats decided these thirty or so states weren’t important.  In my lifetime, the following states were traditionally Democratic, and have shifted to Republican:  Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Louisiana, Arkansas.  States that shifted earlier or around my birth were all the other states in the deep south, including Texas.

Today the Democrats are the most enlightened people in earth’s history.  Don’t believe me?  Just ask one.  Most of them won’t hesitate to remind you how much better their ideas are than almost any other ideas ever concocted.

Barack Obama was a lucky man on several fronts.  His timing was great.  He faced the worst national political candidate in our nation’s history in the primaries, and was a member of the opposition party during the beginning of a world depression.  Yes, it was a depression.  The only way these knuckleheads continue to call that mess a recession is be REDEFINING THE DEFINITION OF A DEPRESSION!  That’s how stupid we’ve become in the county.

If a fucking reporter ran a headline announcing “Sky is Blue” with a full color picture providing proof, the editor of that paper would have to issue a correction the following day if a single person’s feelings were hurt.  “We’re sincerely troubled about the misrepresentation of yesterdays turquoise sky.  We regret the error of our ways.  Please don’t vote Republican.”

We’ve brought all this on ourselves.  The Democrats doubled down on stupid, because Hillary Clinton is the smartest, most qualified presidential candidate in our nation’s history.

Want to confuse a Democrat, and see for yourself what cognitive dissonance looks like in person?  Ask any Democrat to name ONE THING (besides marrying Bill) that Hillary Clinton has done in her lifetime that demonstrates above average intelligence.

I don’t want to spoil the fun you’ll have with this question.  The most likely response will be some achievement on some level that didn’t require anything but basic motor skills.  I’m pretty sure she can feed herself, but that really shouldn’t count.

If you want to have even more fun, press on with the qualifications.  Her first political act was blatantly unconstitutional.  During the Watergate frenzy, she filed a brief to strip President Nixon the right to counsel in congressional hearings.  (Fortunately, this was thrown out as the rubbish it was)  The Democrat does not understand that she was an unqualified disaster as Secretary of State, and previously was as bland (though every bit as crooked) as any Senator ever produced by the State of New York.

Now, of course I’m a deplorable sexist for bringing up her obvious LACK of competence and fitness for the office.  As soon as someone calls me a sexist for not voting for HRC, I just start rattling off women I’d vote for before HRC from both parties, which is pretty damn easy.  I just mention just about any woman that’s ever held political office, and then about any other that might be semi-lucid.  The bar isn’t very high for me.  Trump never got close to this level of competence in the campaign, except that he won the campaign.

The Democrats could have run 1,000 different candidates who would have beaten Trump in a presidential election.  I stand by that number, though it may be awfully low.  I believe the true number is much closer to 60,000,000 than 1,000.

And I’m a voter who wouldn’t vote for Trump in ten thousand lifetimes.  That’s how far the Democrats are from even being in at least one game.

I used to wonder a bit about all the newspapers laying around my folks (and especially, my grandparents’) houses.  The Times came every morning, and the Star and Journal World came in the afternoon.  There were newspapers everywhere every Sunday.  And we’d all have sections, read things, and talk about some of the stuff.

This doesn’t happen anymore.  Everyone is cordoned off in their own cubicle, straight-faced to their solitary choices, and the discussion is now to be found almost exclusively with those who think very much like that individual.  It doesn’t take any sort of damn genius to understand this is a poor idea on many fronts.

Is this about to turn into a “back in my days…” sort of rant?  I hope not.  Maybe it’s too late.  Oh well.  This is about the fundamental changes in society over the past generation or so.  In a few years there will be a majority of people who don’t remember life without internet.  This seems so odd.

I’m as guilty as anyone.  My life was quite a bit better when internet wasn’t here, I think.  I haven’t figured out how to adjust to it yet, and I am making an attempt.  It isn’t coming quickly or quietly.

I know for damn sure what granddad was up to—he was seeking a bunch of different views on the events of the day.  There were additional newspapers and magazines not mentioned here, and the man was a voracious reader.  I’m pretty sure he’s read WAY more than I ever will, and I go out of my way to read.   Sometimes.  There were big gaps where I wasn’t reading much at all.  It shows.  I’m dumb as shit right now.

It’s hard to keep track of the dingbats running the media outlets these days, but I have to make an attempt.  Here’s how stupid I am:  I will attempt to name the owners of various media groups, and we’ll see how far I am from the actual owner.  It will be fun!  Play along if you like, my guesses and the actual answers are included below.  I know I will do poorly on this, because there is no longer a great need to commit things like this to memory, but it’s a decent exercise.

1) Washington Post
2) New York Times
3) CNN
4) NBC
5) Fox
6) ABC
7) Drudge Report
8) Huffington Post
9) Chicago Tribune
10) Los Angeles Times

Wow, that was fun!  I’m dumber than I thought!  Now, we’re finally getting somewhere.  This list is biased, of course, because it’s MY fucking list.  Tough shit, reader.  (there are no readers, which makes this a great forum for self-flagellation.)

So anyway, now that you’ve had your fun as well, I’ll point out that google didn’t give me much help finding out the owners from #7 on, so I don’t know if these handy-ass helpful windows that appear to the right in chrome are for these poor little guys left on the edge.  What a shitshow.

I’ve become a fan of the Tribune and Times because they run stories the others don’t.  I know exactly where to go to find lunacy, right-wing and left.  It isn’t tough.  It’s fucking everywhere.  I have no way of knowing the news consumption distribution across the board.  I’m sure it’s sickening, though.  People have zero tolerance for views that fall outside their own.

Folks have lost the ability to listen like they used to.  There was a time in my lifetime when people could have civil conversations.  There were some people I was often told to not get started into any political arguments, even back in the day.  These folks are the ones now out in the pharmacy lines spouting off about how some fucking elected official was ruining their world.

I’m going to give these motherfuckers a hint here:  You dipshits pointing fingers across the aisle don’t need a political foe to ruin your goddamned lives, you’re doing it quite well on your own.  Every single motherfucker voting either Republican or Democrat to a national office is some sort of a complicit war criminal anyway, so fuck both your whored out and used up parties.

How ya’ like that hyperbole, warbird?  Who has your favorite R/D bombed the shit out of today?


Fun Quiz Results:  Mine first, then actual, as of 5/25, 2017:

1s) Bezos, Jeff, Amazon dude.
2s) Times Media Group
3s) Did Turner sell this to NBC?  Who the fuck owns NBC?
4s) GE?  I think GE owned CBS.
5s) Murdoch, or some Murdochesque franchise.
6s) Disney.  But who the fuck owns Disney?
7s) Matt Drudge
8s) Arianna Huffington sold this thing to a bunch of junior high cheerleaders.
9s) Tribune holding company of some sort
10s) Same as 9s.

1a) WP Company LLC, Nash Holdings LLC, Bezos.
2a) New York Times Company (Carlos slim, 17%)
3a) Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner)
4a) NBCUniversal (Comcast)
5a) Fox News Group (21st Century Fox)
6a) Disney-ABC Television Group
7a) Matt Drudge
8a) AOL
9a) tronc, inc. (this is, in fact a NASDAQ traded company shed from the Tribune Company in ’14.)
10a) tronc, inc.