rant

MLMM Friday Faithfuls — Donald Trump Versus Bruce Springsteen

Fandango20 Comments

For this week’s Mindlovemysery’s Menagerie Friday Faithfuls challenge, Jim Adams has brought up the subject of the “Post-Truth World,” and has challenge us to write about lies, or fake news, or alternative truth, half-truths, or misinformation, disinformation, or distortions.

I was going to write a post about the most dishonest, deceitful, lying, and worst president the United States has ever had. And that ain’t no lie.

But as I was sipping my first cup of coffee this morning, something popped up in my newsfeed on my iPhone that I thought was at least tangentially relevant. And so I decided to change course a little bit and write about a man who is clearly the most thin-skinned, petty, and vindictive person to occupy the Oval Office ever. And that ain’t no lie either.

Donald Trump posted the following rant on Truth Social:

I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country.

Sleepy Joe didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing, but Springsteen is ‘dumb as a rock,’ and couldn’t see what was going on, or could he (which is even worse!)? This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!

Yikes. What could Bruce Springsteen possibly have done to have precipitated such a vitriolic rant by POTUS? Well, with Donald Trump, it doesn’t take much.

Bruce Springsteen exercised his free speech rights and tore into Trump (without actually naming him) last night during the first of a series of concerts in Manchester, England.

Springsteen spoke on stage and said:

The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll in dangerous times. In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.

Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism, and let freedom ring!

Bruce Springsteen used his public platform to speak the truth. Here is a video of some of what he said. I urge you to watch the whole video because he said more truths than what I quoted above. It’s only five and a half minutes long.

What do you think our vindictive president means when he says, “Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!” when Springsteen is Back in the USA?

I hope Springsteen has some bodyguards in his entourage because I wouldn’t be surprised if his plane will be met by ICE or Homeland Security officers who will attempt to kidnap him and deport him to CECOT, the prison for terrorists in El Salvador.

WDP — Whatever Floats Your Boat

Fandango2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What principles define how you live?
View all responses

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I live by the principle of “whatever floats your boat.” But what does that really mean? To me it means that I don’t care what religion you are, what political party you favor, or how you live your life. That’s your business, just as how I live my life is my business. Of course, while not explicitly stated, implied in my principle is Do No Harm. In other words, live your own life as you choose to, don’t do anything to deliberately harm or hurt others.

And that brings me to the corollary to my principle. Whatever floats your boat…as long as you’re not trying to sink my boat. And that is the issue I have with most Republicans these days. They are trying to pilot everyone else’s boats.

The Republican Party used to be the party of individual freedoms. And it still is when it comes to the freedom to own and carry guns, including semiautomatic military-style rifles, the freedom to not wear masks or get vaccinate, the freedom to be a white, Christian, male, and the freedom to ban books they don’t like.

But when it comes to certain individual’s freedoms, they’re not so freedom loving. Like the freedom of a female to manage her own reproductive health? Fuhgeddaboudit. Or the freedom of individuals to live the lives they choose, particularly those who are members of the LBGTQ+ community? That’s not what God intended. Or the freedom that all Americans, regardless of national origin, race, or religion, are Constitutionally guaranteed. Yes, but only if they’re white and Christian. Or the freedom to read books that talk about things that conservative politicians don’t want others to read about.

And then you add Christian Nationalism, where, if you ain’t Christian, you can just go straight to hell because America was meant to be a Christian nation. Don’t you dare say “seasons greetings” or “happy holidays.” It’s “Merry Christmas,” goddammit.

So, to Republicans and to Christian Nationalists, go ahead, whatever floats your boat. But don’t expect or demand others to float their boats the way you want them to. You do you. I’ll do me. Live and let live.

(I think I got a little off track and turned this simple question into a bit of a rant. But hey, whatever floats your boat, right?)

JYProvocative Question #1

Fandango12 Comments

I first want to say thank you to JYP for taking over Fandango’s Provocative Question prompt. Based upon her first provocative question, wrapped around Labor Day, I think she’s going to be an excellent host.

So what is her provocative question for this week?

What types of work (paid or unpaid) do you think are undervalued in your culture, community, circle, etc.? And on the flip side, what types of work (paid or unpaid) do you think are overvalued in your culture, community, circle, etc.? Do you think there’s a realistic way to rebalance?

Let me first say that there is a difference between being undervalued and underpaid. Take teachers, for example. I think most people, especially parents, believe that teachers are highly valued. However, that doesn’t translate to being highly paid. And that’s a shame.

I feel the same way about nurses, who I believe are underpaid for the work that they do. And the workers who collect my trash, recycling, and compost are providing a valuable service and I’d guess are not very well compensated. Hey, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it, right?

As to overcompensated, I look at professional athletes and always wonder how some of them can be comped in the hundreds of millions of dollars for what they do. Or celebrities who get paid mega bucks? I like to be entertained as much as the next guy, but is the value they provide to society worth the money they are paid?

And don’t get me started on social media influencers. What about CEOs who earn hundreds times the average worker or those Big Pharma execs who gouge the public by filling their company’s coffers by making life saving or life changing drugs unaffordable to those who need them?

Or the politicians who live high on the hog while passing laws that make it hard for millions to escape poverty. Or….

Wait. Sorry, this has turned into a rant that makes me sound kind of crazy. Sorry about that.

But I’m even more sorry that I don’t have any suggestions for improving these inequities.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — June 24th

Fandango17 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 24th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on June 24, 2014 on my old blog.

Nothing to Write About

I don’t know what to write about today. I’ve been posting daily for a while now, and something always seems to pop into my head just in time for me to write about it.

Or a WordPress Daily Prompt comes to my rescue. But today’s prompt doesn’t do anything for me.

I’m not in the mood to rant about anything today and I don’t have any inspirational ideas for a piece of flash fiction, either.

It’s not as if there’s nothing going on the world that’s blogworthy. There’s all that crap still going on in Iraq, which, according to Dick Cheney, is all Obama’s fault.

The Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that anti-abortion protesters at abortion clinics are civil, respectful people who just wish to inform and educate women who are seeking an abortion about their alternatives. They really are sweethearts, those anti-abortion protesters.

Oh, there’s the World Cup (yawn). And baseball’s All-Star game is coming up in mid-July (double yawn).

Strange weather patterns are all around us, with severe droughts in some parts of the country and heavy rains and flooding in others. I’m sure it has nothing to do with climate change, though.

Have you heard about poor Hillary Clinton? I mean that literally. Poor Hillary. Just ask her. She says she’s dead broke.

The Pope has excommunicated all Mafia mobsters. That will teach ‘em. No doubt they’ll change their evil ways.

The IRS lost a bunch of emails due to a computer crash. I’m going to use that line the next time I’m called in for a tax audit. They should be able to relate to “I don’t have any of my tax records because my hard drive died.”

An ex-Goldman Sachs trader who told his mother he was going to get a $13 million bonus is suing his former employer because he only got a discretionary bonus of $8.25 million. Maybe he can float a loan to poor Hillary.

And then there was the American exchange student in Germany who climbed inside a giant stone sculpture of a vagina, got stuck, and had to be pulled out of the vagina by 22 firefighters.

So please accept my sincerest apology. I don’t know what to write about today. I seem to be at a loss for words. Maybe something will come to me by tomorrow.

Weekend Writing Prompt — This, That, and the Other

Fandango22 Comments

My blog is “This, That, and the Other”
It has no niche
It has no theme
I write about whatever strikes my fancy
Depending on my mood
Maybe some flash fiction
Or a whine
Or a rant
Perhaps serious
Perhaps humorous
Perhaps ludicrous
If that makes me sound capricious
Maybe I am
Maybe I’m not

(Exactly 55 words)

Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where the word is “capricious.”

Also for Scott’s Daily Prompt, where the prompt is “All about you” and he asks us to explain why you chose your blog’s title and what it means to us.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Fandango38 Comments

I know you’ll be happy to hear that I will no longer be ranting (or whining) about that stupid, ill-conceived, barely usable on an iPhone Block editor that WordPress is trying to convince us is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Instead, I’m going to rant and whine about something else. Namely, the weather.For six days in a row, temperatures where I live were over 100 degrees. That’s nuts. Well, the good news is that today’s forecast calls for the high to reach only 94 degrees. Brrr. Better break out those winter jackets, folks.

But do you want to hear what else is crazy? Early Sunday morning, a freak and unusually severe thunderstorm hit. I say “freak” because thunderstorms at this time of year are rare around here. And also because there was thunder and lightning, but little to no rain. What this freak storm did do was trigger a series of wildfires all around the Bay Area due to lightning strikes.So now, even though temperatures are dipping into the mid nineties, the air quality has become “unhealthy as wildfire smoke pours into the sky.” It’s so bad that the views of the hills from my backyard are almost obliterated.Okay, my daily rant/whine is over. Have a good day.

Let It Bleed — Yet Another One of Fandango’s Political Rants

Fandango25 Comments

8AD4C5D7-DF97-482F-B97C-0A5D99DC3F3CPlease bear with me while I rant and vent a little about the state of partisan politics in the United States in 2019.

After the release of the full, albeit redacted, Mueller Report, there is a growing debate among Democrats about whether or not to begin the formal impeachment process. More progressive Democrats think members of the House of Representatives must take the initiative and immediately begin impeachment hearings against Donald Trump, even though there is close to a zero chance that such a move would be supported in the Republican controlled Senate.

More moderate Democrats suggest that we continue with ongoing investigations from the House Judiciary, Intelligence, Finance, and Oversight committees and hold open, public hearings so that Americans can see what a slime ball Trump is and vote him out of office in 2020.

I admit I’m on the fence. I’m not a politically astute pundit and I don’t know what would be best for our country in both the short and long terms. But I do know the ugly face of hypocrisy when I see it.

Let us harken back to 1998 when then President Bill Clinton lied to the public and to Congress about getting a blowjob from an intern, Monica Lewinsky, and was then accused of obstruction of justice by attempting to influence witness testimony.

Here’s what Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said 21 years ago:

“[Clinton] doesn’t have to say, ‘Go lie for me,’ to be a crime. You don’t have to say, ‘Let’s obstruct justice’ for it to be a crime. You judge people on their conduct, not magic phrases. The point I’m trying to make is you don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic. Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office.”

And then there’s this 21-year-old quote from the mouth of an even bigger hypocritical snake, Senator Mitch McConnell:

“Our nation is indeed at a crossroads. Will we pursue the search for truth or will we dodge, weave, and evade the truth? I am, of course, referring to the investigation into serious allegations of illegal conduct by the president of the United States — that the president has engaged in a persistent pattern and practice of obstruction of justice. The allegations are grave, the investigation is legitimate, and ascertaining the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the unqualified, unevasive truth is absolutely critical.”

And now, 21 years later, we have a president who coordinated with Russia to help him win the presidency, who has continually lied about it, and who has done everything possible to obstruct justice. And yet these same scumbags say, with respect to Trump, there’s nothing there.

Where is the outrage Graham and McConnell expressed 21 years ago? How can they equate lying about a blowjob with being a traitor to his country and systematically destroying our American democracy?

Okay, I’m done ranting and venting. Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and for those “non-believers” like me, Happy Sunday.

Written for the Let It Bleed Weekly Prompt Challenge from Saumya Agrawal’s Randomness Inked blog. The prompt for this week is the word “vent.” Also for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (partisan), Your Daily Word Prompt (initiative), Word of the Day Challenge (ugly), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (snake).