About a month ago, I started posting on Facebook short
opinion pieces that I wrote during cocktail hour (roughly, between five and
seven o’clock EDT). Some of these concern
random peeves about sloppy language or how the Chicago Cubs are almost never
shown on national TV. Most address
political news that penetrated my irritation horizon during any given day . . .
and that I wasn’t moved to expand into a full-fledged, essay-length blog.
I’m compiling these a
la minute rants about politics here, mainly for my own convenience (so I
can find things without scrolling down my Facebook page) but also for my blog
readers who are not Facebook users. Here’s
the first installment. If you’d like to
read the non-political rants and the comments they generated, they’re sprinkled
throughout my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/deb.wyrick)
along with other goodies like ‘bad gospel music album covers’ contests.
April 25
Today's
cocktail hour rant: the 'no competition' pact between Cruz and Kasich has to be
about the dumbest move in a campaign season defined by dumb. Not only is it too
late, it's too public. Trump has been chortling about it all day, as it
reinforces his braying complaints about a rigged system. Further, it has
spurred him to embrace his inner Triumph the Insult Dog even more tightly,
yoking Lyin' Ted to Piggy Kasich ("I have never seen a human being eat in
such a disgusting fashion"). If flop sweat took down Rubio, couldn't bad
table manners take down Kasich?
April 27
So much
to choose from, so little time between drinks. Tonight's cocktail hour rant:
listening to the interminable 'event' in which Ted Cruz announced Carly Fiorina
as his potential running mate, I counted about umpty billion references to God,
faith, prayer, and religious values. Yoking Dominionist theology with radical
American exceptionalism a la Cruz is a very bad idea, plus Fiorina seems not to
be a current churchgoer, so shut up, Ted. Also, I can't predict what Trump's
insult moniker for Carly will be: Cashiered Carly? Triple-loser Carly? Fiorina
the Failure? None seems catchy enough.
April 28
It's
hailing outside, which doesn't make for a cozy cocktail hour. Due to local
conditions, this will be a local-ish rant. I finally read the entire transcript
of State Senator Buck 'keep North Carolina straight' Newton's pep talk. Not
only is he bigoted and ignorant, he makes absolutely no logical sense. I
believe he's channeled Sarah Palin's oratorical style. "Now it’s been said
that there are many, many, many, many more sexual predators on the sex offender
list than there are transgender people. And we can all feel sympathy for folks
who are having difficult times, because we all know folks that have a difficult
time, whether folks are struggling with drugs, are struggling with their
marriages, figuring out what it is that they’re supposed to be doing in life.
We can all have sympathy for that. But that does not mean that we should expose
OUR WIVES AND OUR SISTERS AND OUR CHILDREN to the sexual predators in the
bathrooms."
May 2
It's
back to the regular week and cocktail-hour rants. Today: the kvetching by
Trump, primarily, and Sanders, secondarily, about not getting their 'fair'
share of super/unbound delegates and how raw vote totals should be the only
factor that matters in elections. If one reads this country's seminal documents
(John Adams, Federalist Papers, etc.), one realizes that the Founding Fathers
were wary of 'the Tyranny of the Majority' and tried to craft barriers against
this possibility (the Electoral College, Separation of Powers). The United
States has survived as a (mixed) Democracy because it has tried to protect the
rights of minorities (racial, religious, gender, ideological) against just this
tyranny. Certainly, the ways we do this have been flawed and thus deserve
scrutiny and adjustment as times and demographics change. But the principle
remains central to what we are as a country. What do people think would have
been the outcome it women's suffrage had been put to a majority-rule vote (all
men), or if desegregation of schools had been an issue decided via plebiscite?
May 6
Friday night light rant: anyone else as disgusted as I am by the tepid rollout of Trump endorsements by Republican politicians? Particularly by those whom Trump has insulted and mocked and lied outrageously about? On a related note, I think Little Marco the sweathog's endorsement may signal his willingness to be the sacrificial Hispanic Veep. Thank goodness for the weekend: have a good one!
May 9
Monday's
cocktail-hour rant could be about nothing other than 'Governor' Pat McCrory's
insane and insanely expensive lawsuit against the DOJ. We expect politicians to
look out for their own and their party's interests, but we don't expect them to
destroy an entire economy in so doing. This is a shameless ploy to delay what
ultimately will be the overturning/delegitimatizing of HB2 and to deflect
responsibility for this mess onto an 'over-reaching' Department of Justice,
good fodder for the November elections. The DOJ position, in its
counter-lawsuit, is fairly simple: that Constitutional prohibitions against
discrimination based on sex apply to HB2, as the category of 'sex' includes
gender identification as well as biological gender. Attorney General Lynch's
statement this afternoon was strong, clear, historically informed, and morally
righteous. McCrory's statements are weak, waffling, myopic, and morally
revolting.
May 10
My
who-cares-about-today’s-primaries rant is spurred by Jon Stewart’s
characterization of Donald Trump. “He’s a man-baby,” the former Daily Show host
said yesterday in an interview with David Axelrod. "He has the physical
countenance of a man, and a baby's temperament and hands.” True enough, but
Stewart omitted a key ingredient of Trump’s infantilism: vocabulary and syntax
that would embarrass most four-year-olds. When Trump was asked about Sadiq
Khan’s election as London’s Mayor, the presumptive candidate replied, “I think
it’s a very good thing, and I hope he does a very good job because frankly that
would be very, very good.” Asked why, Mr. Trump said, “Because I think if he
does a great job, it will really — you lead by example, always lead by example.
If he does a good job and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a
terrific thing.” Evidently, the candidate remembered his Freshman English
course after the first sentence and switched up the ‘very goods’ with
(surprise!) ‘great’ and ‘terrific.’ The flaccid word ‘thing’ (a Trump favorite)
is particularly babyish. Children in the process of acquiring language often
call clumps of ‘things’ by a single pronounceable syllable (when my daughter
started to talk, ‘bah’ signified bottle and blanket and ball and bath and
baby); later they use a word they know to refer to all items in a larger
category (‘doggie’ means a dog but also a cat, a squirrel, and a pony). After
almost seven decades of living on this earth, Donald Trump still talks like a
toddler, and reasons like one, and probably won’t eat his veggies either.
May 11
Hump day
cocktail hour rant: Ted Nugent posting a fake video showing Bernie Sanders
shooting Hillary Clinton during a gun control debate. Yes, that's a subject or
topic, not a rant. But NRA Board member and Trump supporter Nugent is so vile you
can all supply your own rant. Nugent was investigated by the Secret Service for
2012 threats against President Obama; it's time to start a new investigation
and shut down this 2nd-Amendment waving fountain of filth.
May 13
This Friday’s
cocktail hour rant concerns today’s breathlessly reported “Breaking News’ –
Donald Trump will NOT self-fund his general election campaign. Who could have
guessed, since the self-funding, beholden-to-no-one, down-with-Super-PACs spiel
is central to his phone-it-in interviews and rally ramblings? Well, everyone
should have seen this coming. Trump does not have the liquid assets to pay for
a Presidential run, and he’s a notorious tightwad. He’s the master of earned
(aka ‘free’) media and has spent orders of magnitude less money than his
competitors on the campaign to date, including far less than a million dollars
of his actual fortune. The rest of his ‘self-funding’ has taken the form of
loans: from him to his campaign, often to aspects of his campaign that he
‘owns,’ (like reimbursements for travel on the Trumplane or office rent in his
own building), so it’s pretty much borrowing from himself to pay himself. Plus,
loans are meant to be repaid, which is what the new dispensation of raising big
money will allow, as it will generate a pile of other people’s moolah from
which Trump can pay himself back, even though he just announced he has ‘no
intention’ of doing so (and we all know how set-in-concrete Trump’s
‘intentions’ are). Or there’s always bankruptcy. Either way, it’s a Ponzi
scheme ratifying the Donald’s prediction sixteen years ago: “It’s very possible
that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”
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