WOW – as expected, that was entertaining and frightening all at the same time! Just finished watching the first U.S. Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I wasn’t surprised when Trump began to unspool pretty quickly in. Clinton was able to bring out his “best side” with little provocation. He was rude, childish, vague, defensive, argumentative, and came off about as genuine as a slimy used car salesman. I don’t think he answered one question with a clear thoughtful response, instead meandering in various other directions. Presumptive expectations were met.
I followed Twitter during the debate this time – it fascinates me that so many people see and hear the same things, but interpret them so differently . . .
Personally I thought Hillary kicked the “Don’s” ass, for the most part.
For all the people that think Trump would be a great president because he is a great businessman, consider this:
He stated during tonight’s debate that paying little or no taxes (when asked about the past) shows he’s smart – yes and he’s a cheat and doesn’t believe he should pay his fair share. I paid 33.4% in taxes last year for the small amount of 401K money we withdrew to keep our bills paid. [This did include a penalty for early withdrawal.] What percentage of your income did you pay?
Trump has filed bankruptcy six times, yet always walked away personally financially sound, never changing his lifestyle. These bankruptcies, however, destroyed many small businesses that worked for him in good faith. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. YES, I could file bankruptcy, and probably should have over two years ago, but these are my bills and I will pay them as long as I have funds to do so, regardless if it’s allowed or not. That’s how I was raised!
He doesn’t own the majority of the buildings that his name is on – he is paid for the use of his name. (Okay, I have to admit, that is great branding on his part.)
He has used money from his Trump Foundation (mostly funded by donors) to pay personal and business debts.
When asked tonight about being investigated for his alleged racial violations of the Fair Housing Act, he stated he settled those lawsuits admitting no guilt or fault – typically when lawsuits are settled out of court, no one admits guilt or fault, though often the payee was guilty or at fault, which is why they are paying out, often to hush people up.
His current global business dealings would be a definite conflict of interest, regardless of who he says is running HIS companies.
He’s definitely good at keeping his head above water – but a smart and trusted business man – I don’t think so. Conniving and slick, I have no doubt, as he’s admitted to having conducted business this way. And he may not be a politician, but he’s probably the richest candidate (if you go by appearances) that’s ever run for president. Why don’t people see that he’s one of the worst of the 1%ers?
I will say that even if I liked him, and I don’t, I would never vote for someone who refuses to release their tax returns . . . that one action tells me he has much to hide, and/or that many of his lies will be revealed.
Looking forward to the next debate – I just hope those that need to be watching are.
Were you watching tonight? What did you think?
Just something I was thinking about . . .
Yeah, I know, it’s been a while since I have blogged in any way, shape or form – hope you all have been doing well & I plan to catch up with you soon ❤
Change for the sake of change isn’t necessarily a good thing.
My mother-in-law, who is 76, and her boyfriend are Trump supporters. When we talk about it, and I ask her why on earth she would even consider voting for him, she always says because this country has a lot of problems and change is needed, and that Hillary would be four more years like the last eight. In her opinion, nothing would change.
I’ve been unemployed for three years, and something needs to change soon – but that doesn’t mean I should kill myself, become a prostitute, or start ripping people off to elicit change. Change often needs to be thoughtful. This isn’t like taking a different route home from the grocery store.
I’ve got so much to say about change and the last eight years and other things, but for today . . . in the spirit of One-Liner Wednesday, I will keep it brief. Thanks Linda – lately I haven’t written much for various reasons, but I always think about this prompt you provide 🙂
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that our president gave an amazingly energizing, genuine, insightful, hopeful, and positive speech tonight. Unfortunately, those who needed to hear it the most probably weren’t listening.
OH – and Trump’s treasonous comment made at the news conference in Doral, Fla. More to come on that – I’d love to find a video that actually showed the faces in the audience as he made those comments. A picture of his kids slapping their foreheads at that moment that crap tumbled out of his mouth would be priceless! 🙂
[NOTE: I really like Bob Dylan’s and especially Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s versions of these songs, but this version by Immaterial had that right touch of melancholy it seemed to deserve today.]
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to spend any time with my WP family. I have missed your posts and writing my own, as well. So much has been happening in the world of late, honestly more than I can keep up with some days.
The Supreme Court has been quite busy. I must admit, I am happy with much of what they have done. What other people do in their own lives that doesn’t affect me shouldn’t be any of my concern, or anyone else’s. Same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act, and abortion rights in Texas, among others, were all championed by the justice system and reasonable thinking.
Don’t get me wrong, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) needs some work, especially in the states that refused to assist its citizens by setting up a state marketplace. But, by and large, it was the right thing to do. When I heard Ted Cruz signed his family up, I thought had you supported a state exchange in Texas, the prices would’ve been more reasonable – but Ted was against the ACA, vehemently if I remember correctly. Is that irony?
There’s been all kinds of racial incidents with the police. I was truly shocked and saddened by the church shooting in South Carolina. The victims families handled it with such grace and dignity, from what I saw, though I have truly tried to limit my intake of the news lately.
Then there’s the escaped convict incident – I was surprised when someone said to me, regarding the first escaped convict’s shooting death, “I hope he had a gun, you know since he was white and all.“ (Not touching this one . . .) I can say so much, but just can’t right now. He WAS an escaped convict and he did have a shotgun.
I keep hearing all over the place that jobs are up and unemployment is down. I can’t help but ask myself, “Where the hell are they getting these numbers? Where are they looking?” My husband is still unemployed, as are many others I know that are in my age group. And that’s just in my neck of the woods and what I hear from my contacts nationwide. I was working part-time, but my little part-time gig is about to come to a close in two weeks – no money coming in.
My daughter gave me a Starbucks gift card for Mother’s Day and I had one more coffee left on it and stopped in at my fav Starbucks, which is inside my grocery store, so I see the baristas frequently. The lady working that day is about my age and got laid off from her good job a year and a half ago. While we were chatting, she shared that they hired a new lady last week who’s real nice, has a Ph.D., but got laid off from a government contractor over a year ago and this is the only place she could get hired. She, of course, is in my age group, and is now making $7.56 an hour.
Does anyone realize what’s happening here . . . the age discrimination, much of it involving insurance coverage. The insurance companies HEAVILY influence hiring decisions, it’s not just the employers. I think we would be amazed at just what all the insurance companies have influence over!
Our age group has a huge effect on the economy with our traditional buying power. But many of us are living on our retirement savings 10-15 years before we are supposed to, and paying a penalty for it, though it is against our will and our better judgment – it’s done out of survival. Many were expecting to make up for lost years over the next decade and have nothing left to fall back on.
When cars are repossessed and houses are foreclosed on, and this group is now reduced to government aid to survive – more people now on what is often referred to as government “socialism” – this country’s backbone is going to begin to start to crack, splinter, and break. And if these 50+ year-olds are unfortunate enough to not be able to afford COBRA or the ACA, many will fall into the category where they don’t fall into the age group that can get Medicaid or Medicare. People in this situation and age group are SOL and better hope/pray that nothing serious happens, or they could be most majorly screwed . . .
Though I will admit, I have not done my homework regarding the actual statistics; I can’t help but believe this is the one of the first times in history where fifty-plus-year-olds have been singled out to be extinguished from the workplace. (If I am wrong, please educate me!) If this trend continues, I see some serious hurt for the future of this country – I’m not an economist, but common sense and history tells the story that what may come is unprecedented and could be catastrophic.
ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Regarding my gig . . . well my instincts proved to be correct. Definitely too good to be true. The guy I was working for isn’t too motivated, canceling every training session we had scheduled for really lame reasons like, “It’s been a rough day, I worked setting up your email, and I need a drink, so I’m outta here.” Or early one Saturday morning, “Sorry I cut out, my neighbor needed help and I said I would, not sure why ‘cause I’m usually not that neighborly.” You know that kind of stupid shit.
When it came to him selling policies to the appointments I made on these mostly 2-8 year-old leads, he canceled and we rescheduled a few for reasons that were not important. I had a list of about 35 people I had talked to that he needed to speak with for various reasons – high risk, specific questions not related to exact cost but involving health issues, etc. He finally got appointed to sell the high-risk policies he found were best and last Saturday he told me he was calling them all. When I showed up, he said he couldn’t call them because he had set up the online account to access what he needed to quote them prices, but forgot the password and wouldn’t be able to get it on a Saturday. Seriously . . .
Then when he told me a few days later he couldn’t afford to pay me any longer, but if I wanted I could still make calls and he would give me my commission – but he couldn’t afford to pay me for calling.Then he had the nerve to tell me that now he was really going to have to hustle and start working his book business. I’m thinking, dude, why haven’t you been doing that all along.
Long Term Care coverage is his specialty, but it is not cheap, typically. I’m working leads that are years old, and he had me listen to training tapes that were on cassettes and 20 years old – what does that tell you. During our discussion I reminded him that things have changed in the last 20 years – people don’t think the same, communicate the same, research purchases and purchase the same, and marketing and sales have changed considerably. Yeah, he didn’t want hear that – he’s four years younger than me and living in a bubble of some sort.
Anyway, now I have two avenues to explore – my established career, and my new inexperienced career. Maybe one of them will get me somewhere. It’s been two years – I need a break . . . a real one. I don’t consider any of this wasted time, as I have now learned many new things and have earned licenses and certifications in new areas.
Oh, and the fig tree is a monster producer. I have canned over 50 jars so far of various fig jams and preserves. It was fun and I think I have another two weeks or more. My kitchen is covered in figs in various stages of ripeness and jars everywhere – and I am growing weary!
Oh!! And what about that Bill Cosby – TV’s All American Dad and his fondness for Quaaludes, among other things?? Wow, so TV and real live aren’t the same?? (YES, I am laughing at that fucking piece of irony in the midst of all else . . .)
Anyway, just some things I was thinking about . . . (and my mind still reels, but this post is already wayyyy too long . . . but got something else coming soon . . .)
When we go to the grocery store to shop for our food, typically we have over 47,000 products to choose from. Do you have any idea where some of this food comes from, how it’s made, who’s controlling it, who’s making the profits, and who’s overseeing the safety? I’ve been hearing rumblings that were quite disturbing for years, but lately, it’s hard to get away from the “rumors” with so many different ways for people to communicate.
Regarding grocery store produce, since there are no seasons anymore, fruit is usually picked before it’s ripe, ripened later with ethylene gas. And just what is ethylene gas?
After doing some research, I have discovered that the way we eat, meaning the way our food is grown, has changed a lot in the last 50 years, more so than in other time frame of our history. I have tried to ensure I have done valid research, on this subject in particular, because it affects my family, my grandkids, me, and you and yours.
I am old enough to remember that when I was growing up autism was rare. I knew no one with it. I knew a lot of kids and I was the only one I knew with asthma, which my mother also had from the time she was a little girl. There was no ADD or ADHD, and a good percentage of children were not on prescription medication. It is no longer that way.
From early on, I wanted to raise a few livestock of my own, and have my own garden, and buy other essentials in their natural state from my neighbors. I almost made that dream happen. See, I was paying attention to what was going on long before I even realized it.
As I began to really pay attention to what I was serving my family, I noticed that in tracing food back to its origins, that most of it was not grown or raised on farms, but produced in factories, factories that from the outside look like farms, but are anything but when you begin to understand how they operate as large assembly lines and/or scientific experiments.
Just as some have said about our communication and media sources becoming too sanitized distributing the same messages via a very small group of owners with specific interests being dangerous (another topic for another day), so too is our food supply.
Much of the food found on the shelves of the average grocery store is made and controlled by a small group of multi-national corporations – from the seed to the end product. Technically, a handful of companies are controlling our food system in the United States – what we eat and how it’s produced.
Big pharma and corporate chemical companies, with their genetically modified experimental commodities, are threaded thick through this food tapestry. And you might be surprised at the number of people who work back and forth between these corporations and government regulatory agencies over the years – I know I was.
Though food is absolutely necessary to our survival, don’t ever kid yourself, IT IS BIG BUSINESS and it is not about sustaining the population and its health, it is about PROFIT, pure and simple.
Stay tuned if your interested, as I have more to say on this subject, just don’t want to make this post too long.
Anyway, just something I’ve been thinking about, for quite some time now . . .
So I keep seeing this picture on Facebook, and I’m not sure where exactly it came from or how “authentic” it is. But the first time I saw it, I just had one thought . . .
No mother should have to fear for any of their loved ones lives because someone else’s son robs a store, regardless of race.
Anyway, just something I was thinking about . . .
[Written for Linda Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday, though it’s neither funny or inspirational per say, so I didn’t exactly follow the rules this time.]
I was so excited today when I found these little plastic containers (like Ziplock storage containers) that have snowmen and Merry Christmas and other holiday stuff on them to use for putting cookies, candy, other baked goods in for the holidays. They weren’t on my shopping list, as I was only going for more apples on sale for the apple butter I am making and selling now.
They were only about $1.69 a package (three in one package, and five in the other), BUT what made me so excited about these cheap plastic products is that they were not only BPA-free but MADE IN AMERICA!!! Not made in China, like just about everything else we come in contact with. (Again, let me say, I have nothing against China, per say, I just think we need to be making our own products and putting Americans to work.)
I was going through my grandkids Halloween candy yesterday, and I had to throw away a bunch of candy bracelets and rings and stuff – all made in China. I will not indulge in any food products made there, or pet products either. Especially not for my grandkids – food stuff, not pet stuff. Quite frankly, I can’t help but wonder if China is trying to poison us and the rest of the world with their inferior products – but that’s a whole blog post on its own!
This led me to start thinking about, and not for the first time, where in the hell all of our drugs – name brand and generic are being made, since that is not information we are typically privy to as consumers – though maybe we should be. I know I would like to know where the drugs I may have to take are coming from, since I take that much care in selecting other consumable goods I buy.
Do any of you know where your medications are made? Do you think this is important?
Okay – off to NaNoWriMo land – need to get in an hour or so tonight. Didn’t get much done last night, had to catch up with a few of your blogs – I was blog-jonesin’ 😉 But I am still at it!!
One of the topics on my agenda lately has been this case in Dallas where two men were wrongly accused and convicted spending 15 years behind bars. The Innocence Project worked the case and proved their innocence via DNA evidence. The two men, Dennis Lee Allen and Stanley Orson Mozee, were released from prison Oct. 28.
I know that unfortunately innocent people end up in prison more often then we think. This is why the Innocence Project’s work is so important. I would so love to work for them!
What I find troubling is that Dallas has had more than 30 convictions overturned in the last 10 years, freeing these men after they served years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
I realize they try 1000s of cases a year, maybe more, but this number just seems a bit high to me. Am I the only one troubled by that number? I want to do some more research on this when I get some extra time.
NaNoWriMo update: Oh my gosh – I am still at it. Shocked the shit out of me, for sure. So far 13,764 words in, with only 36,236 to go 😉 Fixing to try and work an hour or so tonight. It’s been a busy day! I need to play a little catch-up here, too – family stuff has been calling me away the last few days.
I am way behind on my blog reading, so if I haven’t hit your posts lately, I am planning to catch up soon! Hope you are all doing well!
I am watching the Congressional Hearings on Ebola now. The CDC is looking really bad and in my opinion is not currently up for the task of protecting this country. Dr. Frieden, head of the CDC, was asked if he knew of any hospitals in Ohio that have practiced procedures for handling an Ebola patient. (Ohio is where Vinson flew to.) Dr. Frieden did not know if this has been done. If I was him, that would’ve been one of the first things I did after learning about Ms. Vinson’s travel.
Someone mentioned that Pham’s dog is being quarantined, and that old CDC reports noted that transmission to/from dogs is unknown, but suspect. This congressman then asked if we shouldn’t be imposing travel restrictions on animals – yet still no mention of actually imposing travel restrictions on people. And when I say restrictions – I don’t just mean preventing airplane travel.
School districts in Texas and Ohio have now closed some schools due to the risk of exposure. I heard that Frontier Airlines has grounded their exposed employees – finally someone with a brain. Hopefully they are going to decontaminate the plane – though that is just one of the places Vinson exposed to the virus.
A nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas stated that she had questioned the protective apparel at the time. She also said if she got sick, she would NOT go to the hospital she works for. Apparently, quite a few people are refraining from visiting that hospital – thank goodness.
And one last thing that keeps going through my mind – what exactly is meant by “monitoring” of the exposed people. (They may have asked that during the hearing, but if so I missed it.) And why are so many being allowed to “self-monitor?”
I swear this was not what I had in mind for my next post. I have some other things I am working on, but I just can’t believe healthcare worker Amber Vinson got on a plane knowing she had a fever and knowing she had been exposed to Thomas Duncan, and Nina Pham, the other nurse who has been diagnosed with Ebola. She of all people KNEW BETTER! Vinson has now been diagnosed with Ebola, and flown to Atlanta for treatment.
When asked how this could happen, that one of these exposed healthcare workers could get on a plane and travel during the incubation period when they were supposed to be being monitored for symptoms – the answer the official gave was the one we keep hearing over and over – Well, somebody dropped the ball there.
I heard another official say that the risk of the infection spreading was “very very low,” but we all know that’s bullshit. Why don’t they just tell the truth – though the risk appears to be low, this is a dangerous disease, and everyone must be vigilant, period. AND they haven’t been!! Those that could be exposed need to be trained thoroughly and provided the appropriate protective equipment. AND they haven’t been!! It’s been reported that the nurses who treated Duncan also treated other patients. Those in charge really are not taking this issue seriously. How could they be, with this type of decision-making and resulting behavior?
And I’m sorry, regardless whether anyone kept Vinson from flying or not – SHE should’ve known better, she did know better, she just didn’t care. Shit, I take more precautions to keep from exposing people when I have a cold. I have to admit, I was fucking blown away when I heard she got on a plane knowing she had a fever and her exposure history. I could go on about that, but serves no purpose.
[I have to add a post-script here: A few hours after the initial report that Vinson traveled by plane, it was discovered that she DID contact the CDC and inform them that she had a fever. The CDC, in their infinite wisdom, told her to go ahead and fly, as her fever was still under the threshold they had set. The CDC , in my opinion, have just lost an immense amount of credibility by not erring on the side of caution. I pray that mistake doesn’t come back to haunt them, as well as the rest of us.]
I said in my last blog – I hope everyone that has come in contact with these patients is being quarantined and monitored. I can’t help but worry that someone has been missed, unnoticed, or unidentified.Well, we now have proof that exposed people are out there in the general population coming in contact with others who have no idea.
There are 70+ other healthcare workers who came in contact with Duncan, not counting how many others who have come into contact with Pham and Vinson. So far, none of the original 70+ people are being quarantined, knowingly allowing them to possibly expose others.
AND while all of this is going on, and we have turned our attention to our own inattention to precaution against Ebola and are now scrambling to stop the possible impending crisis, I can’t help but wonder what else might be going on elsewhere – while we aren’t paying attention?
Just something I was thinking about . . . 