Politics

Want to weed out Facebook friends? Piss them off

by Cheryl on December 19, 2012

I posted the TIME magazine link naming President Barack Obama as 2012 Person of the Year on Facebook this morning. And guess what happened? Someone on my friend’s list who had not said or typed so much as a word to me in 10 years on or off Facebook decided she would comment on it. I was surprised because I had posted on her wall four years ago after she joined Facebook and gotten no response. That’s typical sometimes especially when people are new to certain apps or may not be tech savvy. So I didn’t think about it after that. I send her family a Christmas card every year because we used to be neighbors when we lived in Connecticut and they even invited us to Christmas dinner twice and it was nice.

I had a suspicion that she was a republican and for the longest time I was somewhat politically sensitive to some acquaintances regarding politics. Months ago I decided that I was no longer comfortable with that. After all, I do have a right to my views. One other point is I never really cared for Facebook and I initially had the account to play a game. I quit playing the game long ago and I kept the Facebook account and I use it from time to time.

So I figured, if it’s my Facebook account shouldn’t I post whatever I want just like everyone else does? Damn straight! And this morning I did just that, again. I guess JH (is what I will call her) decided after years of keeping mum she could hold back no longer and typed a three-word comment under the link I posted, “In whose opinion?” I stared at the comment and wondered how I was going to respond since I still had some respect for her. I hadn’t seen her in about 10 years and the last time I saw her we had a pleasant goodbye and that memory was frozen in time. That’s how I was prepared to remember her whenever she crossed my mind. Truthfully, I was busy taking that old memory out of the box and dusting it off because I was about to remold everything I thought I knew.

I answered her question about TIME’s choice and she, I, and another friend had some back and forth. I tried desperately not to get into a heated argument, but I could tell by her comments that what she was saying had nothing to do with policy and everything to do with the man holding the highest office.

What was it about this particular morning that compelled her to reveal herself as not a fan of Obama? Only speculation about that will follow. Periodically I go through my friend’s list and delete and block people who I don’t really know. I had come close to removing JH from the list several times thinking her account is just there to be there and I moved on past her picture without clicking the x never expecting to have any contact with her at all. Maybe she felt this was the morning to have an excuse to get rid of some people from her list? I’ll probably never know. What I do know is I’m not going to be intimidated by people who I thought I knew when I think they have misguided views. If you are referring to the President as The Almighty, claiming that I worship him, and demonizing poor people for getting government assistance you are not someone I want to communicate with and you are way off base.

I used to care if people liked me. I wanted to be nice to everyone. On some levels I still have those feelings, but it’s not at the expense of me denying what I believe to get along with someone who I don’t agree with. JH removed me as a friend and I’m glad she did because now when I scan my list there will be one less person there for me to ponder removing. Have a nice life JH!

P.S. The irony of this little event is JH’s husband works for General Motors and if my memory serves me I believe they were the recipients of a bailout courtesy of President Barack Obama.

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Lies Within the Bubble Backfire

by Cheryl on November 12, 2012

in Politics

During the entire campaign I was very disgusted by all the race baiting and demonizing coming from the people on the Right aimed at us, the Left, the Democrats, and I went to bed many a night hoping that it would backfire on those who espoused it.

I watched and listened daily as people tried to marginalize minorities. Republicans made it part of their daily jobs to find ways to disrespect President Obama. They were inventing new ways to show that their party was not inclusive. It was a free for all clown show. It reminded me of bratty kids trying to one up each other for the jackass award. And millions of Americans were all too happy to jump on board with that destructive behavior with no shame at all, about 57 million to be exact.

Republicans could not have engaged in this type of behavior for as long as they did, and I’m sure it will continue, without having an audience willing to listen and follow along. And to that I would like to say shame on those who soaked up that message and asked for more.

The election results showed that the Republican Party’s message was heard loud and clear by the people it demonized. President Obama’s re-election was complicit in exposing the hatred bubbling up right below the surface. The Republican Party tried to suppress the vote in states and counties with the majority of minority voters. So many shenanigans were taking place thanks to Republicans, that it was hard to keep track.

But the satisfaction received from the re-election of the President was the reaction of the shellshocked Republicans, some of who still remain in a daze. They had bought into their own spin. In the last couple of weeks leading up to the election Republicans were inviting silly stories based on their gut feelings for why Romney would win. Facts didn’t matter. All that mattered to them was lying and creating conspiracy theories about the President, trying to paint him as some foreigner that wants to destroy America. So it came as a surprise to me that Republicans were baffled when their wishful thinking failed to propel Mitt Romney into the White House.

It was stunningly unbelievable to learn that the Romney campaign along with the candidate himself was unaware of the math and facts. Their entire organization had bought the lies from inside the bubble they hunkered down in. You see the Internet along with multiple newspapers and alternate networks exists so you don’t have to be lied to.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were defeated. I was and still am shocked that they did not believe it was possible that they could lose. How is that even conceivable when they only campaigned for a certain segment of the electorate?

I’ll just end this right here. Since most of what I’ve seen from the Republicans for the last five years has been crazy lies and conspiracy theories galore there is no end to what I could talk about. But I will say this, for a campaign that spent absolutely zero time caring about minorities in any way, I find it appalling that the Romney campaign claimed to know whether minorities would turn out to vote. As it turns out the 47 percent wasn’t so lazy after all.

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The Blame Game

by Cheryl on November 7, 2012

in Liars, Media, News, Politics

Norah O’Donnell from CBS This Morning grilled political consultant Frank Luntz this morning over erroneous polling data from the Republicans. Luntz is famous for assigning fancy sounding words to unpopular republican policies in order to trick people into buying what they are selling. I thought the whole conversation was stupid because each network had their own polling data and day after day they refused to use it. Instead, news organizations like CBS, NBC, and ABC chose to repeat information fed to them by Republicans.

For months the Romney campaign made no secret, even announcing it to the press, that “their campaign would not be dictated by fact checkers.” I don’t know how much plainer that message could have been. But the networks didn’t want the truth, the networks wanted ratings and thereby they created a “tight race” myth.

When you take a position that you will not report facts and information supported by math you get up with egg on your face. And according to Luntz there is nothing wrong with the Republicans’ positions on the issues they just didn’t state those positions correctly. I beg to differ. If you say that women don’t have the right to contraceptives, people shouldn’t have equal rights, you want to repeal Obamacare so people with pre-existing conditions won’t have coverage, if you try to gin up hate for the president by race baiting, and you try to suppress the vote, your party’s message is pretty clear. No amount of repackaging is going to change that. Oh, and the fact that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan lied constantly on the campaign trail and aired false ads didn’t help.

Long story short, this victory is sweet, but don’t think the republicans are going to be more cooperative and that they will stop making shit up. It takes a long time to weed out this kind of toxic mentality and the fact that whatever network news you are watching doesn’t give a damn about reporting the facts about issues that affect you add to the madness. The worst part is the news media never seems to suffer consequences for lack of doing their job. The networks were willingly duped by the Republicans again and they tried to take the public along for the ride, nothing new.

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9 Things I Don’t Understand Because They are Illogical

by Cheryl on October 31, 2012

in Observations, Politics

If you have ever relied on government assistance to get on your feet and now that you are doing well you are against that same government assistance for others.
If you are against higher taxes and you still believe that we shouldn’t ask everyone to purchase healthcare because you would rather pay for the uninsured to go to the emergency room so you can pay for it with your tax dollars.
If you don’t see the need to mandate that insurance companies not be allowed to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. And that it is beneficial to have health insurance coverage with your parents until you are 26 years old.
If you lobby without shame for the 1%, but you are clearly in the 99% category.
If you support the notion of less government without actually knowing how government works?
If you support eliminating the Department of Education and you cannot construct a complete sentence? Okay, maybe that question answers itself.
If you believe that requiring people to purchase and show a government issued ID is required to eliminate voter fraud when IDs do not prevent the most common form of voter fraud there have been less that 90 voter fraud cases in the entire country. And you are perfectly fine with a gun license being a valid ID, but not a student ID.
If you can’t find valid issues with the policies of the president without calling him a socialist and other ungodly names, the issues you’re yelling about are not your legitimate issues at all.
If you are poor why would you vote Republican?

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We’ve Heard It All Before

by Cheryl on October 27, 2012

in Politics

[via]

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Cheese and Rice

by Cheryl on October 10, 2012

in Liars, Politics

If you trust the polls, this is the guy that Americans are all of a sudden giving a second look. Seriously, this is the guy.

Mitt Romney Debates Himself:

Posted by: TPM and DailyKos

P.S. cheese and rice

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Pro-Obama Video by a Simpsons and Family Guy Animator

October 8, 2012

I saw this video on Facebook last week and I didn’t get a chance to watch it and subsequently forgot about it. Luckily a Twitter friend sent it to me Saturday and I enjoyed it, so I’m sharing it with you. Video courtesy: www.whyobamanow.org © 2012, CherylNation. All rights reserved.

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Analyzing the Analyzers

October 4, 2012

I had a hair appointment this morning and I timed everything just right so I could leave on time. I showered, got dressed, did one last check on the dog and my email then I headed out to my car. I was adamant about not wanting to listen to my usual talk radio shows because [...]

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