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My Thoughts On Traylor Swelce? Tayvis Keft?

My fellow oldies complaining about the TV / NFL love affair with Traylor Swelce is like complaining that the Superbowl halftime show has rappers now…

It’s not for us.

The network and NFL execs have one job – to get as many eyes watching as possible to justify the huge amounts of money shoveled out to pay for the product. Now football fans are going to watch regardless of whether the camera constantly shows Swift and Kelce or not. The constant fawning over the power couple is for one reason – to get those young viewers who may not care much about football to watch.

AND, to promote endless discussion on social media. Yeah. You may not be talking about the action on the field, but you’re still making the game and the NFL a trending topic. Even though you’re complaining, you’re still helping the NFL accomplish its objective.

My advice?

If you are annoyed with Tayvis Keft, ignore it. Life is too short to worry about innoquous marketing campaigns.

Trump Fraud Case

We will be seeing the Trump fraud case coming to a close in the next few weeks. Team Trump has made a big deal about one single aspect of the fraud case, the valuation of Mar-a-Lago, to try and sow doubt on the entire case. It’s a smart move, as that one property evaluation has the most wiggle room when considering the difference between property tax evaluation and asset valuation. Team Trump wants the public to believe the whole case centers on the value of this one Trumps asset.

It is not.

That is only one of the many examples of fraud listed in the case. I’m bookmarking this PDF file listing all the proven instances of fraud committed by Trump for future use.

PS: When I created the tag for Politics / Law, I had no idea at the time that putting the two together would be so useful and accurate.

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/tto_release_properties_addendum_-_final.pdf

A Comic Outing

My “outing” was pretty hilarious really.

It’s 1994, and I’m working for a regional pool supply wholesaler. Work had recently hired this guy who was a bit odd. He was a health nut. Now being health conscious is great, but this guy was extreme, going out of his way to extol the greatness of his all-veggie smoothie diet. He was obnoxious about it and never stopped talking about it and showing us his liquid food pouches. We quickly gave him the superhero moniker OrganicMan. Oh, he also bragged that he never sat on a toilet. Because your intestines are not “aligned properly” when you sit, he bragged that he stood on the rim and squatted. Soon enough confirmation emerged in the form of shoe prints on the rim of the employee toilet seat.

OrganicMan was in very good shape. He went to the gym, and in case you haven’t guessed… Yes, he bragged about it every day. Shoehorned into that boast was another; all the gay guys at the gym were always hitting on him.

“All gays just want me”.

Yes. He proclaimed it often.

So one day, as OrganicMan was boasting about this, Tommy, the young jokester employee hired at about the same time, turns and says “Well Mike is gay, and he said he’s not attracted to you”. Now Tommy has no idea that I’m gay, nor does anyone else, but the shocked reaction of OrganicMan upon hearing this made my response perfectly obvious. He was shocked, dumbfounded. I HAD to run with this. OM would constantly ask me why I’m not attracted to to him. I just told him I don’t know, I’m just not. At some point during the week he asked if it was because his arm were too hairy. Even though I had said that was not the reason, he came to work the next day and proudly showed everyone that he trimmed his arm hair.

In today’s world this would be flagged as harassment. I’m not sure if management was aware of how much this guy was getting on everyone’s nerves, but they might have, because I know a number of employees were really getting sick of his schtick, and he soon he ended up pulling delivery driver duties, which got him away from us.

Meanwhile, one of the fellow not-weird employees ask if I was actually gay, and I answered honestly. A couple of the guys would give me the “I’m not gay, but it’s no problem” nod, while a couple of others made their negative view of such things known. All in all, it wasn’t the bad experience it could have been.

A Request… Biden… Step Up To The Plate

While I was in Washington over Christmas break, I had some very interesting convo with my sister and her husband, both former journalists, about the continuing low polling numbers for Joe Biden vs Trump. Before I get to that conversation, I’ll share my opinion…

Right now, polls are meaningless. There are a couple of factors why. In the name of “balance”, major media outlets consolidate polling output from several different services. Some of those services, taken individually, have been pretty reliable. But others have not. The latter skew right. This was why polls in the last few elections have predicted the vaunted “Red Wave” that never materialized.

Second: we’re nine months out. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, GW , and even Barrak Obama were all behind in polling at this point. Granted, the margins weren’t as wide, but they were behind. Part of that is due to the propensity of media to again try to be “balanced” and include negatives in every story about the current state of the union. Half a year ago, we were seeing headlines like “Economic Data Is Strong, BUT A Recession Is On The Way”. Now, the headlines are starting to read “Economic Data Is Strong, BUT Inflation May Return”. Those negatives are gonna increase dissatisfaction with Biden in general.

Now, to the convo.

My stated beef with the Biden effort to secure reelection is that… There doesn’t seem to be any effort. Every single day, Trump is out campaigning for the Presidency.

Every

Single

Fucking

Day!!!

He not only wants it, he NEEDS it to stay out of jail. And, as is the case with most ALL fascist, he has an extreme talent for turning negatives into positives. He’s turned his legal troubles into a net positive by yelling at the top of his lungs that the ONLY reason he has legal troubles is because the Guvment is out to get him.

It’s amazing to watch. And frightening, because like Mussolini and Hitler, right wing political party has aligned itself with him, consequences be damned.

What is Biden doing to counter this???

He did have a press conference a couple of days ago, but there hasn’t been much of a counterattack to tout his record and go against the threat. My sister and brother-in-law support this. They think it would be better for Biden to hold his powder, wait a few more months, and then go hard.

Why waste the political energy.

In normal times, I would agree. But these are not normal times, and Trump is not a normal candidate. It not only cedes ground to Trump, but it also reinforces the right-wing message that Biden is too old and can’t do this job because he’s not up to the challenge.

We parted company disagreeing. The Biden strategy feels like the same one Hillary followed. And look where that got us.