Short-sighted, Hat-trick, Preying Candidate Sanders Strikes Again

When Candidate Sanders has spent a couple of years trying to claim credit for everything that the people he criticizes have actually said and done and accomplished, and people are finally checking records and noticing that he has no actual accomplishments other than renaming a couple of post offices, it makes sense that he would scramble to introduce a bill or two. It would probably surprise no thinking person that he would choose something that would appeal to the very people he preys on – uninformed, knee-jerk-petition signers who jump before thinking. 

His gullible soldiers would flood the internet with memes praising him if he announced he was going to make the sun come up tomorrow, or that he supported eating food daily. So, I am not at all surprised that they are praising him for introducing a bill to make Election Day a holiday. Who doesn’t like holidays? Who wouldn’t support this idea even if they had no intention of ever voting for him or anyone? Who would criticize him for this?

I would.

There are a number of other actions that would more effectively protect rights to vote. Even though he stated this is ‘just a first step’, that’s not what his meme pushers are hearing. Nor, are they asking the important questions like why this instead of something more effective like 24-hour polls, mail-in voting, making sure no one has to stand in line to vote, Election Week instead of Election Day? How about getting rid of electronic voting machines that can be easily manipulated? Automatic voter registration for everyone who has a social security number? 

The problem with introducing this bill is that it creates a false illusion, which seems to be the trick Candidate Sanders pulls out of his hat most often. Declaring a day a holiday only ensures people will receive holiday pay; it does not guarantee that people will not have to work that day. Nor do we want everyone to have that day off work. I doubt there is a single person who wants healthcare workers to have that day off. Are hospitalized patients going to be left on their own for the day, or sent home for the day? Do we want fire fighters and law enforcers to get the day off? Can we life without a White Castle for the day?

Refusal to think things through is just one more reason to admit Candidate Sanders is not qualified for the office he seeks. Added to his lack of experience, diplomacy, and honesty, it isn't a very pretty picture.

BS Analogy 4

Bradley's mother put her foot down. The birthday party invitation list would include family only. His brothers would be there and he could invite cousins. That was it. No one else. He could decide if he wanted a sleepover with male cousins only, or a pizza party with the girls. Bradley chose a sleepover.

Since her son shrugged off every attempt to elicit menu or entertainment ideas, Bradley's mother bought salsa and chips (his favorite), popcorn, and pretzels. Even though the party would start after dinner time, she picked up ingredients for chili dogs just in case, and she baked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing (also his favorites). She and Bradley's father rearranged furniture in the basement to make room for corn hole, the game these cousins always ended up playing when they got together.

When asked about Bradley's birthday, his mother told the neighbor across the street that they had decided to go low-key with a small family affair. Finances were tight. Besides, she and her husband were not fans of the way birthday parties had become huge, expensive, out-do everyone else, who can schmooze and get the most gifts, impersonal, often out-of-hand bashes. Their siblings agreed and had all decided to return to family events for birthdays. The neighbor shrugged and said it didn't matter much to her since her kids didn't really like Bradley much anyway.

The next day, the neighbor stood on her front porch, shaking a fist in the air, and screamed about how horrible it was that Bradley's family hated neighbors. She told everyone who would listen that she was the first and only person to think that people spend too much on birthday parties, that her kids had never been friends with Bradley and never wanted to be friends with Bradley. Sensible neighbors scratched their heads and wondered how she could make such ridiculous claims since, for years, many of them had talked about how ridiculous it was that their children were invited to elaborate parties by classmates who obviously were either trying to buy friends, or were just looking for gifts since they had nothing to do with their kids any other time. Why would this neighbor think they were foolish enough to believe she was the first and only person to make such claims?

On the evening of Bradley's party, hours before guests were scheduled to arrive, the obnoxious neighbor's son and three daughters dropped by Bradley's house. When the son picked up the bag of pretzels and started to open them, Bradley's mother took the bag from him and said she planned to serve them later, when the invited guests arrived. The three sister's yelled a bunch about how rude Bradley's mother was.

The brother pumped his fist in the air, shouted and raged, and insisted that she make chili dogs immediately, and he wanted three, with chopped onions and brown mustard, neither of which she had on hand. Again, the sisters told her she was rude for not jumping at his command.

Bradley's father came into the kitchen and told his wife that she should remain positive and polite, and try to accommodate. "But, they crashed the party and they don't even like Bradley," did nothing to change his mind.

  

Stop the Stupid: Roadside Service Edition

I didn’t really feel like going to the pool today, mostly because my shoulder was stiff and achy. And that’s exactly why I needed to go. It had been a week and the pain woke me during the night. I convinced myself to go by remembering that swimming is more fun than injections, physical therapy, ice packs, and TENS. It took me until around eleven to twist my own sore arm.

After a bowl of oatmeal, I began the long process of preparing for a day at the pool with my high-maintenance self. (Yes, I admit that since I’m the only one who has to maintain me.) I need at least 64 ounces of ice water, the Kindle, something to write on in case people-watching turns into a story idea, a phone, two beach towels so no part of me has to touch the plastic chairs, tanning oil, lunch, a couple of snacks, and two vaporizers because I get bored with one flavor. I packed the beach bag and the cooler, changed into my bathing suit, fed and watered the pets, located my glasses and keys, and lugged my high-maintenance load all ninety-four steps to the car. 

My battery was dead. Totally. Not even a click. No problem; I had the phone right there in the high-maintenance bag. Well, it was a bit of a problem since the phone was in the bottom of the bag, and because it was already close to ninety degrees and I couldn’t roll down the car windows without a battery but, fortunately, I have roadside service through my auto insurance and it wouldn’t be a problem for long. 

Ha!

Somewhere around 11:30, I used my phone to put in my request for roadside service via the internet. The phone asked for specifics which I provided, including in the ‘anything else we should know’ box a note that there were two cars like mine in the parking lot and mine would be the one in a handicap space. I was instructed to stay with my car and someone would call to confirm when the order had been processed. That seemed a little backwards to me; shouldn’t I be able to leave my car until the call came, and then be requested to stay with it? But, I couldn’t argue with a phone message because there was no ‘anything else you’d like to whine about’ area and my call for assistance function was gone now that it had been replaced by this message.

At 12:12, when I had not received the call, and still had that message showing, I called the insurance company to report that I had not received the call and I was getting a little uncomfortable standing in a parking lot, in the sun, on a 90 degree day. (For the record, black bathing suits aren’t the coolest choice for undergarments on 90 degree days.) The lady I spoke with put me on hold, then returned to tell me help was on the way and should arrive at 12:29. I asked if I could go inside to wait and she said no, I needed to stay with the car since the estimated time of arrival wasn’t always accurate. If help arrived and I wasn’t with the car, they would leave.

At 1:15, I called the insurance company again to report that help did not arrive at 12:29, nor had I received the first call from the roadside service people yet. Was she positive they had been notified? She was positive. This time, she verified my phone number and discovered that they had two of my numbers transposed. That’s why I didn’t receive the call but I had been with the car so he didn’t arrive and see me not standing next to my car. No problem, she would contact the roadside service people again and they should arrive within an hour. She told me not to leave the car, though, because maybe they would come sooner. 

At 1:20, I received a text message instructing me to call the roadside service company. I called that number, someone picked up and asked me to hold, and without waiting for me to say a word, laid the phone down and continued to talk to someone else on another phone. I listened to her explain that she was sorry but for the delay but that they hadn’t had any drivers most of the day. This went on for a few minutes before she hung up and then went to settle something that was going on with kids in the background. I hung up and called again. She answered the phone, said to please hold, and actually put me on hold this time so I couldn’t hear what she was doing with the kids and instead had to listen to music that was worse than kids screaming. 

When she finally returned and listened to my story, she called me hon and apologized because she had to put me on hold again and call my insurance company. I told her my phone had very little charge left, I was roasting, and I had to pee, so please hurry. Maybe she did hurry but it sure didn’t feel that way to me, especially when she came back to call me sweetie and thank me for patience that I did not possess, and put me on hold again. At 1:34, she came back to ask my name. Don’t know how she was discussing me with my insurance company all that time without my name but it’s possible that I was the only person who had called my insurance company for roadside service today. 

Finally, she told me to stay with my car and someone would be here in twenty-three minutes – around 1:50 – which wasn’t twenty-three minutes from the time on my clock so that might be another problem. I told her I wouldn’t last twenty-three minutes. I was going inside – ninety-four steps – and she would have to instruct the driver to call if he got there before I returned. She reminded me that he might leave if he got there and I wasn’t standing outside. I reminded her that I might write terrible things about both the insurance company and her company if that happened. That didn’t happen so I’m not using any names here. 

A very nice man arrived at 2:05. I must have looked as bad as I felt because he was extremely apologetic. He asked me to pop the hood and I moved away from the car to allow him access, while explaining that I am unable to pop the hood. I didn’t feel quite so disabled when he popped both the trunk and gas door before I showed him where the hood latch was located.

He hooked his portable battery to the battery in my car and asked me to turn the key. Nothing happened. Not a click or a dash light. Nothing. Terrible thoughts of starters and fuel pumps and money hit me. But, he called me out to look at some oily stuff on my battery, and explained that because of that, the battery wasn’t connecting with something in the little cover that goes over the stems, and I’m thinking I remember seeing cars that didn’t even have those little rubber covers but that was ancient history and maybe things are different now, or maybe I was delirious or having heat stroke. Finally, he attached the jumper cables to things other than the posts and my car started. He said I needed to clean the oily stuff off of the stems so I asked what I should use to do that. He said sometimes he would suggest Coke but he thought I should go to Auto Zone.

Auto Zone. No thanks. 

I told him I would go to the service station around the corner, signed his papers and thanked him. He told me to let the car run ten minutes – or drive on to the service station. Not wanting to take any chances, I headed straight to the service station. Two blocks from home, I tried to roll down the windows because I really did think I might have a heat stroke. As soon as I hit the button, the car died again. No problem, I thought. He must pass me to get out of here. Only he didn’t show up. I sat through two light cycles, waving people around me. 

So, I called his company again. They told me I’d have to call my insurance company again and start over. That wasn’t going to happen. 

At least now, I was on the street. I turned my emergency flashers on, got my jumpers out of the trunk, and stood outside. A nice man stopped and was getting ready to turn his car around to jump mine when the roadside service guy finally caught up with me. When I told him what his company said when I called, he shook his head and said he would jump my car. He did, and he followed me to the service station. Nice guy.

So were the guys at the service station who said that oily stuff on my stems was to prevent corrosion. They tested my battery and it was fine (very nice of them because I would easily have paid for a new one if they’d said I needed it) and it just needed to be tightened. They fixed that and sent me on my way.

I didn’t make it to the pool. Instead, I brought my pool bags in, changed out of my bathing suit, picked up my grocery bags and went to buy Turkey Hill black raspberry ice cream, fudge-cicles yogurt, a steak, cottage cheese and fruit, pretzels – treats for poor little me - with the money I didn’t have to spend on a battery. When I got to the car – 

It started. Ha! But, I noticed that the insulated, zipper bag for frozen goods was unzipped. Fortunately, I peeked inside before zipping it and saw that it contained two items: pretzels and bread. All of my refrigerator items were in the other bag – making this a two stupid stories in one post.

Bernie Soldiers Practicing to be Tea Party

They sure made this post easy for me. I’ve wanted to do a blog post comparing Sanders and Soldiers (although soldiers isn’t what I call them but, hey, if they want to emulate right-wingers right down to war language*, I’ll call them what they want to be called) like the people who called themselves teabaggers and then threw temper tantrums when people called them teabaggers. Will be interesting to see if the soldiers do the same when we call them what they’re calling themselves in this directive put out by, I’m assuming, the campaign. 

 

In true tea party fashion, Bernie Soldiers have been flooding the internet with misinformation for close to two years now. I’ve watched carefully as they devolved into caps-locked, hash-tagging, bullies** who hate facts and cry up storms that would probably end California’s drought if their tears could only be directed to something more worthwhile than flooding the internet with pure obnoxiousness. 

I can think of few things more disingenuous than using war language – soldiers, battle plan – or encouraging people to spam (well, to be fair, he did say ‘copy and paste that joker’ but it’s the same thing, while encouraging people to be classy and positive. To me, posting facts instead of rhetoric and hashtags, and following rules of grammar would be classier. Original comments that are pertinent to the article that I’m guessing he doesn’t want Sanders Soldiers to bother reading would be classier.

It says a lot, though, that the Sanders General had to call back his Soldiers from continuing to regurgitate hateful lies (that have been discredited repeatedly) about Hillary Clinton. Tells me the Sanders War Machine must finally realize that people are seeing through all that crap, and it’s not working in his favor. How do they stuff that mess back in the bottle after it flooded the internet all this time?

I don’t think they can.

Flood the internet with joy and hope? Does this remind anyone else of the Bush Administration trying to convince people that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and flowers? Who sends soldiers to battle with joy and hope? And who reads tripe like this without choking back puke and saying WTF?

*Other people I don’t like who also use war language

**A person who crashes the primary race of a party that he has continuously criticized, and who lies about that party’s sitting President, and claims he is only doing it to force that party to do things the way he wants them done is a bully. It’s no surprise that his followers also bully people on the internet. Show of hands of the people who have had multiple Sanders Soldiers follow them on Twitter so they’ll have easy access to bulling them every time they post support for a real Democrat in the primary. My way or NO way – that’s a bully.


Recommended:  Joe hit it out of the park with this blog post   




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