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Opinions in the Shorts: Vol. 273

I’ve taken my share of bits out of Republicans – but I’m an Equal Opportunity Blamer. For the record, I would have voted for Hillary Clinton over John McCain in 2008. I did not vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but did in 2012.

I’m not sure if Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) campaign is in trouble enough to cause her to withdraw her candidacy, but it is an intriguing thought.

Why any government worker is allowed to do email work on a personal account is beyond me – let alone a cabinet member – let alone use a personal server – and I don’t care how many others have done it because that should have been a no-no then.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson commonly leans to the left – thus is the main reason why I appreciate his recent column about Hillary Clinton.

I linked to this video last week, but I’m not sure how many saw it or understood my point. Mr. Haney was one of my favorite characters on Green Acres, but how much does his voice sound like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)?

In my mind, there is no question that Donald Trump (R-NY) is effectively using the media to drive his campaign. With so much air time, he doesn’t need commercials .. at least not at this point.

For the interested, here’s an article featuring Bloviations from The Bloviator.

Whew … the previous post about predestination created quite the range of thoughts.

Opening Night – Dance: The Musical – Tuesday, August 25th at 9:30 pm! For Act 1, all songs must included Dance in the title – but not dancer, not dancing, not dancin’, or any other form of the word dance … just Dance. The Hear Ye page include information about future acts.

Over the past two weeks, I haven’t done well visiting other blogs. Yes, I have an Explore post ready for the weekend, but posting it will cause me to fall further behind – so no Explore post this weekend. Besides, I have a musical to prepare!

To lead you into The Onion, here’s their explanation why westerners join ISIS.

Weekly Headlines from The Onion (combos welcome)
Underworld Health Organization Launches Initiative To Improve Incubus Immortality Rate
Scientists Develop Highly Volatile New Relationship
Police Busted Giraffe-Fighting Ring
Standards Lowered For Second Search Through Fridge
Mom’s Fears About Daughter Leaving For College Channeled Into Fight About Storage Bins

Interesting Reads
A view of what the talk-show right is doing to the Republican party
Looking back at closing the US embassy in Cuba
3-D printed drugs
Biased on bias?
Burma’s Stilwell Road – 70 years later
Interactive on global income

To send you into the weekend, here’s a rock classic from way-back in the day – but with a dose of Monday Morning Entertainment (remember those?). Special thanks to Elyse for this gem. Have a safe weekend and in the words of Garrison Keillor, Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

80 thoughts on “Opinions in the Shorts: Vol. 273”

  3. Thanks for catching me up on the news, Frank. Since school started, I’ve been busy with homework every night! Still not done tonight, but taking a little break to read your post. It’s been too smokey here in California with all our fires. I think I will tune into the race eventually.

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    • Amy,
      No need to rush yourself with tuning into the race because there’s a long way to go – thus plenty of time. Besides, better the fires out west and your family, you have plenty of other things on your plate.

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  4. While using a private server is pretty iffy from recordkeeping and ethical standpoint, from what I understand, there was no policy that required Secretary of State to use state.gov address. John Kerry is the first SOS to use the State account. Colin Powell also used private e-mail and deleted every one of his e-mails.
    Unless the investigators find anything illegal in what Clinton did (and I’m guessing they won’t), I expect this scandal more or less dissipate by the time of the primaries – by which I don’t mean that the right-wing media will stop trying to milk it, but the rest of the nation will get tired of these discussions and will tune them out.

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    • X,
      No question that much of this is politically driven. To me, it seems that being part of the public record means to operate on the public’s (government’s) servers. Thus Colin Powell’s action were wrong as well. I’ve got the feeling that email evolved too rapidly, thus the government didn’t keep up with itself.

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  6. As a newbie here, I feel I’m lacking critical information to understand Tuesday’s “Dance: The Musical,” yet I’m pretty curious. Anyone in the know want to fill me in?

    Re: politics, I have voted every year since I’ve been able, but have never told anyone for whom I voted (except the one year I found I could not in good conscience vote for any major candidate, in which case I voted for a friend of mine with a write-in nomination). Due to my “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell And Even If You Did I Wouldn’t Tell” policy, I actually manage successfully to have friends across the FULL political spectrum. Yet I would venture to guess that, if you were to ask any one of them how I vote, they’d each be certain I voted exactly like they do. This isn’t because I lie or falsely agree, nor that I have no strong ideas of my own. I do. I suppose it’s because I listen without judgment, interjecting never more than, “Huh” or “That’s interesting.”

    What I don’t understand is why, election after election, candidates give in to fighting smear campaigns or devoting time to defending themselves, covering up, etc. How refreshing would it be if they just said something like this (I’ll just use Trump as an example):

    “Listen, if you want to try to dig up dirt on me, you’ll find it, just like we’d find it on any American who’s lived, including you. If you want to lurk around and wait for me to say something I shouldn’t have, or that I’ll think better of later, you’ll find that, as well – just as we’d have found it about any person, great or small, throughout history. Have I been married three times? Yup. I’m not running for President claiming that I’m a relationship expert. I’m definitely not. Just doing the best I can, like everyone else. But what I am good at is taking failing financial systems and turning them around. What I am good at is eliminating wastefulness, organizing and helping businesses (which the government is) run at maximum efficiency.”

    You get my point. Why do politicians feel the need to pretend to the public that they’re not humans who mess up? Just announce (as if we needed them to) that you’re human like everyone else, like every President that ever lived no matter how we might revere them; and that you aren’t trying to be President based on a status of perfection, but rather on [state your key strengths and keep it simple]. This would seem to take the wind out of most smear tactics and actually allow candidates to turn them into positives when they arise.

    Fun Fact: I do believe that is the most contiguous words I’ve ever written about politics.

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    • Erik,
      Here’s various scoops for the newbee.

      Dance: The Musical will be my 4th production (Time, Life, and Meals). In Act 1, visitors post songs with the keyword/theme in the the title for the act. For instance, in this act, all songs must have “Dance” in the title … but … no duplicates – in other words – songs are first come first serve. My producer is quite the cantankerous one, thus sticks to the theme. … Hope to see you at the theater.

      BTW – Past musicals are in the sidebar Categories > Entertainment.

      In terms of the politics here, I’m the independent moderate who doesn’t automatically buy into the party’s Kool Aid just because the party says so. Yes, in this post I picked on Hillary Clinton … but over the past 8 years, the Republicans have made it too easy.

      Republicans think I’m a Democrat while Democrats think I’m a Republican … and I see that as a good thing. I’m not an automatic vote, and have left the presidential ballot blank on more than one occasion. To me, it is important that I am pleased with my vote.

      Here;s one of my favorite past posts that describe my political leanings. https://afrankangle.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/its-great-being-an-independent-moderate/

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      • Thanks, Frank. If I can remember, I’ve got a song that I can pretty much guarantee won’t be duplicated for “Dance: The Musical.” Do we just post a link here on that day?

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        • Act 1 goes live on Tuesday 9:30 pm … posted it in the comments. Somewhere in your comment give the title & artist … and the link to a video of the song (most are from YouTube).

          I suggest have a list of songs to use … when you are ready, read the comments to see the songs used … and then enter yours.

          I’ve reserved your seat at the theater.

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  8. Hi Frank, thanks for the shoutout!

    I love the Ted Cruz/Mr. Haney clip — how did I miss that one???

    I haven’t really spent much time investigating the email issue. Frankly, I am so bored by the whole Hillary campaign, that it is like dental work reading anything. That said, there have been numerous breaches of government websites, so the timing of when she was using her own might come into the discussion. But I am speaking from total ignorance here. Which rarely stops me!

    Thanks for the links, I will check them out.

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    • Elyse,
      I knew you would enjoy the Haney/Cruz clip. “Dental work” is a good description for the Clinton campaign. Then again, it’s early. To me, the email issues has a lot of faults that probably isn’t limited to one person in the State Dept. Oh well … time will tell.

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  9. For now I’m keeping things simple. You say: Don’t worry about a Trump Presidency, I think: Don’t worry about a Trump Presidency. I’m hoping however that on November 11, 2016, I don’t read ‘Opinions in the Shorts: Vol.?, and find you reprinting the same photo you posted today of the person with their head in the sand, with the explanation that it represents the American voting public.

    “Standards Lowered For Second Search Through Fridge” is something I experienced recently when my wife left me alone for a week to go on a ‘sisters’ vacation’ to Vermont.

    Please add “A view of what the talk-show right is doing to the Republican party” to the report I sent you recently about why Congressional Job Approval ratings are so low.

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  10. As I am not into USA Politics dear Frank I can not really comment.. But I love the head in the sand.. 🙂 and many seem to have their heads well and truly buried xxx

    Wishing you a delightful weekend.. Sue x

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  11. The Laurel and Hardy Video was great. I agree about Ted Cruz sounding like Mr. Haney. My final comment on the political scene is I find the Clinton’s always amazed at what transpires with their own transgressions. “Who me?” is going to run out sooner of later.

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  12. The Laurel and Hardy dancing to the Stones was great. I thought the head in the sand photo was the Onion explanation for joining ISIS until I saw the link. Either makes as much sense to make–because I don’t get it. I also still dont understand Trump’s appeal, but I liked “Trumpnado.” 😉

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  14. I enjoyed the Washington Post article on Hilary. Thank you for that one. I’m really struggling with whether or not she “should” have the nomination. She really needed to enter this race without more controversy. She’s considered “unlikeable” as it is, and this just adds fuel to every possible political obstruction for the future as all but the most die-hard supporters will still consider her untrustworthy. What a mess…and yes, she brought it on herself. This is so disappointing to me. Thank you for ending with levity. I loved Ted Cruz and Mr. Haney-I loved Green Acres–and the Laurel and Hardy video is pure gold. Have a wonderful weekend, Frank!

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    • Debra,
      Frivolity and satire has a way of keeping us up and world events and politicians try to take us down. Mrs. Clinton is very calculating, but I think she miscalculated on this one. Then again, others may be making more of this than it actually is. OH well … glad you appreciated Mr. Robinson’s column.

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  15. 3-D printed medications is fascinating, though as the article mentioned, it is similar to years ago when the pharmacist would make your medications for you. I’m curious as to whether or not it would be cost efficient thus bringing medications to those in remote places.

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  16. I think your politics are already a set of highly volatile relationships. We have an election, Federal, coming in October. Yawn. Going to open another beer now.

    I’m sure this doesn’t matter in the least, but outside looking in, a lot of us wonder why people don’t like Mr. Obama. He seems to have accomplished many things, and seems like a good guy – one of the truly good guys. The Republicans – to me, they seem kind of evil.

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    • Trent,
      I appreciate an outsider’s view, so thanks for sharing. The dislike for President Obama comes from several angles. There is a group (that is smart enough not to admit the reason) that hates a black is in the White House. … and they will disagree with anything he does, even if it is supporting what was their original idea.

      After the 2008 election, the Democrats controls both houses of Congress & the White House … they got their way … which (in my opinion) is the reason why they lost the majority in the House in 2010) and have since, lost the control of the Senate.

      The two main parties have very little in common. Whereas 40 years ago the parties overlapped in ideology … today they don’t. Therefore, each party has a tendency to disagree with the other, thus unable to find common ground.

      Given the highly partisan atmosphere, I would be one who hopes the 2016 results do not give us one party controlling all the power.

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  18. I agree with you Frank, on the issue of Hilary and her server. Though I think it is perhaps being blown out of proportion it is nonetheless troubling.

    Loved the reads, as always. I think my favorite was Bias about Biased, extremely interesting.

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  19. Loved the Laurel & Hardy video… amazing how well it went with the music of the Stones!
    Sooo looking forward to tomorrow night (have a few songs picked out already!)
    I am not touching the political thing and like Trent, yawn, we have our elections coming up… I read a quote the other day: http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMS04OGIxMGNiMGU5NTY5NDI5
    Which could be modified to: Picking the right presidential (or prime ministerial) candidate is like choosing which STD would be just right for me!

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  20. I don’t know what is happening, Frank. Nothing from you on that post whatsoever. Nothing in my comments to be approved (shouldn’t anyway as you have been approved eons ago) and nothing in my email!

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    • Peg,
      Welcome first-time commenter. Sorry it took me so long to reply. Time got away from me, but seeing Elyse’s post served as a trigger to find your comment. Glad you enjoyed Laurel & Hardy with the Stones, and a tip of the cap to the person creating the video!

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