Saturday Thoughts—celebs and politics

A lot of people seem to like to attack celebrities for expressing political views the last few years and honestly, that’s wrong to do on many levels.
First and foremost, everyone has the same Constitutional rights regardless of celebrity status and to claim that celebs don’t deserve to have the same rights as the rest of us is a slap in the face to those of us who swore oaths, fought, or died to defend the Constitution.
Secondly, it’s hypocritical in many ways.
I’ve seen several claim that the only thing they should speak about is their job…are these people restricted to the same rules? I doubt it since it’s doubtful that they’re being paid to insult celebrities.
If they take issue with celebs making a political statement, do they take the same issue with a celeb having the opposite viewpoint? I doubt it…Alyssa Milano and Don Cheadle are a pair of celebs I follow who get attacked for their views almost non-stop. Alyssa rarely acknowledges the attacks while Don likes to return fire on occasion. I don’t see conservative celebs getting attacked nearly as much, let alone by the same people who attack Milano claiming that celebs shouldn’t share political opinions. You know what that tells me? It’s not that people are upset that celebs share their opinions…it’s that their opinions differ from those of their attackers. That shows weakness of character on the part of the attacker. They’re either too fragile to handle the fact that there are famous people who don’t share their views…or else the celebs speaking up are making the attackers doubt their own views.
The people attacking celebs for expressing political opinions…who did they vote for? The majority seem to have voted for a reality TV star…again…hypocritical and hard to take seriously.
I recall years ago that people were upset that celebs didn’t utilize their fame to make a difference…now they’re trying to and they’re still upset…people just have to complain.

Saturday Thoughts

Yet another mass shooting happened this week and predictably, right-wing extremists are trying to deflect away the blame from where it belongs…gun violence. There are restrictions on fertilizer and you have to take off your shoes for TSA because of murders and attempted murders involving those two things…but people really can’t handle restrictions on guns? Here’s why…the NRA…the most corrupt and dishonest lobbyist group in America. They fill the pockets of hundreds of politicians with the sole goal of selling more guns from the gun manufacturers that fund them, They use those bought politicians as sales people and con the gullible public into thinking that the politicians that won’t take their blood money want to take away their guns…when that’s not even remotely the case. Gun sales soared during the Obama Presidency...because gullible schmucks were conned into thinking he was going to try to take them away.


Now, I’m as pro-2nd Amendment as anyone but many people who love that amendment don’t understand it. Nowhere does it state that there can’t be regulations on gun ownership. People need a vocabulary lesson on the meaning of the word “infringed.” It doesn’t mean regulated or restricted…it means that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be taken away.


There have to be regulations and the ones that are in place are a joke, apparently. The shooter in Florida had red flags aplenty but still passed a background check? Those background checks are clearly not working. The fact that the FBI didn’t do their jobs and investigate and confiscate his gun after he made terroristic threats on the Internet could’ve saved lives but he shouldn’t have had that type of gun in the 1st place. One of those regulations that should be in place that isn’t would be to put people with mental issues on a list that would keep them away from guns like those. Sadly, that is a regulation that was undone by Trump. This isn’t to say this week’s shooting is on Trump…the gun was bought before he undid that restriction and Cruz’s mental issues weren’t covered under the restrictions that had been in place. Instead of undoing those regulations, a responsible President would make them tougher.


People in general aren’t advocating for taking away guns…just ensuring that people who aren’t sane, that are shown to have criminal intentions, shouldn’t be allowed to get them. People like to claim that someone who wants a gun will get it, legally or not…but by that reasoning, why have laws at all? When you remove the legality of something, you make it harder to get…that does deter some people. While that won’t prevent all murders, it WILL save lives. There is no fool-proof way of saving everyone as much as we’d like there to be but if you think that a mentally disturbed individual having a gun is more important than saving the lives of innocent children, you might be mentally disturbed yourself.


Again, this is NOT about taking away guns…if you believe I’m saying anything of the sort, take a remedial reading class. If you believe politicians are trying to take guns away from law-abiding sane citizens, you’re gullible and I have some oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you. If you’re against strong background checks, then maybe the police should keep an eye on you.


Regarding the AR-15 and other guns that are commonly called assault weapons, some have said to ban those. Personally, while I think that no normal citizen has ANY need for them, my solution is to make the background checks more thorough than background checks for the basic shotgun or rifle used for hunting or the pistol used for personal home protection. You need a license to drive a car but you can’t use that license to drive a tractor trailer…and a CDL is a lot harder to get than a basic license…same principle.

Saturday Thoughts

Chick Fil-A is coming to Buffalo soon…it’s a controversial restaurant


People say their food is far better than that of other restaurants that serve chicken sandwiches. I had it once and yes, it was very good…but I don’t get the hype. They stay closed on Sundays for religious reasons as dictated by their founder…their choice. Not the best business idea but again, their choice. Their founder has a backwards view on gay marriage and can be categorized as a homophobic bigot. Sexuality is no more a choice than skin color. Maybe it’s even less so if that’s possible…lol…Michael Jackson ring a bell? To be in favor of depriving the legal rights of a person because of something that isn’t a choice isn’t Christian, it’s bigoted. Now, some are against Chick Fil-A because of those views of the founder. Me, while it’s nothing I’d go out of my way for, I don’t think it’s fair to punish employees who may not share those views.


People are lacking some facts where it comes to military pay. Currently, an E-2 makes $21,520.80 per year. I used E-2 as a baseline because when I was in the Air Force, I was only an E-1 for 6 months…while in Basic and in Tech School. Current NYS minimum wage is $10.40/hr, which adds up to $21,632 a year for 40 hour weeks. On the outset, that looks bad…that someone flipping burgers makes more than an E-2 in the military. However, that analysis is completely false and here’s why. In the military, housing and meals are completely covered when you live on base. If you’re making minimum wage in the private sector, you have to pay for meals, rent, and utilities that you don’t have to pay for if you’re in the military. Even if you get off-base housing, you get allowances to help cover housing and food costs. Also, if a military member is deployed into a hostile area, they get combat pay. This all isn’t to say the military is overpaid by any means, but to compare their pay to private citizens without all the facts is ignorant and/or dishonest. Put it this way…a few months before joining the service, I bought a new car with payments of about $270 a month…which I could never afford at my current pay. When I was in the service, I was not only able to afford that car payment, but I was frequently making double payments.

Saturday Thoughts

Regarding ignorance, it’s not a crime or a character flaw to be uneducated about a subject. No one knows everything. However, what does look bad is to comment on something we don’t know much of anything about. I see it happen every day and we all do it, myself included. It happens with virtually every topic imaginable, including history, politics, TV shows and movies, and definitely in regards to cheerleading. Any of us with any experience in the realm of pro cheerleading knows that the biggest aspect isn’t what you see on the sidelines, but with community involvement and the next generation. I started up my website in the summer of 2001 and it wasn’t until I started working closely with the Buffalo Jills in 2005 that I understood that so people not understanding it is to be expected. However, ignorance becomes more severe when one ignores the experts on a topic, whether it be pro cheerleading or science. We can’t eliminate ignorance nor can we expect to always avoid commenting on a topic we’re not educated on. However, we can attempt to get better.


Regarding the State of The Union address this past week, I’ve done a good job on following the advice of my previous paragraph. I didn’t watch more than small snippets of it because Trump is like country music to me…I can only handle listening to his lies in small doses. That being said, what I did see showed his speech to be more of the same that we’ve seen…lies in and about the speech from a pathological liar and con artist….taking credit for things started under Obama and claiming it was the most watched SOTU Speech ever to name a few examples. How people can believe anything he says when he’s a proven liar through and through is beyond me.

Saturday thoughts

Trump paying a porn star to keep quiet about an affair shortly after Melania gave birth to his son should be the last straw for evangelicals if they actually believe the stuff they preach…a big IF. I’m not religious but evangelicals seem to be as far from following the teaching of Jesus Christ as can be.

Eric Wood’s retirement at such a young age is sad for him, bad for the Bills, and further proof that safety in pro football isn’t where it needs to be. Goodplayers shouldn’t be forced out of the game they love by injury. John Urschel, a lineman for the Ravens, retired after 3 seasons despite an outstanding Penn State career and a promising pro career. He was penciled in as the team’s starting center but gave it up. The 2 big reasons: The issues with CTE in the NFL and his desire to pursue his PhD.

Next weekend looks like the 1st time I’ll skip watching the Super Bowl since before I became an NFL fan. The officiating in the league is an embarrassment. The bias towards the Pats is ridiculous and while I won’t go so far as to say that the league is fixed, it’s becoming more and more obvious that there is something fishy going on. A team called the Patriots winning after 9/11 and the Saints winning after Katrina seem like big coincidences.

Trump wanting to fire Mueller and his lawyers trying to keep him from talking to Mueller are YUGE smoking guns. It’s not a matter of if he’ll be impeached, it’s a matter of when.

It’s really lucky that we have the Internet and all these apps to watch TV shows these days. I have more shows I watch religiously than ever before and with some on competing with each other, watching online is the only way to see some. Plus with work forcing me to bed early and up early, I’m just not able to stay awake for some shows live.

Sunday thoughts...

Trump's comments about certain countries aren't surprising...he's shown for decades that he's a racist and he showed throughout the campaign that he has no skill in diplomacy, a crucial skill for a world leader.
The integrity of the NFL is on life support...I've yet to decide whether I'll renew for a 23rd season but I'm leaning against it...the expense is the biggest reason but the integrity of the league is a huge factor as well.
One problem I've noticed with social media is how ready people can be to share an opinion on a topic they have no clue about. The #MeToo movement has encouraged countless victims of sexual assault and harassment to come forward. Yesterday, one of my favorite actresses, Eliza Dushku, came forward and said that she was molested while working on True Lies...when she was 12! I'm not sure which is sicker...what happened to her or all the people accusing her of making it up...because she didn't come forward sooner. What they refuse to understand is that victims of sexual assault and harassment are frequently made to feel responsible for what happened to them. That only makes it harder for them to come forward. While it's true that some of those who come forward may be lying, that number has to be very small and it's our responsibility not to attack victims who come forward. The reason so many have come forward is because they're seeing they're far from alone...not because they want on a bandwagon or want some fame...those ideas don't even make any sense.
Minimum wage going up is both good and bad. It helps those who were having trouble making ends meet. However, when wages rise, so do prices so the help they get isn't as great as they may like. Also, there are people who have been working for years to make a little above minimum wage who are all of a sudden making close to the same wage as the newbies. Their buying power goes down because prices are going up but their wages aren't.

Disgust and disappointment in people

I hate to say it but a lot of people that I've known over the years have really shown me a bad side the last few years...bigotry, a lack of respect for veterans, dishonesty. Usually social media is a great thing but sometimes, it can really shatter your view of a person. There are people who I would've  loved getting to see in the past who I would be happy never seeing again. Not that I want anything to happen to them but seeing them, knowing they aren't as good of people as I used to think they were...I wouldn't feel comfortable around them. Add to that the anxiety I've dealt with much of my whole life, and spending time alone at home is a lot easier than anything else.