Tag: politics

a twist on presidential fitness

I usually don’t discuss politics much here, but this is a topic that will attempt to be funny and contain facts you probably don’t know. It may also include a political rant or two, so if you can’t stand political criticism, click here to go to a random post or here for a post with an idea for creating a holiday for enjoying life.

President Donald Trump is bringing back the “Presidential Fitness Test”, which sounds like a great idea until you realize (or remember) that this is for schoolchildren. I saw an article suggesting one condition for bringing back the fitness test that requires children to run a mile and do sit-ups and pull-ups. It’s an amusing read: Trump brings back dreaded Presidential Fitness Test. Let’s see him run a mile.

They suggest requiring Trump to take the test and make it a pay-per-view event, which will surely raise a lot of money to help pay down the national debt (which is being increased by Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”). This is a great idea. It’ll never happen, though. Donald Trump tells people how strong and fit he is, because he tries his best to always control the story, the narrative. His mantra on this:

Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. … What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening. ~ Donald Trump, 7/25/18

Don’t believe what you see or what others say — just follow him. Hear the propaganda, drink the Kool-Aid… (Not that it ALL is, but there are definitely some lies being told repeatedly to manipulate people.) He tries to craft his own version of reality, and sadly, some of the conservative news networks go along with his fabrications and don’t report the truth.

Anyway, Donald Trump is 79 years old now, and he has never been into fitness. He plays golf — A LOT (24% of his days in office, and we’re paying for it) — but that’s not too athletic. He believes that exercise is misguided, that your life is like a battery and you have a finite amount of energy. Science doesn’t agree with that. Also, if he is against exercise and thinks it makes you die earlier, why is he mandating it for children? (We ask, you decide.)

Now let me share some historical facts about presidents you probably didn’t learn in school:

George Washington was an accomplished collar-and-elbow wrestler. (Some wrestling scholars claim that, during the Revolutionary War, a forty-seven-year-old Washington took down seven Massachusetts militiamen in a row.) Nixon, meanwhile, was a football scrub—“cannon fodder,” a teammate called him. … In his rail-splitting young-lawyer days, Lincoln is said to have gone 300–1 in free-for-all wrestling matches against tough guys across the Midwest. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame; some credit him with inventing the choke slam.

John F. Kennedy published an article in Sports Illustrated with a public-fitness challenge of marching fifty miles in twenty hours. That would be averaging 2.5 MPH — a decent walking pace — for twenty hours. Figure in rest breaks, bathroom breaks, eating, and you’d have to be walking rather briskly to meet that. I doubt there are many civilians who could do that. Maybe some marathon runners could, but most adults don’t run at all these days, and many don’t walk more than they have to. Plus, I doubt most Americans could focus that long without getting distracted by their smartphone. (If that sounds crazy, try going just 3 hours without touching your phone — while awake, obviously. Let me know if anyone tries this and how it turns out.)

Teddy Roosevelt was one of the toughest presidents ever. His life is an interesting and inspirational story. He chose to live a strenuous life, because it makes you stronger. He was into boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, horseback riding, jujutsu, fighting in wars (and actually leading soldiers into battle), climbing mountains, exploring the Amazonian rainforest, etc.

There have been a number of really interesting and accomplished presidents of the United States. Where are the outstanding candidates now? How long has it been since we’ve had a great candidate that you were excited to vote for? Some of them over the last few elections will tell you how great they are and make big promises but not live up to the hype. Surely there are some great leaders out there who would make a great president…

Maybe the next great president is reading this now, thinking they could do better than the recent ones. Maybe it’s you! Is it? Would you make a great president? If so, how so? Would you rule with compassion? Would you defuse tense situations with humor? Would you have your own walk-up music or theme song? Would you dance? Would you build a weather dominator? Would you provide ice cream sandwiches to people in 100 degree heat? Would you tell all Americans about cheese dip? (They really ought to know, because it’s awesome.) Would you tell people that this random blog inspired you to become president? 🙂

What to do about this hot weather?

Everybody likes to talk about the weather, but nobody does anything about it…

And somebody really should, with this current “heat dome” of heat and humidity. But, nothing…

I would, but unfortunately, our R&D department is woefully underfunded. It takes a substantial amount of money to build a weather dominator-inator. You can’t just go to the local store and buy the parts you need since they aren’t invented yet!

Meanwhile, while we wait on the millions in donations we need, we’ve had an idea before that should be considered. For places where the heat is oppressive — say, anywhere with a heat advisory in effect — the government could provide free ice cream sandwiches. It’s really a win-win solution. It would boost morale of the citizens (voters), and the politicians providing this would gain some popularity and be responsible for something good. I know, the issue is how to pay for it. The cost wouldn’t have to be great, if they leverage their buying power to get discounts (which is entirely possible). But they’d have to cut out the red tape on the middleman and not enrich themselves, which is most unlikely. After all, just this year, DOGE and Elon Musk with his chainsaw have cut thousands of jobs, slashed billions from budgets, which could potentially do some good (although the haphazard way it was done was incredibly inefficient and irresponsible), yet the current budget bill will lead to greater debt. So what exactly is going on where they can save billions of dollars yet spend trillions more? The math doesn’t add up. They haven’t told us where all that money is going.

Sorry, got on a political rant there. Our government is inconceivably wasteful, so no free ice cream sandwiches. In fact, your groceries now cost more, despite the campaign promise of Donald Trump to bring grocery prices down on day one. Instead, everything costs more.

Oops, started ranting again. But while I’m on the topic (not really), here’s a random pivot to chew on: I saw an interview with someone who had traveled to various other countries, and he said the main difference in politics in America is that we tend to blame the “other party” while in other countries they hold their elected officials currently in office responsible for what’s wrong. I can see that…

Enough ranting. It’s hot outside, and I sure could go for an ice cream sandwich… So I’ll go get one myself. I don’t depend on politicians to make my day better. (That would be a disaster!) We all have the option to do things to make our day better.

Is there anything you will do today to make your day better?

Fox News apology mashup

Here’s a funny (to me) video about current political events. If you want to skip this post, I understand. Also, there’s a serious intro to give it context (since a certain news site is ignoring it).

If you haven’t heard, Fox News just settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. That’s a lot of money! It’s because Fox News intentionally misled their viewers, claiming there was voting fraud in the 2020 election and that Dominion’s machines were corrupt. There’s no proof of fraud, but there’s plenty of proof from inside recordings that Fox News knew the election fraud story was fraudulent, yet they pushed it anyway*. Fox News didn’t want the court case to proceed, with their top TV entertainers** possibly having to testify, so they settled.

An unfortunate part of this settlement is that Fox News didn’t have to admit to its viewers that they misled them. So no official apology, and thus people that only watch Fox News may continue to be misled by propaganda. In response to this, Stephen Colbert made a compilation of Fox News TV personalities admitting to what they did. This is funny (FYI, this clip starts right before the mashup):

For the record, I’m not necessarily against Fox News — just against lying and propaganda. They’re doing much harm to the country by continuing to promote the big lie of voter fraud when there’s been no evidence. I realize Donald Trump still says there is “massive evidence”, but it’s way beyond time to put up or shut up. He had 60+ court cases where no actual evidence was presented. (Some of those were actually humorous, if you read the pre-trial discussions between the judges and lawyers. Should I write on those?)

* Apparently “Fair & Balanced” means “We’re all for Trump, and everything bad is Biden’s fault”.

** In a previous defamation lawsuit, Fox News said their TV news hosts are entertainers, not to be taken seriously. The actual wording, from Fox News lawyers about Tucker Carlson: “cannot be understood to have been stating facts, but instead that he was delivering an opinion using hyperbole for effect”, and the judge agreed, saying, “Given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.” There’s a previous defamation lawsuit where the Fox News laywers claimed that the TV hosts are entertainers and thus not to be held to the standard of speaking truth. That’s a lame cop-out, and I’m surprised it worked, because “Fox News” is the name of the channel, and it’s displayed on the screen most of the time, so they are marketing themselves as news. Can they just adopt a new identity as it suits them, regardless of who they are? I figured they were against such things…

Sorry about all the seriousness here — I know some of you come here for randomness. I wasn’t going to write on the lawsuit, but found that video clip funny.

If I may close with a quick public service announcement: Get your news from multiple sources, and not all that are only conservative or liberal. Actual news is facts. Any news source that tells you who is to blame or who to be mad at is pushing an agenda.

Now I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled randomness…

improving Trump’s NFT digital trading cards

Before the randomness, here’s the backstory in case you hadn’t heard about it (which is somewhat random on its own).

Recently former President Donald Trump teased a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” coming up, so some people wondered if he was creating his own political party or announcing his Vice-President. Well, apparently “MAJOR” has different meanings for some people. His big news was that he’s selling digital trading cards (NFTs) of himself in Photoshopped images for $99 each.

What’s funny about it is how the video commercial was done, and how crazy the cards are (in that they don’t represent his actual life at all). See for yourself: Collect Trump Cards. He tries to make a couple of self-deprecating comments, but you know it’s not sincere because he immediately says he’s better than Lincoln and Washington. You can win a chance for dinner with him. It might be eating hamburgers at McDonald’s. 🙂 Watching the video, I wonder if Trump refused to do any reshoots of his presentation or if all the other takes were somehow worse. 🙂

He says in the video that these make “a great Christmas gift”. What follows is just my advice, so do whatever you want with it, but I’d recommend to NOT give one of these to anybody even if they’re a big Trump fan. They are NFTs, which mean they exist in the “cloud” (or, rather, blockchain). Basically, you’re getting a picture that is stored on someone else’s computer. And despite the hype around NFTs, I do not think they are a good investment. (Although standard disclaimers apply with any investing advice. I’m not a professional investing agent, but I will not be buying these. However, while I don’t recommend buying NFTs for investment, I wouldn’t be against selling them if someone wants to give me $99 for a picture I made on my computer. It’s a good deal for the person selling them, but not for most people buying them.) Instead of a Christmas gift, this is a Christmas grift. He’s just after your money.

Supposedly there were 45,000 copies generated, and they are now sold out. That’s sad, that that many people gave him money for not much in return. Also, regarding “value”, each time you sell one, “there will be a 10% royalty on the sale price that will be paid back to the creator”.

Okay, let’s get back on track here (meaning randomness). The reality is sad, and while it was supposed to be “MAJOR”, it was lame. So let’s take it up a notch! Someone needs to create some real trading cards (and not NFTs) that depict the more hilarious parts of Trump’s lifestyle. (Remember that these cards were supposed to be showing “really incredible artwork pertaining to my life and my career”, but, none of them do, except maybe the golf one.) So here’s some ideas:

  • Trump with the buffet of cheeseburgers at a White House dinner
  • Trump flushing documents down the toilet
  • Rudy Giuliani’s press conference at The Four Seasons Total Landscaping
  • Trump saluting a North Korean general
  • Covfefe
  • Trump redrawing a hurricane’s path with a Sharpie
  • Trump saying his tax returns are big and beautiful, and they will be released in two weeks
  • Trump saying he exchanged “beautiful letters” with North Korea’s leader and they “fell in love”
  • Trump saying he will release the “irrefutable evidence” of voter fraud in two days (which he never did)
  • Trump losing the 2020 election by over 7 million votes
  • Trump selling NFT cards

I glanced on eBay and there are a number of Trump parody cards for sale, including several Garbage Pail Kids variations. A search, if you want to see for yourself: Donald Trump parody cards.

Update: I wrote the above a while back, and now some guys have made “Honest Trump Cards”, showing him in front of a small piece of border wall that was built, and Trump mocking a disabled man, Trump pouting from losing the 2020 election, Trump behind jail bars, Trump with burgers and fries, etc. You can see them here: Honest Trump Cards NFTs. Some of them are silly, which fits with the theme, but my favorite is him in front of a partial border wall. He made such a big deal of building a wall (which is not a bad idea), how he was the businessman to get it done and make Mexico pay for it, yet it was an epic fail. It fits in with his career resume, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.