Saturday, October 29, 2022

Jim Gaffigan on Political Campaign "Stalkers," Political Ads Reaching Critical-Mass Absurdity ...

 

For those who don't know who Jim Gaffigan is, he's a stand-up comedian and writer.  Here he is on CBS Sunday Morning, talking about being relentlessly stalked by both the Republican and Democratic Parties via mail, email, phone, and texts before the midterm elections lol.



It's true, the emails, texts, robocalls, and mailbox mailers are completely out of hand.   


Honestly, the first thing I think of is NOT "Well, gee, I wasn't going to vote for you, but NOW - now that you call, text, or email me 25 times a day and send me overly large, flashy flyers daily, wasting paper and taking up all the space in my mailbox - I'm totally gonna change my vote for you, sign me up!."


No, the first thing I think is, "All right - who sold my information to these people?" lol


I highly doubt anyone ever changed their mind or made their decision through any of these things.


Now, what is effective, unfortunately, are their commercials.


If you don't live in Kentucky, I wish you could be here to see Rand Paul's ads (for U.S. Senate), and even worse, Andy Barr (for our district's U.S. Rep).  Mitch McConnell is not up for re-election this year.

I try to look at these ads as if I knew nothing about these people before I saw them, but that actually makes them even more absurd lol.


Rand Paul is going after transgender athletes.

Really?  With all that's going on in the world, THIS is what you consider the biggest threat to Kentucky and America, right now? 

Gosh, I didn't know that Kentucky, and America at large, are apparently under siege at the hands of transgendered swimmers - it's a pandemic! ;)

(Over-privileged fake-issue alert!)


And Andy Barr, Lexington's U.S. representative.

Actually, I don't know much about Andy, because we never hear or see hide nor hair of the man until election time.  We have no idea of any bills he's sponsored or been a part of, nor what he has said in Congress.  It's like he doesn't even exist lol.  

(Well, to be fair, when it comes to Kentucky politicians, who can even get a word in edgewise with Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul as our senators?)

Then suddenly, right before election time, he puts up 15-second commercial spots that say things like:

"I'll protect your family from radical Muslim extremists."  (From 2018)

Yeah ...  'cause foreign terrorism is a real problem, here in Kentucky.  All those horse farms they could go after and all -  many of which are owned by wealthy Saudis?


And with what, will you protect us?

Because your current tactic of weaponizing the American flag doesn't seem to be working - in fact, it's promoting domestic terrorism instead.


And this year, it's "Radical Liberals like Nancy Pelosi will let drug cartels in to invade Kentucky" - with like a big picture of Nancy Pelosi's face, all angry lol.

It's ridiculous, obviously manipulating by fear, but it works here in Kentucky, especially in Eastern Kentucky, where they fear "outsiders" coming in like the plague (but curiously don't fear actual plagues, like COVID).


Okay,  first of all, Kentucky has been like 7th in the nation for harboring undocumented Mexican immigrants for the last 60 years, especially in the horse-farm industry, because they're cheap labor.

So I'm pretty sure that most Kentuckians know - or should know - that undocumented Mexican immigrants run the day-to-day  farm and horse-care operations at all of Kentucky's world-renowned horse farms, as well as that the majority of undocumented Mexican immigrants are NOT cartel members - that's who they're trying to escape from.


I'm also pretty sure that you personally know that, Andy, because it's predominantly Republican-owned horse-racing moguls and large-farm business people who are the ones underpaying and exploiting them, paying them under the table, because it benefits profit margins - which is why nothing will ever get done on immigration from either party ;)


Yes, for all your Republican fear-mongering and group-scapegoating rhetoric, methinks the smellers are, as usual, the biggest fellers - they're the biggest hirers of undocumented immigrant labor themselves, at least in our state ;)


Secondly, Andy Barr isn't running against Nancy Pelosi.  Nancy Pelosi isn't running in Kentucky.  In fact, I don't know if she's even ever been to the State of Kentucky in her life.


Thirdly, though I'm not a super fan of Nancy Pelosi (mostly because when she first became SOTH in the late 2000s, she behaved just as obstructively as the Republicans did, which I just thought was vindictive) - I cannot understand, for the life of me, why she has become the whipping post and scapegoat Democrat, when there are so many other Democrat men in power for years they could target - so many political men in general who have said and done so much worse!

I mean, other than the obvious fact that she's a female in a leadership  position previously only held by men ;) 

In fact, all this hatred for just her actually makes me respect her more than I previously did, just for putting up with so much misogynistic BS than the male politicians have to go through lol.


Speaking of which,  I'm wondering if Andy's Pelosi-hate ad will mysteriously disappear after Nancy's husband was attacked yesterday or if they will just continue to display their basic lack of human decency :/


Now - here's what's interesting - I can't show you any of these ads because you can't find them anywhere online - not on YouTube, not at the Rand Paul or Andy Barr websites - nowhere.

All you will find is positive stuff they've supposed done, which is almost more absurd.

Now, that's a new, interesting strategy ... make their actual sites look positive but leave no trace of their nasty troll ads, gotcha.


But like I said, some of their "positive" ads are even more absurd; for example, this one for Andy Barr, during the pandemic.

(By the way, the man speaking, Will Arvin, is the owner of Castle & Key bourbon distillery and also the son of my grandparents' former attorney, Billy Miles Arvin. Sigh, not even gonna go there, but ... yeah.)




"Andy Barr's Leadership is Saving Lives Across America" ... by "standing with"  bourbon distilleries temporarily making hand sanitizer?!?

HAHAHA!

Oh, you were serious.

Pretty sure hand sanitizer doesn't cure COVID, nor provide strong or even adequate protection against COVID. It helps, but ... no.

And I'm surprised y'all didn't tell them to drink it, too, as a cure, considering the bleach and Ivermectin quackery y'all pushed, plus you ARE a bourbon company, after all.


So let me get this straight - Andy Barr is mostly concerned with threats that do not or rarely affect Kentucky, but didn't do sh*t for an actual threat to life like COVID but "stand with" bourbon distillers making hand sanitizer, nor did he take a stand on denouncing domestic terrorism, i.e. the attack on our nation's capitol?!?

Wooo hoo, what a hero!


But the thing is, neither Rand Paul nor Andy Barr have too many commercials, because they know they don't have to - all people have to know about them here is that they're Republican and that's enough for them :(

I get it, we've become polarized, but actually in this state, it's been that way for as long as I can remember.  

Well, we Dems used to vote for Republicans here sometimes, but Republicans voting for Dems?  Never happened here in Kentucky, for as long as I can remember.

Nowadays, it's straight party ticket on both sides, which I'm guilty of myself, now, but the problem is, you can't abstain from picking a candidate on your ballot, you HAVE to choose one, even if you don't necessarily like the person running in your party or don't even know who they are.

Well, we'll get through this next round again, I guess - hopefully peacefully, but you never know.

___________________________________

PS - I opened my comments again, but didn't tell most people I had done so (but I did announce I had done so here with a post and my sidebars). 

So ... I only had two takers thus far, my husband and Braeden lol. (At least publicly, a couple of people wrote or texted me privately on the Lake Cumberland pics ;)

I get it - all of the reasons nowadays that people don't want to comment publicly, so I'm not sure I'm going to keep them open.  

Okay by me, I haven't had comments for years, I like to write like no one's reading anyway lol.

But I do hope my photos or stories gave you a smile, or something I said gave a giggle, or that you could otherwise relate or feel connected in some way :)

Because that was the original point of social media - connecting the world to each other.  Too bad it's since become the lawless, Wild Wild West :(







 




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