The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I know it was just 12 years ago when Barack Obama announced his run for the presidency, but given the fact that's 1/3 of my life, it's a significant duration of time for me. Ever since the nightmare that was the 2016 election, I've been pulling for a Kamala Harris/Cory Booker ticket for 2020. Well, while Booker has yet to announce his intentions heading toward 2020, Senator Harris has officially announced she's running, and I have to say, this is the most excited I've been about a potential presidential candidate since Obama 12 years ago. I voted for Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, but I didn't vote for any of them in the Democratic primary. The only time I've voted for the eventual Democratic nominee in the party's primary was for eventual 2-term president Barack Obama. While it's very early in the nominating process, to this point, Kamala Harris is who I'm pulling for to be on the top of the party's 2020 ...

Empire star Jussie Smollett, who recently came out as gay, was attacked in what is being investigated as a hate-crime. The two attackers allegedly yelled racist and homophobic slurs toward Smollett, as well as "MAGA country!" They apparently wrapped a noose around the actor's neck and poured an "unknown chemical substance" on him. In response to this sad, disturbing, and horrifying incident, comedian Kevin Hart posted this tweet: "Sending prayers your way @jussiesmollett .... This is unbelievably sad. Why are we going backwards....this is disgusting. We as a people have to do better. WTF is going on the world???? Why are we falling in love with hate???? God damn it people....Choose love...i repeat...Choose love. I will forever choose love and I will continue to teach my kids how to do the same. Stand strong brother" Many took issue with this because of old jokes and tweets of Hart's which weren't too kind to the LGBT community. Examples o...

As first reported by MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow and later followed by most every left-leaning outlet on the web, there's a growing theory that some of President Trump's illegal immigration musings were taken from a film - 2018's Sicario: Day of the Soledado . As Maddow and others observed, Trump's unfounded claims that women were bound by duct tape; smuggled over the border; that the traffickers were driving the greatest cars in the history of the world; and something about Muslim prayer rugs in Texas were all, at least loosely, found in the plot to the Sicario sequel. Whether or not the theory rings true, I thought I'd have a little fun with it. Assuming for a second that the theory is true, expect Donald Trump to make the following movie-based claims in the future: Film: The Exorcist / The Shining Trump's claim: "I saw these Black Lives Matter protesters the other day. Very scary stuff. I'm not making this up, believe me. Their heads were spinning...

While I was at home battling a case of the stomach flu on Saturday night, I had no idea what I was about to get myself into when I decided to order the film The Hate U Give On-Demand. The film may be based on a novel, but given the increasingly strong relevance it has in our society and the seemingly personal nature of the picture, it felt more real than other such films, as real as a documentary. THUG (The Hate U Give) centers around a young black man being pulled over, pulling out a hairbrush from the backseat of his car and getting shot and killed by a white officer, with a friend of his in the passenger seat. The young woman is understandably shaken by the event. While she lives in a black neighborhood, she gets educated at a predominantly white school and tries to separate those two lives the best she can. Having to regularly split her identity into two, she soon starts losing herself. Members of the Black Lives Matter movement start protesting the incident, especially after a...

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel just posted a tweet which I felt the need to expose and rebut. In the tweet, McDaniel wrote, "Under @realDonaldTrump, our economy is finally working for ALL Americans. Here's a 10-year challenge you haven't seen before." The post also contained a side-by-side photo of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Under the two presidents were these words: Under Obama 2009 Unemployment Rate: 9.9% For Women: 8.7% For Hispanics: 12.8% For African Americans: 16.1% GDP: -2.5% Total Jobs Lost: 5.1 Million Under Trump 2019 Unemployment Rate: 3.9% For Women: 3.8% For Hispanics: 4.4% For African Americans: 6.6% GDP: +3.0% Total Jobs Gained: 2.6 Million This is such an idiotic post, I shouldn't even have to respond to it, but sadly there are millions of people who buy into this crap. Barack Obama took over as president in 2009. When he took the reigns, the United States was going through its biggest reces...

Word has it that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is about to announce his run for the 2020 presidential election. Former Vice President Joe Biden has yet to decide on whether or not he's going to run. Last I heard, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hadn't even completely ruled out a potential 2020 run. I voted for Sanders in the 2016 Ohio Democratic primary. I voted for the Obama/Biden ticket in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. I voted for Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. These are all politicians I respect, admire, and proudly voted for when I had the opportunity. For as much as I respect and admire them, however, I think it's time for the Democratic Party to flip the page, start a new chapter, and bring something new, fresh, unexpected, diverse, and progressive heading into 2020 and beyond. Donald Trump, at 70, became the oldest person to start his presidency in U.S. history. He's 72 now and emblematic of the aging Republican Party. Bernie ...

Actor, game show host, and right-wing nut job known to put people on speed asleep after talking for 2 minutes - Ben Stein - is at his wacky ways yet again. When speaking on the Fox Business channel, Stein said the following: "We have a society in which there are an awful lot of people who have no idea that Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung all came to power promising the same kinds of things that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is promising. And it led to mass murder, it led to dictatorship, it led to genocide. These promises are old promises and they invariably lead to bad things." He added: "It's not about ordering people around, putting them in concentration camps. What do you do if a person is a richer or poorer person? What do you do? Do you take him away? Do you shoot him? Well, that's what the communists tried, it didn't work very well for them." Really? Stein really wants to go there? He really wants to compare a democratic socialist to Hitler when he is an...

Controversy often plays like a shadow to Hall of Fames everywhere. Nowhere is this more evident than with the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. All-time hits leader Pete Rose remains out of the Hall due to post-playing career gambling, yet the all-time leader in "jackass" references, Ty Cobb, is. In my opinion, whether or not a player gets inducted into the Hall of Fame should be based on what they did on the field. Period. Cooperstown isn't home of the Nobel Prize Hall of Fame; they're home of the MLB Hall of Fame and should determine its inductees on the latter, not the former. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were two of the most dominant players in their respective eras. Before Bonds went to San Francisco, where the rumors about him taking performance-enhancing drugs started, he won two MVP awards in Pittsburgh, and finished runner-up another year. In the final three years of his tenure in the Steel City, Bonds combined to garner: 308 runs, 452 hit...

While appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe , Tom Brokaw uttered these words: "I think the Democrats are as much to blame right now as the Republicans are. They've got control of the House, but they're mostly just 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not going to do what you want to do.' I haven't seen a grand plan." The "grand plan" was back in December when the Senate overwhelmingly passed a "clean" (no wall funding) budget bill, which President Trump showed all indications of signing, but then reversed course due to right-wing talking heads like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh telling him he shouldn't. This would have, at least temporarily, prevented a shutdown. Instead, after Trump shockingly rejected the proposal, the Senate was forced to scramble and rush something together in order to prevent a shutdown. This didn't happen and here we are, in day 34 of the the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. This is 100% Donald Tr...

Since the start of the government shutdown, a majority of voters have blamed President Donald Trump. His polling has ranged between 50% and 60%. Blame on the Democratic House has ranged between 30% and 40%. On MSNBC the other day, anchor Katy Tur made the claim that a new Pew Research poll found 53% of the public now blame the Democratic Party for the shutdown, also noting that most pollsters run contrary to this and blame Trump. Due to the outlier-nature of this report, I decided to do a little fact-checking and here's what I found. While Ms. Tur was accurate in the specific number she reported, she was inaccurate in what that number represented. The Pew Research poll she cited asked participants whether they approved or disapproved how Donald Trump, Republican Congressional leaders, and Democratic Congressional leaders were handling shutdown negotiations. Here were the results: - 53% disapprove of how Democratic Congressional leaders are handling shutdown negotiations - 60% ...

I've been more active than usual with trending Twitter hashtags over the past couple of weeks. Here are my posts, ordered from the most popular to the least popular (all my tweets can be seen here - https://twitter.com/CraigRozniecki ): 1) Dear Trumpsters: Let me get this straight; it's unacceptable to kneel during the anthem to protest police brutality/racial oppression, as it's disrespectful to veterans, yet it's perfectly acceptable to mock, insult, & harass a Native American veteran to his face? Gotcha... #MAGA 1,930 Likes, 886 Retweets 2) Trump: "Build a wall. Terrorists. Drugs. Rapists. Blah blah blah. Yada yada yada. Wah! Whatever. Where's my f*ckin' Adderall?" Schumer and Pelosi: "Whatever he said, it's bullsh*t. Thank you. God bless America." #TrumpSpeech #DemocraticResponse #Snark 1,042 Likes, 298 Retweets 3) When whites misbehave/commit a crime GOP: "They're just kids. Boys will be boys. It's lock...

I'm extremely disappointed in The Daily Show  for a segment they ran last night on the Buzzfeed /Mueller and Covington Catholic confrontation stories. Trevor Noah started the segment mentioning Donald Trump's oft-repeated line of the mainstream media only reporting "fake news" about him. He segued from that to a couple of stories he felt constituted as "fake-ish" news. As most even semi-active political listeners know by now, Buzzfeed recently reported that Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. In a very rare move, a spokesperson for the special counsel, Bob Mueller, responded by saying the report wasn't entirely accurate. Speculation then ensued on what about the report wasn't accurate, if it was a minute detail or something much larger. Buzzfeed has since defended its reporting, claiming it's 100% accurate and time will showcase that. I've strayed away from writing about this story because I want to know all the facts befo...

I'm sadly stunned whenever I see a celebrity's name trending on Twitter and read posts by people wishing ill upon the individual. I've seen this with regard to musicians, movie stars, comedians, and especially politicians. Most recently, this happened with regard to staunch right-winger Charlie Kirk, who had been reportedly taken to the hospital due to back issues. His name started trending #1 on Twitter and the nasty comments followed. This is disgraceful to the highest level. I don't care how much one may despise another, you should never wish ill upon them. A person's health and well-being go above and beyond politics. It's about humanity. These individuals may be treated like works of fiction over the computer, but they're actual human beings, with friends and families who care about them. Everyone has the right to form an opinion and similarly, everyone has the right to disagree with another's opinion. But no matter how much you may disagree w...

At an anti-abortion March for Life event in Washington, D.C. over the weekend, students from Catholic Covington High School (Kentucky) got into a heated confrontation with four members of a group known as the Black Hebrew Israelites and a small number of Native Americans whom were participants in an Indigenous Peoples March. Trying not to play sides (yet), here is what I can gather about what transpired. - Members of the Black Hebrew Israelites and Catholic Covington students hurling insults at one another. I hear differing stories on who started the back-and-forth. - Indigenous Peoples March participants, led by Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips, attempted to intervene, coming between the two groups, hoping to defuse the situation. - Nathan Phillips began playing the drums and singing a song. Black Hebrew Israelites and Catholic Covington students uttered insults toward the Native Americans, while one Native told the March for Life supporters to "go back to Europe." So...

In my journey to attaining three degrees in psychology, I learned about what is coined the recency effect , which suggests the last (most recent) thing a person sees or hears will be remembered best. Makes sense, right? Well, my education gave me an ah-ha moment yesterday (and today) following the conclusion of the NFC Championship game between the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, as this recency effect was on full display by analysts everywhere. With the game tied 20-20 late in the 4th quarter and the Saints down inside the red zone, a Rams defender made contact with a Saints receiver prior to the ball arriving on a 3rd down play. No flag was thrown and the Saints had to settle for a field goal, with plenty of time remaining for the Rams to drive down the field, kick a field goal of their own, and eventually win in overtime. All these analysts and "experts" have been saying post-game is that the Saints got robbed. Pass interference should have been called. This wou...

For 30 years Gillette's tagline has been, "Gillette - the best a man can get!" In the razor giant's latest commercial, however, they've altered said tagline to, "the best men can be." It attempts to tackle the issue of toxic masculinity, as in the first half of the ad it portrays men fighting, bullying, and harassing others, before in the second half showcasing men who intervene on fights, help to prevent bullying, and stand up for women. Throughout the ad's duration, the narrator utters these words: "Is this the best a man can get? Is it? You can't hide from it. It's been going on for far too long. We can't laugh it off. Making the same old excuses. Boys will be boys. But something finally changed. And there will be no going back. Because we, we believe in the best in men. To say the right thing. To act the right way. Some already are. In ways big and small. But some is not enough. Because the boys watching today will be the men o...

Actor Bryan Cranston plays a quadriplegic in the new film The Upside  and some are not happy about it, claiming that it's wrong for an "able-bodied" (I hate that term) actor to play the part over a disabled one. While I can empathize with disabled actors and feel they should receive more opportunities than they do, I feel the critiques leveled toward Cranston are misguided. It may sound overly simplistic, but actors act. That's what they do. Those who receive the most acclaim are the actors who can master starkly different characters in an array of genres. Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and Daniel Day-Lewis are all prime examples of this. Actors who consistently attempt to expand their horizons by going out of their comfort zones for parts tend to be the most widely respected. Those who are typecast for a single character or part, while they may be successful at the box office, they're often parodied by comics and shut out at awards ceremonies. What will impress audie...

Donald Trump's pick to replace Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on appeals court is none other than Neomi Rao, who has come under fire for some op-eds she wrote in college. In the October 14, 1994 edition of The Yale Herald , Rao wrote an op-ed entitled, "Shades of gray," where she wrote the following: "As a young girl I always liked playing with the boys. And I still do. Lucky for us, matronly women no longer lock up college girls in dorms at night. Today, women can drink and run around with the wildest of boys. But with freedom from social constraints comes new responsibilities-responsibilities which are all too easy to ignore. Not a year passes without the confusing, bitter, and problematic question of date rape arising on campus. Incidents involving the 'DKE rapist' and David Bialsky have shown how the battle between the sexes has no easy answers. In the most recent case, a woman accused a brother of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity of rape, ...

We're all human, and as humans, we've all made mistakes. Given that, it's not so much about the mistakes we make; it's about learning from said mistakes and improving as individuals due to them. So why does it seem many spend more time judging others based upon their past mistakes than seeing the evolution which they've undertaken? I'm a firm believer that change is possible. Alcoholics and drug abusers have gone sober. Racists have seen the light and gone on to become spokespeople for organizations fighting against racial discrimination. There have even been times when once violent individuals got to the root of their anger with a counselor, underwent a lifestyle change, and became loving, peaceful people. Change can happen, especially if you believe it. Like with everything else, social media has its pros and cons. One con is the almost mafia-like mentality some in social media have when a story breaks about a celebrity. A recent example revolves around st...

So I'm being told a relationship isn't official until it's "Facebook official," that a relationship isn't a relationship until a couple has changed its Facebook status from "single" to "in a relationship with so and so." Really? Isn't that a little Jr. High, even though Facebook wasn't around when I was in Jr. High? Look, if people want to change their statuses, so be it. I really don't care. What bothers me is the contention that others knowing via social media ultimately determines the status of a relationship and that so many couples do in fact care. My opinion is, if a person or a couple's romantic standing and happiness are predicated on social media acceptance, their relationship might have some issues. Common wisdom states that until a person can truly find happiness with another, they must first find happiness with themself. That same logic should hold true when the single person expands to two. I'm not sure ...