Before I start any of this out, I just want to say... I still don't care about Kanye. Yes, I know a lot of people are treating him like the new hero on the right, but I don't. My stance on celebrities talking politics has always been "shut up and entertain me." They are, obviously, entitled to their opinions. I don't want to take that away from them. But I am tired of their opinions somehow carrying more weight than everyone else's in other people's eyes. They're people, too. No more and no less important than the rest of us. And while they are entitled to their opinions, I don't necessarily have to care. They don't have to care about me, either. And trust me... they don't. And I am not going to sit here and roll my eyes at the ones I disagree with and cheer for the ones I do agree with. Entertain me. Also, I'm not a fan of Kanye. I don't dislike Kanye, either. I can honestly say I don't think I have ever heard his music. I may have and didn't realize it, but I don't have any opinion on Kanye has an entertainer, and I can't form one on him as a person because I've never met him. 

But I do want to discuss it anyway because there are some serious implications here. And they really do go both ways.

First of all, why is everyone freaking out about Kanye now? Did everyone forget this:

He hasn't exactly hidden it. He didn't vote, either, but that's neither here nor there. But he did this shortly after the election, and this was in San Jose. The crowd boos. He keeps on. 

​So why now? Because he still hasn't turned on Trump over a year later? Because he hasn't gotten in line? 

Since this happened, a lot of his elitist celeb friends have "unfollowed him twitter," which is the 2018 way of ending a friendship. Hm. 

Chance the Rapper made a comment about how "black people don't have to be democrats." That was an amazing statement. People turning on him and he walked it back. 

Chance, I wish you hadn't. See, here's the thing. Black people don't have to be democrats. They don't have to be republicans, either. Like everyone else in this country, I encourage everyone to do their homework. Know what is going on in the world. You don't have to obsess over it like some of us. But be informed. When election time comes - local, federal, whatever - take a few moments to read up on the candidates. Know who you are voting for beyond their political party and the promises they make in their TV ads. Go by records, not by lip service. It really doesn't take that long. I promise. 

Anyone in this country can be whatever political party they want to be, and there are more than just those two. Heck... be an independent. Don't pick a party because you are "supposed to." It's OK to have opinions on both sides of the isle. You can be pro-gun and pro-gay marriage. You can support legalizing marijuana and be pro-life. You can actually be a caring humanitarian and believe the government shouldn't be involved in your healthcare. 

I liken political parties to religions. A lot of people believe what the party tells them to believe. Instead, believe what you want to believe and choose the party that best suits those needs. None of them do? Then do your own thing. I call myself a conservatarian, and people ask me why. My explanation is usually that I am too liberal to be a true conservative, but too conservative to be a libertarian or liberal. On the same thought process, I am a non-denominational christian. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. None of the organized religions do it for me. So I have my own personal relationship with God instead. 

Either way, never choose a side because you are supposed to. Who says? Be your own person. Kanye is allowed to think however he wants. Right now, he's being chastised by the elites for going off script. Basically, he's being chastised for not thinking the way they told him to. He went off and did his own thing and that isn't allowed, so now he has to be punished. When Chance the Rapper looked like he was going off script, too, they went after him, too. Now he's back on script. Kanye isn't. 

The leftist celebrities don't apologize when the right chastises them for their opinion. Why should the right leaning celebrities? Your opinion is your opinion. It's been a long time since I gave a celeb opinion much attention. Articles come across my screen all the time about who said what about which politician, and I don't even click on them anymore. They have an opinion? Good for them. I don't care. It isn't going to change my mind, and it shouldn't change yours. Just like Kanye. His opinion shouldn't change yours if you really believe what you believe. And yes, you can enjoy his music even if you don't agree with his political opinions. A successful black man with a differing opinion is still a successful black man, and you should be excited about that. 

If you know what you believe and why, and if you know what is going on in the world or at least your own country, your opinion will be hard to sway. That means that celebrity won't change your mind, which is how it should be. You are now free to enjoy their music or movies regardless of their opinions, because those opinions are irrelevant to you. Everyone has an opinion. You won't agree with all of them. But we are all free to have those opinions, regardless of what they are. Allow others the same respect. Even Kanye. 

So by now you know that Ronny Jackson - Trump's choice to take over the VA - has withdrawn his name from consideration amidst a deluge of accusations against him about drunk shenanigans, passing out prescription drugs like candy, smashing up a government car, etc. 

For those who don't know him, Ronny Jackson is the White House doctor and has been for three presidents. Prior to this, he was in the news for giving Trump a clean bill of health that the folks on the left refused to accept - big surprise - and after that was chosen by Trump as the nominee to run the VA. Once he was announced, the deluge began. 

As the title states, I have questions. These accusations are coming out non-stop right now and apparently took place over the course of a number of years. To be clear, I'm not saying he did or didn't do the things he was accused of. I just have some questions about it. 

Why was he allowed to continue on as the White House physician? If he was doing these things, shouldn't he have been considered a threat to the president? Even Pres. Obama had glowing things to say about him, and most of these things took place during his presidency. I think he would have known, right? And if he did them, why was he not escorted out of the White House? Banging on people's doors? Smashing up a government vehicle? A list of other drunken antics? Is this not a threat to the safety of the president? Why, then, did he survive all the way through Obama's presidency and into Trump's? 

I saw an article earlier about how he was "shielded by the anonymity of the White House." Horse manure. If the people inside the White House knew this stuff was going on, why was he allowed to continue on? One would think that even if the president somehow didn't know, the other staff in the White House did. If he's passing out prescription drugs like candy, he's putting the staff at risk of overdose, addiction, and many other things. If he was pretty much out of control when drunk, and drunk often, would that not be considered a security risk to the president and his family?! 

I'm sorry, something stinks. If he didn't do these things, then someone worked real hard to railroad him. And if he did do these things, someone really dropped the ball on keeping the president safe. This isn't just a case of Ronny Jackson being an idiot, it's a case of someone looking the other way. It isn't a joke. If he really did all of these things, he should have been unemployed a long time ago and someone else isn't doing their job. 

So I was on Facebook this morning when I noticed a friend shared this article from Fox news. One of the students is sounding the alarm on how the text book is depicting Donald Trump and his supporters. So let's have a look! 

The book is an advanced placement book called, "By the People: A History of the United States" by James Fraser. (This is a sample text being sent out to schools, it hasn't been published for use as of yet)

Liberal indoctrination in schools has been a big issue in recent years, with parents upset by things like white privilege worksheets, worksheets on Islam, school walk outs that don't seem to accept not all students share the same opinion, etc. The issue is real, the jokes are usually viral, and parents are starting to wonder what to do next. 

Then we hear about this text book. So let's go over some of the pieces the article from Fox quotes.

Here's the problem. That statement is true. The Clinton supporters do believe Trump supporters are racist and that Trump is mentally unstable and that we are all just angry all the time. The text here doesn't say "Trump is mentally unstable" or "Trump is a blatant racist." I need more context from the book to judge on whether or not this was an opinion, but as is, this is not an opinion... it is fact. The clipping isn't about Trump... it's about Hillary's supporters. 

If we look back all the way to when it became clear Trump was going to be the GOP nominee, you will recall the statements, signs, and other manure put forth by the Clinton supporters. And it's been a never ending volley ever since he won the election. Being a history book, I don't take issue with this statement being in there in a discussion about the election. It was a historic election. And this garbage was a huge portion of the campaign, the election, and the time following. So if they are going to discuss the campaign and all in the book - as they should - then all of that actually does need to be covered because it was such a huge part of the entire campaign. I mean, Hillary called Trump supporters a basket of deplorables. Like it or not, it was part of the campaign. 

Again... this isn't wrong. Hillary didn't bother campaigning in a lot of the "fly over" states that Trump won, and he needed those states to actually win. Hillary was popular in the city hives because cities usually are full of hive mind mentality and usually go liberal. So yes, Trump took a lot of the suburban areas and rural areas. Known fact. 

Pew Research did their own analysis of the 2016 election. While Hillary didn't do as well as Obama did with minority groups, she still got more of them than Trump did. Same with the age. The amount of democratic votes from young people declined in 2016... but she still got a majority of them. The female vote was a lot closer, with something like 46% of voting women voting for Trump. Which is why, I would guess, they didn't include "male" in that statement.

By those statistics, the clip is actually correct. Trump did better with white voters than minority voters, and most of those votes came from non-city voters. It probably could have been worded better with some of those statistics added in, but the fact is that in text book form this would open a rabbit hole where students would want to know the demographics of every election. Without the time or space to cover all of that - and probably because of the lack of records and how invalid those demographics become the further back in history you go - the author chose to just say that Trump's voter base was mostly white and mostly from non-city areas. Not an incorrect statement. 

So while I agree that liberal indoctrination is an issue and we do need to get back to teaching our kids how to think and not what to think, I do believe this particular instance is not, in fact, a sampling of that bias. It was a truth of the 2016 election and recorded fact. You may not like how it was worded or that it was brought up at all, but it doesn't change the fact that it is truth.  

Now. Let's look at the pictures from Twitter, shall we? Because the pace is about to change. 

The highlighted areas:

Slide 1: They were largely white males, more so than any presidential cabinet since Ronald Reagan (speaking of his cabinet nominees) - Yes, this is also a fact, but not one that I think is critical information. Unlike the demographics of voters and the beliefs of the left, this is a statement that doesn't hold much weight on history other than trying to make the case that Trump is racist and sexist, which is an opinion. A good counter balance to this could possibly be that some Hillary supporters turn on minorities and women who support republican candidates, deciding it is OK to toss slurs in these cases, and could be a reason why more minorities and women don't publicly show support for the right. Just my two cents.

Slide 2: The whole second paragraph, I'm not going to type all of that out. You need it all to get the context of the highlighted areas. This is also an opinion. Race relations did not improve under Obama. Many folks think they got worse. And no one ever claimed seriously that it was a "post-racial era." It was during the Obama years that the simple of act of a white person breathing became racist. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bananas, air conditioning, etc. all became either racist or sexist. This isn't "post-racial." This is "escalating tensions."

The Black Lives Matter section on Michael Brown is also an opinion. It is being depicted in the "escalating tensions" fashion instead of stating facts and letting students come to their own conclusion about the case.  They seem to have left out the part where Michael Brown was trying to get the police officer's gun away from him after having committed a robbery before being shot. The entire thing is written in a way that gives the students only the information they need to form the opinion that this was a race driven act by a racist police force.

Slide 3: Lots of references to the social fabric tearing. Again, not a wrong statement. That was an ugly election. The rest of the paragraph seems to paint a picture of Hillary having been unfairly treated, though, thus losing the election because she was abused. No mention of her lack of campaigning in rural areas or her insults towards just about anyone who wasn't living in big cities. 

We already discussed the highlighted areas at the bottom of the page.

Slide 4: Wow. His "not very hidden racism." Again, this is an opinion. A very biased opinion that a lot of people don't agree with. The highlights on this page seem to be painting a good portion of the USA as being racist and only voting for Trump because they don't like diversity. Because, again, if you don't vote for the democrat it isn't because you don't like their policies of tax them to death and take away more freedoms while convincing them it's for their own good. You must obviously hate anyone who isn't white, Christian, straight, and male. 

Fox went tame on this one and chose to highlight pieces of text that weren't technically untrue or opinion statements. So from their article on it, it seems like this student was being over sensitive. From looking over the rest of this, I'd have an issue with this text book as a parent. Because, as already stated, I would want my children being taught how to think, not what to think. I want my kids learning how to come to their own conclusions, and this text book does not offer that chance. From missing information to outright biased opinion, this is not a text book... it's a current events book that has no place in school as a guideline for education. 

This is, hands down, a liberal indoctrination book. And the parents need to stand up against this. Even if you are anti-Trump, your concern here should be that your children are not learning the all important skill of forming their own opinions and conclusions. Your kid should be doing their own research, not being handed an opinion. And if you are OK with this, then you aren't doing your child any favors. Teach your kids to think. Make them stand behind their own opinions. And don't force feed them an opinion. 

​Address begins around the 10 minute mark.

I'm on the fence here, but tipping to one side. So let's get into this. On one side, I do feel bad about the people killed in the chemical attack. That's my humanitarian side. I don't like watching people get killed, and I want to stop more death. But I have questions. Are we 100% sure about this chemical attack and it's origins? Are we 100% sure lobbing missiles at the plants isn't going to make it worse? 

Now, let me be clear here. I am tipping towards this being an awful idea. This is a joint deal between us and the UK and France. We're knocking heads with Syria and Russia. And we're going after another middle eastern country. Another one. And right now we really need to be pulling our troops completely out of the middle east. 

This is a group of people who have been killing each other since the beginning of time, and our missiles haven't and aren't going to stop this. So at this point, I think our considerations should be less on lobbing missiles and more and yanking our troops completely out of the region, and then pulling our money out as well. If they want to kill each other, fine. But how about we stop financing it? 

Is stepping in to an ongoing battle in the middle east that we of course won't allow our military to actually win worth going to war with Russia over? Because right now, that is, in fact, the risk we are taking. Do we want a war with Russia? Over the middle east? Because no matter what happens between us and Russia, the countries in the middle east are going to spend the next few thousand years trying to kill each other anyway. So is it worth the risk? Is it worth another war? Is it worth having yet another generation of our young men and women killed and maimed? 

And why do we have money to lob missiles at Syria but we don't have the money to build the wall? Or keep our Veterans of past wars off the streets? Or take care of them? What happened to America first? Because I'd like to see America first sometime before I die. And while we spend all this money to lob missiles and risk war with Russia, we could be using that money on America. On our people. On our security. 

​OK, I'm getting off my soap box now. I don't know about you guys, but I am sick of war. 

Yesterday, a young woman walked in to the YouTube headquarters and opened fire, injuring three people and then taking her own life. 

Everything played out as it always does. Cries for gun control began before she was done shooting. Speculation. Accusations. No one waited for facts. Bad information released. Pundits. Twitter rampages. Hashtags. Crying celebrities. Memes. 

But I listened to the reports coming out and realized something no one wants to talk about. She was the embodiment of everything everyone always says after these shootings. 

For years, smaller media personalities and pundits have been saying that the mass attention given to these shooters is breeding the next killer. We spend days - weeks in some cases - analyzing the lives of these shooters. Who were they? What were their political leanings? What was their reason? We want to know everything there is to know. And every slight bit of information that they get comes to us via our computers and TV screens. These shooters become household names within minutes. And they can be remembered for years to come. People who were small children for the Columbine shooting can still name the killers. Their parents are still interviewed on TV and have done TED Talks. 

The Parkland shooter is getting letters, money, and other "fan mail" from "supporters." Which blows our minds. But it really isn't that strange. People write fan mail to serial killers. Women go out of their way to marry serial killers who are in jail. Why?! And why - knowing this - does it surprise us that mass shooters get fan mail, too? 

The point is, these shooters are becoming famous. They are their own category of infamous, and thanks to the regular coverage, they are household names. Stars. 

Now look at the YouTube shooter. Why was she there? What was her main gripe?

YouTube policies. She felt she was being censored and stifled by the YouTube policies. She was once getting views - possibly for being weirdly creepy, but what does she care? - and then those views began to slip. She felt fame slipping away. No one was watching anymore. No one cared. 

A lot of people these days are clamoring for fame and recognition because they think life would be one big party if they were just famous. And they don't care why they are famous. Just look at social media. Look at some of the bigger celebrities out there. What, exactly, is Kim Kardashian famous for, anyway? What does being "Instagram famous" actually get you in life? You have 600k followers on Twitter? So what does that get you? 

But she was the embodiment of that. She wanted to be famous. And she didn't care how. She thought she had it... and then it began to slip away. How can she get it back? Well, the mass shooters get famous really fast. 

No, I really think her goal was fame. I believe she went into that building with a chip on her shoulder. I believe she was mentally unstable. You'd have to be, not only to carry out something like this but to be so obsessed with fame and so taken over by it. But I believe she saw what has been going on in the world, and realized a mass shooting of note would make her a household name. She'd be dead, but she'd be remembered forever. She'd be famous. Finally. 

And now she is. 

​Look. 98% of the YouTubers out there aren't getting much attention. Famous YouTubers are actually rare, but a good portion of the people who go onto that platform expect that, in less than a year, they'll be making a full time income off of their YouTube channel, and maybe within six months after that they'll be doing commercials on TV like Liza Koshy or they'll be TV stars like Logan Paul. People like Liza Koshy and Logan Paul are the exception, not the rule. But people don't get it. And a lot of them get upset when it doesn't pan out for them. And now someone has shot up YouTube over it. 

I have a YouTube channel. And I'll be honest. Not many people watch it. But I do it anyway because I enjoy it. This website doesn't get the traffic a lot of others do. But this is my outlet. This is where I blow off steam. I love writing and I love current events. This is, for me, a passion. And if people read what I write, that tickles me to death. If one person reads it, I'm thrilled. My YouTube channel isn't doing as well as my website. Actually, my videos do better when I upload them here then they do at YouTube. A lot better. But I keep making the videos because I really enjoy it. And what I get out of it is what I got out of it last night. I did a random live stream last night. It was not announced, I just plugged in and did it. A couple of people dropped in and joined me. A couple of those people stayed from a few seconds after I went live until I logged off an hour and twenty minutes later. We talked and we laughed and we had a great time. And I thoroughly enjoyed that live stream. It was so much fun. And two people sent me "super chats," meaning they actually sent money. I was, to put it mildly, amazed by that. I wasn't expecting it, and I didn't ask for it, and I'm still blown away by it 24 hours later. It was a total of $30, but I am blown away that people handed me their hard earned money because they enjoyed the stream, too. A few people told me they enjoyed my videos and my site and thought I needed to be heard on a larger scale. Those words put me on cloud nine. I honestly can't even begin to tell you how good that made me feel. 

The difference is, to me, this is a passion and a creative outlet. I don't expect fame out of it. I do it because I like it. I'm spending money on this website to make it run. But that's OK. I don't expect to be a big name in the political world. It's amazing to me that anyone reads or watches what I do. And when someone tells me they do and they enjoy it, it truly does put me in the clouds! At no point am I going to blame anyone else because I'm not making back what I am putting into it, or because I'm not a household name, or I don't have several million viewers on YouTube and I'm not making a living making videos. My reasons are different. 

We need to stop making bad guys famous. We need to stop making stupid people famous. We need to stop chasing fame at all cost. You do things like YouTube because you enjoy it, not to make a living or become famous. If you do, you are going to be disappointed. Do you know why people enjoyed that live stream last night? Because I was just there to have fun. I was bored. And it got silly, but was still informative. They were entertained. And I was entertained. 

You can take a picture of something without being in the picture. You can be on social media without it taking over your life. You can have hobbies you enjoy that make you no money. Not everyone has to like you. Your life can be full even if you aren't a household name. Your life can be dull or it can be a party all the time just by doing what you do. Nothing going on in your life - good or bad - is the fault of anyone but you. Fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, and sure as hell isn't forever. 

The media has an agenda. They aren't going to stop making mass shooters household names. They aren't going to stop parading out kids to tug at your heartstrings (and make them famous, too, which is also what they crave). Let's not help them.

I am joining the other smaller media outlets. I am not going to say the name or post the pictures of mass shooters anymore. I am also not going to discuss the puppets paraded out by the media who also crave fame at all costs unless they do something truly newsworthy. But as for the mass shooters and criminals, no more. No more names, no more pictures. I'll discuss the crimes and the legislation or suggested legislation that comes from their crimes, but their faces and names will not be uttered here anymore. I will showcase heroes. Only the good guys. I hope you will join me. It's time to stop making the bad guys famous.