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A Lesson in Humanity… and Practicing What You Preach

Normally I post my “normal” rantings blog every Tuesday. Today, I needed to get something off my chest. Because I’m disgusted and I am pissed off.

I get the idea of the #walkupnotout movement that has grown in response to the walk out protests that took place at schools across our country. As in my previous post, I agree that the problem is the culture of bullying that seems to exist to such an extreme degree these days. I agree with the sentiment of this movement: make friends and be kind to a person who may be bullied or alone to help them feel better. Anyone who is against that type of cause needs a little lesson in humanity. These calls to end bullying are an important piece to the puzzle of figuring out what is causing these kids to snap and shoot up schools. Without this snapping, there would not be a will to shoot up schools.

This movement loses something for me when a person who posts this in response to posts about walk outs then follow up with “Retards”, “Libtard”, “Dumbass Snowflakes”, “Go Back to Eating Tide Pods”, and “Future Democrats in Training”. (Or really anything derogatory in nature.) Why? Because you are bullying these people for not standing up to bullying or being bullies themselves. I will repeat that, in case I have lost anyone: don’t tell people to stand up to bullying to end this culture of school violence by then bullying them. Try practicing what you preach and set a good example for these children about how they can be better people. They are our future but by saying derogatory things like that, you are showing everyone exactly how we got to this place: because they are taught to be bullies by bullies who also happen to be influential adults in their lives.

Practice what you preach. This is a point that needs to be continually made. Teach the next generation to be kind by showing them to be kind. Teach them to form their own opinions and beliefs by letting them figure it out for themselves, whether you agree with it or not. Let them have their own voice, not just recycle yours. Don’t bully kids and wonder why they bully other people. Teach our next generation a lesson in humanity that will last them a lifetime and that they will pass on to the next generations.

 

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Teachers with Guns

I’m not sure about most people, but I can think about a few teachers in my time at school where the thought of them with a gun was infinitely scarier than the craziest kid in our class. I won’t name names, but trust me there are a few of them that I swear would have shot their students if they had the means to. Times were different back then. I think. I don’t even know anymore. For all I know, back then was the wild west and they all had guns. Times were different back then.

Joking aside, this week there will be a national protest against gun violence in schools where students will be walking out. (My oldest has been deeply considering this and asked my opinion. As I did the last time he pondered walking out, I shrugged and told him to do what he thought was right. Not sure where he ended up but I guess I’ll find out when he gets home.) I remember when Columbine happened. I remembered the drills that took place afterwards, where the police would actually pretend they were shooters trying to break in the classroom. It was scary, even as a teenager. I knew it was fake. I knew it was just a drill. It was still terrifying as they aggressively banged on the locked door trying to get in. Realism got the point across back then: we weren’t safe in the schools. Every time there was a fire drill, I would worry that it was a fake and something was going to happen. I remember wanting to cover my ears and trying, only to be scolded for it. I remember my chest feeling like it was going to cave in every time we had any drill at the school. It wasn’t their fault. This was just how things were going to be now.

Then, I became a parent. I wasn’t too worried about him at elementary school. Those places are so locked down that you can’t even get in while wearing a hat. Then Sandy Hook happened. I worried every time that I put my oldest on the bus to school that today was going to be the day I get the bad news. Now, I worry about both of them in school. School should be the one place where they are safe from that level of violence. Children should not be massacred in schools.

This is not an anti-guns post. I’m not anti-gun. I’m anti-crazy people and criminals with guns. There’s no perfect solution for this that will fix it overnight. People are going to hurt people no matter what. That’s a fact and a scary one. What this will be is a post that is anti-teachers in the classrooms with guns. The idea of giving federal aid to schools to train teachers to use guns and have them in the classrooms is insane to me. First of all, the original scenario: Giving guns to underpaid individuals in high-stress jobs never ends well. Also, where is this money coming from? I see a lot of policies coming out of this administration that involve money but not a lot of revenue coming in. There is also the final problem with this solution: you have schools that do not have enough money to run, buy supplies, or can’t run after-school programs. There’s no aid coming in for that. But, hey, let’s give them money so they can spend it on the NRA’s cause so I can get more money when election season rolls around. The idea makes me feel uneasy and almost makes me consider homeschooling as an option.

The point is that teachers already don’t have what they need to run a classroom and teach our children. They don’t have the time or the resources because of bureaucracy and lack of funding. But now, you are going to give them money for guns. Awesome idea. Why not make sure that the resource officer is actually on site in case something goes wrong? Why not give them that money to focus on helping kids who are bullied to the point of wanting to shoot up a school? Why not use the money to create better anti-bullying initiatives or more ways to constructively decompress at school so kids aren’t so stressed out? I can think of a dozen other ways that money could be used to help prevent these things that do not involve arming that crazy teacher that doesn’t even want to be there to begin with.

I agree with the sentiment that “guns aren’t the problem; people are.” I don’t have a gun. I’m too crazy for that. I have shot people with a BB gun and didn’t feel remorseful for it. I’m too short-tempered, anxious, and paranoid for that. Heck, I even admit to having something that can be used as a weapon around me at any given time. People are crazy and irrational. Parents are letting their kids do whatever they want without accountability, creating a culture of dumb, entitled, and even more irrational people. “More guns” is not the answer; “fixing the broken culture” is.

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Overwatch League- The Games and the Drama

This is going to be a very brief recap of the games, with a closer look at some of the drama that unfolded over the weekend of matches for this league. All in all, there was nothing that was really shocking in the matches. Well, except I expected the Spitfire to destroy the Gladiators and that went a completely different way. They played hard though, as did my Uprising who won 1 and lost 1 this week.

The real talk of the league right now is the suspensions and drama that unfolded over the week. The Overwatch League handed down punishments for 3 players and a coach. The coach, Houston Outlaw’s TaiRong, was issued a warning because of a “racially insensitive” meme that he tweeted out. There was no fine as he owned up to his mistake pretty quickly on his own and donated $1000 to the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. Dallas Fuel’s Taimou was fined $1000 for using “anti-gay” slurs on his personal Twitch stream. Silkthread also received a $1000 fine, for the less scandalous but just as against the Blizzard’s end user agreement account sharing.

Then there is xQc, who faced his second round of fines and suspensions. His fine was $4,000 and he was suspended for 4 games for a variety of different issues, including “repeated use of disparaging language” and using a “racially insensitive emote”. This was his second suspension, which takes him out of play for the remainder of Stage 2. You will remember he was also out for most of Stage 1 for his conduct. He was later released by the Dallas Fuel, which makes sense because why have a guy taking up a roster slot when he spends more time suspended than he does playing for them.

His fans are outraged, complaining that he seems excessively punished and that people are out to get him. How about you tone down a persona that can be a bit extreme so that the league wouldn’t need to punish you? Accountability can go a long way, if you let it. It doesn’t matter if he’s “really a pretty cool dude”. It matters how he presents himself, especially as he chooses to be in the public eye. With age comes wisdom, I suppose, and he’s still young enough to get away with it.

This has been a theme for Blizzard especially since Overwatch came out. They want everyone to be able to enjoy their games. As someone who has been bullied a lot in games, to a point where I refuse to chat with strangers and avoid voice chat as much as possible, I welcome this attempt to develop a kinder community. Especially with the entire world seemingly going down in toxic flames around us. I like the fact that they are suspending the very people that are supposed to be upholding these principles that Kaplan and his team hold dear. As a person who doesn’t really come across this negativity as much anymore and who knows that I can count on a system put in place to protect players, I thank the Blizzard team for sticking to their ideals. This makes me feel better about my choice for being a huge fan of this company, their convention, and their games.

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Overwatch League- Stage 2, Week 2 and other Overwatch Happenings

This was a big week for Overwatch. First it was the 2nd week of Stage 2, which brought some big rivalries to the stage. Secondly, a new character was announced. Let’s get started in talking about both.

The new week of stage 2 kicked off with the big rivalry between the Dallas Fuel and Seoul Dynasty. This rivalry began in the Overwatch APEX tournaments and as these entire teams moved to the Overwatch League, so did their fierce rivalry. As expected, the Dallas Fuel put up quite a fight but Seoul overcame them to take the match 3-1. The second day saw the ages long rivalry between New York and Boston on the big stage. New York XL did end up taking the match 4-0, but the scrappy Uprising did try their best to overcome them.

Uprising seemed to be struggling with their place in the new meta. By the time they lost to the New York XL, the team had yet to find a win during Stage 2. They did manage to find that win in their match against the Florida Mayhem. The Mayhem keeps putting up some good plays but ultimately still seem to be struggling in the league. I’m pulling for them to find their stride. They seem like an honestly good group of guys and they play hard. I also hope that this latest win with the Uprising helps them find their groove again. I was pretty excited to see Mistakes in the lineup and while I was first questioning the move benching DreamKazper, Mistakes’ Sombra was really great to see.

The next order of business is the new character Brigitte. There wasn’t any real surprise when they announced this character as the clues made it obvious that she was going to be the next hero. Still, the announcement was quite exciting and I quickly got onto the PTR to try her out. I was pretty impressed with the play style, especially as someone who loves to play support. Her flail is pretty awesome and the shield was a nice addition. She seemed like a pretty solid character, but I can’t see me choosing her over my preferred supports Moira and Mercy. (I know, but I still love to play her. In fact, I love playing all the supports, except Symmetra.) It’s still early in the PTR phase and she has already seen a couple of tweaks. I’ll save my judgement on her when she goes live.

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Observations Over the Past Week

The Parkland school shooting is something that you keep hearing about every single day since it happened. Some people are completely numb to it at this point. “Oh, another school shooting.” It’s tragic. It keeps happening. But what can we do to resolve it? I have no idea but everyone bickering back and forth about gun control, mental illness, should these kids be smiling, why are they protesting, bad things just happen….. none of these things are helping us. I’m not going to argue for or against gun control. But what I will do is tear apart this disaster.

First of all, this idea that corporations like Avis and Enterprise working with the NRA to give members discounts is really nothing to me. I didn’t know it was a thing before. Good for them standing up on an issue and cutting ties with a money-maker for them. Am I upset that FedEx has announced that they won’t do the same? No. Again, wasn’t aware they had a partnership with them and it’s not like they are making laws in favor of gun freedoms so the fact that they get money from the NRA is really meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

My issue with FedEx is when they say “We are totally against the sale of assault rifles but we’re good with taking the NRA’s money.” That’s a cop-out. If you were really against it, you wouldn’t take their money. What you mean to say is “since there is so much outrage on this topic, we are going to say that we are against their policies to appease customers and impress them that we are being transparent enough to admit that we are still taking their money.” You can’t have it both ways. (Again, I reiterate, I have no feelings on the boycott of these companies for their association with the NRA. I really don’t care. I care when politicians are in the pockets of organizations and make laws that financially benefit the aforementioned organizations.)

Every time a school shooting happens, there is talk of “what can we do to stop it from happening again?” Then, people forget that it happened and shirk their responsibilities in preventing it from happening again. Then, it happens again and it becomes a cycle of outrage then apathy then ignoring the issue until it happens again. I don’t want to look up statistics on how many of these shooters somehow obtained their weapons legally when they really shouldn’t have, such is the case in the Parkland school shooting. Statistics can be skewed and I like facts. The fact is that he probably could have gotten the gun anyways. They keep asking the questions “what did he use to shoot up the school and how did he get the items?” “Why was he able to get a gun?”

Those are the wrong questions to ask. The question we should be asking is “why did he shoot up the school?” The why is always more important, in my opinion. Because when you know the “why”, you can really address the problem and help find solutions to fix it.

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Overwatch League-Stage 2, Week 1

There have been some interesting activity in the Overwatch League while it was on break. Two members of the London Spitfire, Rascal and Fissure, found themselves on new teams. Rascal ended up with the Dallas Fuel while the L.A. Gladiators acquired Fissure. There have been numerous additions to the Shanghai Dragons, including the first female player Geguri, who has joined the team. Unfortunately, due to visa issues none of them have been able to come over and play for the team yet. Here is a close look at the notable moments of Week 1 in the second stage of competition.

First of all, the class demonstrated by the Florida Mayhem this week was amazing. A team, that has been more known for its entrances onto the show floor than their actual play, came out in a somber fashion, wearing the patches from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to honor the victims in their “home” state. Considering that none of them even come from Florida, and no player even from this country, this showed such a high level of respect from them. They represented their state, where the tragic school shooting happened, and they did so proudly in their moment of silence.

If you are a fan of the Overwatch League, you may have noticed that when discussing the moves teams made with their roster that I left out Eqo. I didn’t forget about him, nor did I ignore his presence after what he did to my Uprising. He was a beast. Going from a person I didn’t know a week ago to someone that I’m certain will make a huge difference for the Philadelphia Fusion. I just watched in awe as he seemed to build up his ult at a super fast speed and had unreal plays. It was both painful and beautiful to watch. He is a player that you are going to hear a lot about all season long.

Also, Pine is still amazing. If you doubt it, just watch this:

It is just so perfect I really just need to watch it over and over again.

 

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Allied Races and You

World of Warcraft’s latest expansion is out for pre-order, but much like every other time there are excellent incentives to ordering it before its release. In this case, you get access to 4 of the 6 allied races: the Void Elves, Highmountain Tauren, the Lightforged Draenei, and the Nightborne. The last two allied races, the Dark Iron Dwarves and the Zandalari Trolls, have yet to be released but it will be interesting to see how these former foes in the story’s lore decide to join the Alliance and Horde.

I was most excited that once again, Blizzard listened to my hopes and dreams despite everyone telling me it was never going to happen. In Burning Crusade, I wanted to be a demon hunter. For ages prior to Mists of Pandaria, I wanted to play a Pandaren. These were my goals and dreams. When Pandarens were announced, I squealed with excitement and immediately rubbed it in everyone’s faces. When demon hunters were finally released, I did the same. I have no grace. I like to be right. I like to get what I want. And I did. The Pandarens were pretty disappointing though, but the demon hunters were everything that I dreamed they would be.

The minute I got to Suramar and saw the Nightfallen, I wanted to be one. I would do anything to play that race. They were awesome. I kept telling everyone that they should be a playable race. Now they are. But, instead of waiting for the expac to be released and disappointed, I can indulge my wishes now. The minute that I could afford to purchase it, I did. Then I started the time sink to create these characters. Here is my takeaway from it.

The story for the Lightforged Draenei was neat. I enjoyed that questline to unlock them. The Void Elf story was interesting, a little longer than the Lightforged in my opinion, but it was still decent. One of my favorite quests was the Nightborne one, not just because it was quick and simple but because it was pretty interesting as well. The Highmountain Tauren quest to unlock the race was much like the quests in Highmountain: long, time-consuming, and really not worth the reward at the end of everything. It made me remember why with every other alt, I never went to that zone to level up.

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Blueleigh, the Void Elf Priest

My first choice to level was ultimately my Void Elf. I am leveling as a shadow priest, my 3rd shadow priest. I thought a priest was the best fit for her and thought her shadowform would be even cooler. I was right. I may even main swap her, giving up my main that I have had since the beginning. The leveling is a slow grind, but I enjoy the menial work. What I like so far is how OP Void Eruption is at a low level. You could pull as many mobs as you can and it will instakill any that you have dotted up. It’s insane. I love it. Her racials seem so/so. The Spacial Rift ability reminds me of Moira’s Fade ability. Preternatural Calm is also quite nice, since is prevents the casting delay when getting attacked. Entropic Embrace (bonus to shadow damage and healing) also seems pretty powerful at lower levels as well. However, I have no real use for more void storage, so getting a discount on this doesn’t really impact my life. After my void elf, I will move onto my Nightborne which I am really excited about trying out.

Once you unlock these characters (which requires some achievements in addition to the questline), as long as you have a level 110 on the server you can create your new character. They start off as a level 20, but leveling these days is quick enough. It is still tedious until you get flying, which they should give us veterans the ability to do imo. You probably have plenty of time to get these characters leveled and geared up by the time the game is actually released, so happy hunting!

 

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Overwatch- Stage 1, Week 5 and Finals

Normally this is posted on Mondays, but this week I fell behind. Next week, the gaming post will be on time and focused on the Allied Races of the new World of Warcraft Expansion. Now, read on to learn more about the exciting conclusion to the first stage of the Overwatch League.

That was a thrilling week of the Overwatch League. If you are not already paying attention to this new eSports league, you really need to. It’s a lot more thrilling than baseball or basketball, with such a high level of intensity and sportsmanship that is so great to watch. The night started off with the top 2 teams in the league playing. New York Excelsior took on the London Spitfire. Whenever Boston Uprising isn’t on, I’m an avid supporter of London. (As a D.Va main, Fury is a person I admire and try my hardest to emulate). Plus they were going against a New York team and as much as I love watching Jjonak and Pine play, they needed to go down. They didn’t go down in this first match-up, eventually winning in the tiebreaker map. This secured New York’s spot in the finals that night.

The next match-up, the Houston Outlaws and the Boston Uprising, was not just critical to both of these teams but to the Los Angeles Valiant. Outlaws needed to win 2 games to make it in the Stage 1 playoffs. Boston Uprising needed to win the match 3-1 to upset everyone and earn a spot in the playoffs. (Not bad for a team that practically everyone had in 12th in the power rankings before the season started. So Boston of them.) Outlaws took the first map, Boston took the next 2. It seemed like Uprising was going to make it, until the 4th map where they just couldn’t make that last point. The game was tied up, but Boston had lost its shot at the playoffs. Still, the tiebreaker in this game was crucial. If they were to take the tiebreaker map, Valiant would get the spot over Houston. Despite a hard-fought battle, Boston Uprising ultimately lost the match and Houston was in the playoffs.

That meant the first game of the playoffs would be London Spitfire facing off against the Houston Outlaws. Both were strong teams, with Houston coming away with the first map of the match. However, London swept the last 3 maps and knocked Houston out of the playoffs. That led to a rematch between New York Excelsior and London Spitfire. Would the outcome be the same as it was earlier in the night?

As the first match of the night went, it was an intense and tough battle for both teams that ended up back in the tiebreaker round. New York was the favorite going into the match, but walked away in second place. London Spitfire won the first stage and the $100,000 prize. New York still walked away with $25,000, so don’t feel too bad for them.

This final match sets up for an exciting Stage 2 of the Overwatch League, which will start back up on February 21st. If you are interested in catching up, you can check out the Overwatch League Twitch channel for all the matches. If you are addicted to the league like I am, you can spend your time checking out the Twitch channels of some of the stars. Here are some choices that I personally enjoy:

  • DreamKazper
  • JAKE
  • Muma
  • LiNkzr
  • tf2PINE

These are just a few of the Overwatch League pros that stream, but they are my go-to Twitch streams. Here’s to an even more intense Stage 2.

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When It’s Over

As a writer, there is no other feeling that can match when you finish a project. There is a sense of pride in your work. There is trepidation, worrying that your project was terrible and no one will like it. There is hope that this one is the one that gets you to the point of “making it” so that you can tell everyone who doubted you or called you foolish for pursuing your dream that you are good enough. Validation lets you know you’re talented, right?

The truth is that there is a lot of fear as a writer. You’re afraid you’re not good enough. You worry that you are wasting your time, and the time of everyone who supported you on this journey. You are even afraid that the book will make it. Then you have to face the harsh criticisms of faceless internet people. What if it does very well and you can spoil yourself? There is so much to be afraid of.

The fear isn’t the worst part. The worst part is that feeling of emptiness when you finally complete the project. You spend so much time stressing over getting it completed on whatever deadline, self-imposed or otherwise, that you have to beat. Then, when it is completed, you have that “now what feeling”. The book is up for sale and you just have to hope. But you dedicated so many months or years on a project only to have it finally be done. And there is emptiness that does make you feel a little depressed. Even if you do have projects on your “queue” waiting for your attention.

“A Special Place for Noah” will be up for sale on 2/15. You can pre-order it in ebook format prior to this date by visiting my Amazon author page (or if you follow my author Facebook, the link will be there). I have yet to approve the copy for the paperback version as when I got the first proof, it was 3x the size that I wanted it to be. I’m not very tech-savvy and forgot how to change the page sizes for proper printing since my last paperback was released. Oops.FB_IMG_1518529971930.jpg

As for what’s next? There is still my children’s book that I want to finally finish, which has been on hold because I’m a perfectionist and I need to brush up on my drawing skills. That will be my first goal. Once that is completed, I will be working on the project tentatively titled “Project Team LaRochelle”. My husband, as well as some others, have been trying to get me to write a thriller/horror for a while now. My husband came up with an idea that he was very excited about, so we have decided to collaborate on that. Between his love of horror and my storytelling skills, this should be interesting. If we end up divorced though, you know why.

There is a lot on my plate, including my focus on growing the blog, but I am very excited to keep moving forward. With hard work and a positive attitude, you can do anything. At least that’s what I’m told. I have the hard work down, so let’s see if that’s good enough.

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It’s Been a While, Random Rantings

Random Rantings is a segment on this blog where I briefly discuss thoughts and topics that do not warrant a longer 500 words or more post. Today, here is a look at some topics from various subjects that I just felt like talking about so feel free to bring in your own thoughts here.

You Have a Memo, I Have a Memo, We All Have MEMOS!

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That’s right. It’s like Oprah in here right now. I read the Republican memo and then I realized that it was just one guy writing his thoughts like it was the law of the land that we should all obey. If it were that simple, maybe I should say that my blog matters and will really be groundbreaking and everyone will just believe that I am right and awesome just because I said so. Is this really what we have come to today? Where a guy creates a memo that may or may not be factual and sends it out to be released as some sort of vindication? This concerns me. Is this a distraction because Mueller found something and they needed to pull something out of their behinds to distract us from it? Or is it just because people are upset that we were talking about the Super Bowl or the fact that the president may have cheated on his wife Melania. (Shocker, I know. What in his history would ever give us the impression that he would cheat on his wife? Except for every other time he has cheated on a wife…)

Now the Democrats want to release a memo, that in the grand scheme of things will be just as (ir)relevant as the Republican one was. If we really take a logical stand point here, ignoring party lines, are these unofficial documents worth more than the paper they are written on?  The answer is “no”. The memo is set to be decided by the president if he wants to release it, but he needs to. Because transparency. Because you can’t just allow one side of the aisle to do it and not the other. Because if you do let one side of the aisle do it and not the other, there’s a level of censorship there that we should be concerned with. Because if the president only wants us to see one side of things, other questions should be raised. Is there truth to it that he doesn’t want released? Is it just that his precious little ego will be hurt with its release? Does he just want to prove a point that American’s should only see things his way and not the whole picture? If the answer is “yes” to any of these questions, then we have bigger issues to worry about.

The New Book

Now, I probably should have put this above the more controversial political commentary above, but I felt that was a bit more important. My latest work, “A Special Place for Noah”, is a piece that I am really excited for. The story is about a family who is trying to help their son overcome his speech delay. It is told in 3 different viewpoints: Callie, the mother; John, the father; and little Noah himself. I hope that people love it as much as I loved writing it. It is expected to be up for sale on Amazon in both eBook and paperback. You can pre-order now as well. Just visit my Author Page on Amazon, which is posted on the sidebar of this blog.

The Pretty Super Super Bowl

In what was one of the most exciting games in a long time in the NFL, my beloved Patriots fell to the Eagles. Why did this happen? How did a backup beat the GOAT? Well, there are a few simple answers to why it happened. You could point to the missed field goal and extra point by Stephen Gostkowski, though this would only account for 4 points. They lost by more than that. You could say it was because Cooks was taken out of the game for a head injury after a nasty hit. Sure, that hurt but Playoff Amendola was clutch and Gronk finally hit a groove where he was on fire. Here’s the hint: it wasn’t the offense that wasn’t doing their job.

Their defense was horrible. Horrendous. Any awful word that you could put there would be an accurate statement for what happened here. They could not stop anything. Nothing. Were those two touchdowns a little bit questionable? Sure, but I’m not well-versed in the rules even though the casters seemed to also think those were bad calls. But that was 2 touchdowns out of how many other times they scored. It didn’t matter. We couldn’t stop them anyways and I bet that the next plays would’ve ended up touchdowns anyways because of how awful they were playing. Did I mention that their defense was awful? Philly is a hard team. They were good. They were communicating and doing well. Why wasn’t Butler playing? His season may not have been his best this year, but he was always known for his clutch plays.

The better team won. There is nothing more to that. There was nothing controversial about it. The refs didn’t hand them the game. The Patriots didn’t give them the game. They won it and congrats to them. No salt here and I’m not even really mad about it. The Patriots got the loss they deserved and that was that. I love great games, even if my team loses.

The Stock Market

Yesterday the stock market eventually dropped a significant amount. Who’s to blame for this? It’s probably just the predicted market correction that we were told to watch out for despite other people saying “everything’s good”. Is it the president’s fault? Probably not. But just like I said when talking about President Obama taking victory laps when the economy was good, you can’t give the person the blame when it is bad and not give them credit when it is good. The same applies here. You can’t give President Trump the credit for the stocks doing well without giving him blame when they go down. That’s the nature of it. You cannot take credit when things are good without taking the blame when they aren’t. That’s not how it works. Should he have taken credit when it was good? I don’t think presidents really have the much to do with stocks going up or down, so no. But you cannot logically think that there isn’t some level of hypocrisy going on. “Of course the Dems are blaming him for the stock market dropping. They just want to see him fail. He’s not to blame. But he’s totally responsible when stocks are up.” It’s not logical. Both the left and right are guilty of this. Maybe we should all start using a bit of common sense, because then 90% of political arguments would never happen.