The Rembis Report And Other Fascinating Topics - Volume CXXVIII

I am starting this week with a public service announcement.

I have not done this before, and it is nothing terribly formal, so don’t get too excited, but I just want to let you know the price of gas went down this week. Whether or not the price is a drastic deduction, that is up to you to decide, but in my neck of the swamp, prices are down 10 - 20%. I saw it as low as $2.74 a gallon today. Did I fill up? No. Because I am not going anywhere. Sure, I will need gas on Monday, but it might go lower by then. No matter what the price of gas is, I am filling up on Monday whether I like it or not.

But that does not mean that you have to. I still might buy gas tomorrow, if I leave the driveway, so I may not be practicing what I preach, but my suggestion, to drive prices down further, is to not buy gas. Don’t go anywhere. Stay home for the holidays. Leave your friends and neighbors alone. They have probably had enough of you this year. Why ruin everyone’s day?

Or, maybe - buy lots of gas. Now that prices are down you can start filling up tanks. Hoard it. Then don’t drive anywhere. Not a truly useful strategy in any way, and I don’t know if keeping gallons of incendiary fuel on hand will really drive the price down, but it will keep you off the road, and in doing so, out of holiday traffic, and much safer.

This has been your holiday public service announcement from Mike Rembis.

I don’t hate football.

But live broadcasts are not for me. This is because they have not been edited. There is too much standing around between plays. The announcers talk too much, yakking on about irrelevant things, like statistics. Don’t get me wrong - I am a dork for statistics, but when it comes to sports records, count me out.

I like finely edited productions that take out all the crap I don’t care about. Commercials, first of all, then every element of stagnation that takes up most of the game. Officials calling plays, waiting for the ball to snap, gaining or losing less than a yard, halftime shows, the national anthem - you don’t need all that to enjoy a football game. You just need the game. It should not take three, four, or five hours to watch a game that clocks in at exactly 60 minutes. Even if they go into overtime, that is only another 15 minutes. Even when that happens, you can still edit down to a 30 to 45 minute production, add music, focus on the drama, and know every crucial play, without the banter of armchair pundits. NFL Films has a crew on the field for every game. They have produced dozens of specials on teams, playoffs, and Super Bowls. There is no reason we can’t get at least 10 or 20 movies every Saturday night about last weeks games, so we can watch them without all the stupid shenanigans and waiting around for hours to see who wins.

But people are addicted to live action. That’s just how it is. And these are all the same reasons you won’t see live political debates edited into a fun, easy to watch format. Are some questions boring? Absolutely. Depending on your taste, there is a lot that can be zipped through. Commercials, again, fast-forward. The live audience. They clap, they cheer, they boo. Who cares? Cutting room floor. Nobody needs them. They are not part of the debate. All we really need to see are the questions and answers.

But then, there is the drama. Of course, nobody can wait for that, so, live show it is. As much as we may fantasize about a format where nobody is able to interrupt another candidate, it is not going to happen. Candidates at their lecterns will not be placed into isolation booths with a microphone that mutes them when it is not their turn. Fun to think about clicking them off when they hit the 90 second mark on their answer, but that is just too much work. Easier just to let them spout off and let viewers decide if they really want to watch or not.

One problem with debates is that there are too many of them. Busy people like me can’t keep up. I didn’t even find out about Wednesday night’s GOP debate until the next day. It was on NewsNation, a channel I am not familiar with. I have clicked past it, maybe even watched some of it, but had no idea of their footprint. They seem to be gaining traction among news channels.

But before we tear into that bag of Froot Loops, let’s take a look at what happened the week before last. Fox News hosted California and Florida governors, Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis. If CNN’s Dana Bash was watching, she might have dubbed it a shitshow, like she did the 2020 battle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It was a weird debate.

For all intents and purposes, it was only meant to draw viewers to Fox and spoon-feed them commercials from evangelical Christian churches. From what I can tell it served no true purpose. The two politicians are not running against each other in any way. It was just a shouting match to see who could be a bigger bully and get away with more misdirection while getting an audience with viewers who were there for one thing - the shitshow. And they got it.

This week, DeSantis joined former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy for another GOP debate. They all showed up to let us know why we should vote for them, and not Joe Biden, or Donald Trump.

Throughout the debate it became increasingly clear that the adults in the party are represented by Christie and Haley, and the kids, who seem to be fighting their way though their terrible twos, are DeSantis and Ramaswamy. It was like one of those dinners where Mom and Dad couldn’t get a straight answer out of the boys about what happened at school this week, and with that attitude, there is no way they are going on that field trip to the Capital.

If you missed the debate and still want to check it out, or just want some of the highlights, click the links above.

By the way - side note - In case you are wary about clicking links in my newsletters, please do so without fear. They are not autogenerated by a program, they are carefully procured and handpicked by me. That is why I highlight them, so you can delve into my research and see for yourself. They are not monetized in any way and you won’t wind up on a mailing list. So you know.

Back to the debates.

They are not for everybody. Kids, too young to understand don’t need to watch, just like DeSantis and Ramaswamy don’t need to be there. Do your own research, but know that this dynamic duo is just wasting time up there. They are on that stage to boost their own egos and will make no significant impact on American politics, other than giving the majority more reasons to vote against them.

Ramaswamy’s floodlight of ignorance and unprofessionalism was exceptional. He focused on climate change conspiracy theory, calling it a hoax and new religion, and claimed that Nikki Haley’s wealth is ill-gotten. He held up a handwritten sign that read NIKKI=CORRUPT. The odd thing was the way Ron DeSantis looked at him when that happened. I think I saw envy, like he wished he had thought of it first. He soon challenged her to name three counties within Ukraine, saying that she could not. We won’t find out if she was paying attention in Ukraine geography class or not because she refused to engage him and respond to his comments, saying “He is not worth my time,” taking the high ground, instead of quizzing him on three counties in South Carolina, where she once governed. Had she done so, it would have served her with a slick win-win. If he was unable to name three South Carolina counties (I can’t), that would have been fun, but if he had, she could have also told him, “You win. Good for you.”

In one analysis Ron DeSantis was described as having the personality of an ironing board. He does seem to know a lot of stuff, but most of it doesn’t seem like useful stuff. He also has an exceptionally whiney voice, a lot like Trump, and conservative radio personalities Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. I don’t know why people gravitate toward those high pitched squeals, but some do. Abraham Lincoln died before recording sound was possible, but he was known to have a shrill tone, and what he had to say carried weight with enough people to get him elected.

Nikki Haley came across as unshakable. She is exceptionally confident and always has been, once publicly telling a white house official “I don’t get confused,” when she was U.N. Ambassador, in response to his observation of her regarding Russian sanctions. In debate, she is polite and waits her turn, but does not back down from anything.

The same goes for Chris Christie. He spent half the night listening, but when he spoke, he stated facts, and he snapped back at DeSantis and Ramaswamy multiple times for being jerks. They were.

If debates were any more like a sporting event than they already are there would be bolts of flags tossed out by referees and everybody would be losing yardage. And with so many officials up in the skyboxes, and armchair quarterbacks at home, nobody really knows how to score any of this.

Even though Donald Trump was not there, polls still show him as the primary frontrunner of the Republican party. This is astounding for a laundry list of reasons. Start with crimes like insurrection and sedition and go from there.

It is just as well that he did not attend this debate, or any of the other recent ones. He would have been a distraction, stealing the show, because that is his gig. It is what he does. It would have given the others less time to talk and a taller soapbox to tell lies from.

The fact checkers are already working really hard. No sense putting them into overtime.

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.