Archives for November 2020

Saturday November 7, 2020

Election Day -4

76 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I was on a company softball team. I had no idea what to do. I had developed a hatred for baseball when I was in summer camp. In those summer camp days I sat with twenty other kids in the outfield while the loudmouths and bullies argued over who was up next. Every once in awhile a ball would come our way. Someone would pick it up and hurl it in the general direction of the diamond, notably second base because it was closest. 

Although that kind of strategy worked well in summer camp a more refined knowledge of what to do was required for my current situation. It’s hard to know where to begin to ask or even what to ask, but I asked Dave. Dave was from Minnesota and a veteran of many a company softball team. I’m not sure exactly what I asked but it was something along the lines of, “If I’m in the outfield and a ball comes my way how do I determine what to do with it?” ( Working for a computer company makes you couch things in heuristic solution type questioning. ) Dave’s answer was perfect. “If you don’t know what to do with the ball run toward the diamond.” 

I don’t remember if he explained the reasoning or if it was someone else. No, it was Dave. Pretty sure. 

If you run toward the diamond with the ball no one knows what you are going to do so they wait. The second you throw the ball they now know what decision you made, and can then react. By holding the ball you freeze the play. Maybe it’s only momentarily, but that might be enough. If there was a runner on base and they weren’t sure whether to try and advance a base then every step you take closer to the diamond shortens the the throw and the time it will take for the ball to reach its destination. Therefore, every step you take improves your chances of a better play, provided no one on base is moving. (Dave was a man of few words, Most of what I wrote in the strategy and reasoning part is my expanding on Dave’s brief explanation.)

So think about the delay in calling the election, it’s like running toward the diamond, but in this case it’s running toward Inauguration. Every day the election isn’t called is another day that Satan does nothing but piss and moan. Imagine what he would do if the election was called? He’d be huddling with Stephen Miller or some sycophant dreaming up some way to screw up our country even more than he has. So, look at the delay as a blessing.

Then there’s the business of what should the Democrats do, and why did they lose seats? Hum. Interesting question. My rep, Abigail Spanberger said ditch the “Defund the Police” and never say the word “socialism” again. I agree. I suggested in an earlier screed (like yesterday) that the things you want to do that might be labelled those tow things should be called by other names, like “Support the Police” and “We’re Rebuilding America.” 

There are those who pointed out that the Dems lost seats in the House and didn’t retake any Senate seats. Fair enough, but the seats they lost were those of middle of the road Dems, not the “socialists” or the progressives. In fact, Ilhan Omar – the Muslim woman in Congress who wears the giant head scarf won her race by nearly 65% and that is with some guy named Michael Moore of the Legalize Marijuana Now Party running as a third party candidate and taking almost 10% of the vote. (My point being she might have won by 75% otherwise.) In fact, some are saying it was Omar who pulled Michigan across the line for Biden.

It seems that when you run a person who has good ideas and those always seemed to be labeled as “progressive” that they do well. Hum, maybe there’s a clue as to what to do?

Nah. The Dems are going to run milk toast campaigns, calling for reaching across the aisle, and finding common ground. Look – you can’t find common ground with people who don’t want to do so. Look at the Stimulus bill, the Dems kept giving and giving and Mnuchin said then that the Dems refused to compromise. That wasn’t the case. What Mnuchin and the Republicans wanted to negotiate was how much to give their fat cat donors and oh by the way screw the people. How can you negotiate? Pelosi said no. Good for her.

Warren and Sanders in their campaigns posed a basic question to the country. “Do you want to fix this mess?” 

The Democratic party balked. They got a man on base. But the home run? That eludes them.

PS In Agra, India – February 11, 2020 just before the wave.

PPS Darn it. Biden was declared President-Elect before I could post this.

Friday November 6, 2020

Election Day -3

77 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Ralph Nader raised his head and asked why was this election so close when the Dems were running against the most corrupt administration in the history of our country.

One person posited that maybe the Dems should run more progressive candidates.

Our rep, Abigail Spanberger, is being quoted as having screamed at Nancy Pelosi on a conference call that the Dems should never say “Defund the Police” or “Socialism” again because it almost cost Spanberger her seat and it certainly cost several others their seats.

So in an election that should have been by all accounts a landslide it looks like the Dems eked out a narrow win.

The question remains, “Why?”

And “What to do about it?” That is “What should be done next time?”

Fortunately, for you, I have the answer. 

Some folks say the Dems should stop playing nice and take off the gloves and play hardball. I say like a soccer mom yelling at her kids, “Good thought.” But what does that mean? Ah, therein lies the rub. 

Okay, let’s examine how the Republicans are so able to hold onto power when they’ve got nothing. They lie. They label the other side with pejoratives. They project a shield of patriotism. Facts be damned. Legislative bills that screw over the common person they label in some patriotic words. 

I say take the lessons that the Republicans keep demonstrating and use them for our cause. Okay, don’t lie, but … but don’t allow yourself to be labelled. 

Don’t say “Defund the Police,” but rather “Support the Police.” Maybe that means providing help on domestic violence calls or drug over dose calls, etc. Where does that money come from? Who cares? Maybe you raise it separately, maybe you take it from existing police budgets. Wherever it comes from you are supporting not defunding. Got it?

Socialism. Okay stop trying to explain it. That doesn’t work. We are not going to be socialists or embrace socialism. Instead, we are going to use government taxes to help common folk by building bridges and highways. We’ll create programs to help people who need help. That’s the Christian thing to do, right?

Healthcare. We won’t change anybody’s healthcare. We’ll make it better. We’ll give people more choices and options, but we won’t take anything away. We’ll allow local and state governments and the VA and Medicare and insurance companies and businesses to negotiate for lower drug prices. Isn’t that what freedom is all about? Isn’t that capitalism? We’ll allow the best plans to emerge. Regardless as to whether it’s a government backed plan or a company or an insurance company. Allowing competition in the marketplace is what it’s all about right?

We won’t be liberal or progressive or any of those terrible words. Instead, we’ll do what works. Like improve education and job opportunities and health care choices and prices. We’ll call all these things with patriotic names. We’ll wave the flag. We’ll say, “Isn’t this what America is all about?” 

We’ll label the Republican Party as the “Do Nothing, Know Nothing” Party. Every time one of them speaks we’ll call them out as another example of them not knowing anything. (“Here’s another Do Nothing Republican…”)

We’ll challenge them to reach across the aisle.

Okay, I’m done.

PS Turtles! I like.

Thursday November 5, 2020

Election Day -2

78 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

How can this be?

How can this election be this close?

I thought Biden was going to win going away. I predicted he’d have 405 or more Electoral Votes. I thought all the predicted toss-up states would go to him. None of the five in the south did. McConnell and Graham won their races handily. We’ll have to see more turtle semi-gay gloating. God! Gag me. 

This raises the question of, “What is wrong with people?”

Chris Hayes brought up that we’ve seen this sort of split in voting across Europe, here, and elsewhere. The split between college educated professionals and high school educated working class. One group sides with the authoritarian leaning dictator types and the other does not. 

Another analysis I saw last night in politico took an even bigger lens look comparing Trump to Julius Caesar. Apparently, Caesar ignored norms when they didn’t suit him, went deeply in debt to put on extravagant shows of wealth for the people. Talked directly to the people, ignoring the normal paths of communication, and although Caesar was gotten rid of the changes he wrought to the Republic stayed and it fell. Part of the reason for the Republic’s falling was no one believed it would. It, like our democracy, depended on certain norms and understandings of acceptable behavior and tradition. What happens when you get someone in power who ignores those norms? You get a Donald Trump or an Adolf Hitler.

Some 48% of the folks who voted, voted for Trump. They were okay with his behavior and abilities. Maybe they were afraid of Pelosi and AOC? Or Socialism, whatever they think that is. Certainly, Florida going for Trump was seen as the ads he ran in Miami appealing to Cuban Americans telling them that Biden was a socialist and pegging him to a Castro like regime.

Trump has gone out of his way to screw farmers, and rural America, yet they are the ones that voted for him. Why? Is it a fear of socialism and all that which is being whipped up on right wing radio and TV and is the only mass communication they have access to?

The right wing Republicans* seemed to run on two themes: patriotism (good), socialism (bad). That was it. What were they going to do once they got in? Lower your taxes. That seemed to be it. So what if they had shown no interest or ability to do that, or if they had lowered taxes it was minuscule while running up the debt, stealing the public blind and helping out rich donors?

*There are only right wing Republicans. There are no moderates or liberal Republicans anymore.

This election isn’t over. There is still a way Trump could make himself president, and don’t think he won’t try everyday he can. 

The electoral college is made up of representatives from the states. Each state legislature picks the delegates to go to the electoral college meeting in early December. The state legislatures don’t have to abide by the election results. They can pick whomever they want. Many of the state legislatures are controlled by Republicans. Do you think Trump and his cronies aren’t trying to get a few legislatures to ignore the will of the people and pick Trump delegates?

These are not normal times. Traditions that have bound us no longer do. Trump is ruthless and will try anything to stay in power. 

He is trying to get ballots to not be counted. Even though he has no reason for not counting them. So what? He’s even asking Michigan to stop counting ballots. Even though he’s behind in that state. 

It makes no sense but then “logic and proportion” as the lyrics in the song “White Rabbit” point out “have fallen sloppy dead.”

Are we there yet?

Sloppy dead?

This fight for the soul of America is not over. This election is just a stop gap to what the criminal gang has been working on for years. They will not stop. They count on our not paying attention, on appealing to our better selves when it suits them and on their hand picked judges and legislated laws their bought politicians have produced when they have the upper hand.

I’m reminded of a scene from Schindler’s List where a Nazi is caught and is so pathetic when caught they let him go, only to see him later cruelly and sadistically carrying out his dirty killing work when back in charge. 

Let us not forget that Stephen Miller is alleged to have a drawer full of proposals that he was waiting to unleash in the second term because they are so abhorrent that he didn’t think Satan could be re-elected if he put them in place in the first term. But hey, if Donald loses and can’t steal the election then Stevo has seventy eight days form now to unleash whatever mini-reigns of terror he can get away with.

Election Day -2

78 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS The boy heads back to the northwest.

Wednesday November 4, 2020

Election Day -1

79 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

So we don’t know who won the Presidency yet. I have this terrible sense of foreboding. I hope I’m wrong. I thought it was going to be a mass repudiation of the man in the White House, but it’s not. There are four states left and currently they are all leaning Republican. 

In the Senate Joni Ernst “Make ‘Em Squeal” Ernst lost her seat, but it looks like Collins in Maine will hold on to hers. Where I thought the Dems would end up with 54 or 55 seats it seems they may not get the majority and we will have to put up with McConnell inaction and judicial stuffing of incompetents. If Satan wins it is the end of The United States of America as I knew it.

There’s a new dawn and that new dawn is best explained by Chris Hayes who said last night that if you look across Europe and South America as well as The United States there is a wave of right wing authoritarianism sweeping across those areas. There is a clear divide between high school educated working class voters and college educated professionals.

It is highly likely that Satan could win this election. If so our country is ruined.

Or at least my idea of what this country was. 

PS The walk around the lake.

Tuesday November 3, 2020

Today is Election Day!

80 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I’m betting as soon as the polls close at 8pm Joe Biden will be declared the winner and next President of the United States of America.

It will be so sweeping a victory that there will be no denying it. Not that Satan and his lackeys won’t try. There are a handful of counties in Pennsylvania that went for Trump in 2016. They said they won’t start counting their ballots until the next day – ie tomorrow. Either they hope to stuff their ballot boxes with enough votes to put Satan over the top in PA or they want to hold out the illusion that he might still win the state.

It won’t matter, because by tonight the majority of votes in Florida will have been reported and it will go for Biden. That will put Joe over the top.

By the way, I went to the Biden/Harris website to buy some gear. The “Cup of Joe” coffee mug is sold out, even though they had a little tag saying they got more in. Probably need the Biden/Harris hat. Perfect for wearing to the grocery store. It’s the only place we go out to. That and the take-out sub place.

So what will happen next? Satan and his lackeys will try to do everything they can to stuff their cronies into the government to gum up the works for the next administration. Well, that’s not the next thing. We’ll have to put up with the counting problems that are going to occur. Seems even their conservative judges won’t go along with throwing out thousands of ballots because you know they’re from black – brown area and doesn’t the Constitution say they only count as half a man? Or some other nonsense.

Speaking of nonsense, I was sitting in a waiting room a few days ago when I picked up a copy of the Gideon’s Bible they had. What a Gideon Bible was doing in a doctor’s waiting room I can only speculate. Was it the Rocky Raccoon edition? Had someone stolen it from a hotel? There were no definitive answers. What I wanted to read was Leviticus because I saw this cute comeback on Facebook a few weeks ago that someone had posted in response to an evangelical posting some ominous warning and quoting Leviticus. The response was a “speaking of Leviticus what about …” and it went on to ask said holier than thou person such questions as “according to Leviticus you can sell your daughter into slavery, what’s the going price?” It went on like that, asking questions based on what Leviticus says.

I opened to the chapters on “revealing.” Apparently, there’s a lot of revealing you should not do. A father should not reveal to a daughter, or a man to another man’s wife, or a mother to a son, or a son to an aunt. It went on for two whole chapters like that, which made me wonder what the words “reveal” and “revealing” mean in this context. Flashing seems possible, but I think it suggests more than that. Not sure what, but I’ll go with flashing at a minimum.

Then, bang, right in the middle of all this revealing olde Levit throws in that if someone commits adultery they should be put to death. Both parties. Ah yes, the earlier thingee I read mentioned that. They mentioned it in the context of “Hey, you can’t pick and choose which parts of the Bible ya gonna believe if you say you believe in the Bible literally.”

This brings me to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Ya can’t really pick and choose which parts you like. Just like you can’t pick and choose which laws you decide to obey and which to ignore. Yes, there are some parts of the Constitution, which are outdated and have been dealt with via the courts, but other than that ya gotta follow the law. Not that Donald has. Or his enablers. This leaves them in a weird position come Inauguration day, or the day after. They might have to answer for their actions. Yes, they will cry and scream that they are being persecuted and yes we will no doubt have to watch the Supreme Court with it’s newly minted junior justices twist themselves in legal knots to excuse one thing or another. But at the end of a long day I think some justice, not all, will be served.

80 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021 

PS I Vote! You Vote! He, She, It Voted.