Elections – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Time To Put More Wood Behind The Arrows

No time for quivering

You could feel a large collective exhale across the USA this week following the midterm election results, signaling that there’s still some life left in the old republic. It was such a rush I’m surprised the leaves still hanging on the trees remain attached. The sound we all heard was out of a medieval war movie when archers loose their arrows. We continue to live in historic moments and there’s no question this was one of them. One that felt good, after so many that haven’t. It’s also one that needs backing up because the job is far from done.

Strange happenings nX DMeJ_Od4 unsplash. A sculpture of two large arrows shot into the ground along Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona

Those rushing winds will indeed blow in a new U.S. Congress, crucial changes in state legislatures, and a few courts across the country. I was impressed by a statistic that may be true (I’m not completely sure — but I want to believe it) that enough governors races changed the map so that beginning next year 75% of the American population will live in states with a Democratic governor at the helm. I’m even more pleased that so many are women.

That bodes well for the future. But only if take care of today and continue to fight and back up the election results with enough muscle to make it truly meaningful. As the saying goes we need to put more wood behind the arrow if we want to really strike home.

After folks breathing began to calm, there was a collective gasp at the end of the week when the old man in what’s left of the White House appointed the architect of so much cruelty and the walking definition of inhumanity, Stephen Miller, as chief of staff. I sincerely hope no one was surprised at the move. I further sincerely hope no one is going to be surprised by the damage Miller is about to inflict.

What remains of the White House is a cage full of wounded animals, backed up against walls filled with faux gold filigree, ready to strike back. What still remains of a country that leveled the playing field with their votes is the question of how much we are willing to back those votes up in response to whatever is going to come down the pike. The first test was the election. We’re about to be tested further. Again, this should come as no surprise. But needs to be met with resolve.

My prediction is that in the end, appointing Miller is one of the moves that will accelerate the end of this terrible turn of history, but not without much damage being done before it’s over. And not without stiff opposition. We have the majority at the moment, but we are still the opposition.

I’m hoping that those pissed off enough to vote the way they did get even more so once Miller’s marauding begins. We need to get to that tomorrow that Tuesday’s results hint at but don’t guarantee.

As to the squabbles currently going on in Congress over who will lead the new majority opposition, I hope that debate only intensifies in the next few weeks. The people said enough is enough and it would be naive to think they voted for something rather than against something worse.

The only license the vote results yielded is one that opens a door to change across the board. The leaders we need have to match the fervor of those who spoke with their votes. If it were up to me, I’d replace Schumer and Jeffries with those not tainted with the timidness of the past. If you ask me the time to make those type of changes is now. The bad guys on all fronts are off-kilter, the Miller move is indicative of that. Time to take advantage of the chaos.

Every vote in this election was an arrow loosed. The vast and overwhelming majority struck home. We’ll need more wood for more arrows in the days ahead. That was always going to be the case. Now is no time for quivering.

(Image from Strange Happenings on Unsplash)

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The USA Stands Up and Survives A Near Death Experience

Relieved, encouraged, but still wary

I didn’t sleep well Monday night. Actually I haven’t slept well the previous few nights. I was very anxious heading into the mid-term elections here in the U.S. That anxiety actually led to me getting sick to my stomach Monday morning. Certainly, if you have a pulse you know why I was anxious.

A news banner announcing a blue wave of Democrats taking the U.S. Senate and U.S House of Representatives to rebuke Donald Trump

Last night, following an unmistakable electoral rebuke of all things MAGA, I didn’t sleep well either. Not from anxiety, but from trying to come down from the series of highs and rushes throughout the night as it appeared enough Americans in enough places stood up and voted to stop the bleeding that was quickly draining the life out of this country and the republic that governs it. Ben Franklin would be proud.

Across the country in races for the House of Representatives, the Senate, governors’ mansions, and state houses, Democrats did what we’re supposed to do and took back control. They said enough. Enough of the madness. Enough of the corruption. Enough of the abuse. Enough of the dividing line between the haves and the growing number of have-nots.

The big story will be the Democrats taking control of both chambers of Congress. Perhaps as it should be, because that’s where the headline battles in the last two years of the Trump administration will be fought. And it will be a fight. There are no veto-proof super majorities in either party. Basking in the glow of a stupendous victory is one thing, trudging through the hard work to deliver results will see that glow quickly fade. It’s a a very temporary currency.

The governors’ races are just as important as are the various state house races, because like it or not, those power centers will have as much influence as what goes on in the U.S. Capitol and in the elections to come. In fact, those victories may influence more in Washington than those that are bringing so many new and, more importantly, younger members to serve there.

And make no mistake, there’s a wounded, somewhat caged beast still desecrating the White House or what remains of it. It would take a complete reversal of character for him not to strike back hard and with all the cruelty he can summon. To be frank I’m worried more about his subdued, seemingly humbled reactions so far than I would be if he continued punching back the way we’ve sadly grown accustomed to.

The other story that I hope gets focus in the rushing aftermath of so much happening is the strike back at big money (largely tech) players and the political mechanics who tried to gerrymander their way into hanging on to power. These victories didn’t erase the disgrace and disaster of Citizens United, but they provide some hope that its illicit and fictional foundations don’t hold up as much as some think they should.

There’s a fight ahead. A big one. Actually, many big ones. If there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that the small frame of these two-year election cycles can provide enough room for all sorts of chaos, agony, and destruction. The Democrats have an enormous challenge ahead. Anger swept many of them in. That anger will not subside when the hangover of victory eases. The young voters that have now brought many of them to power want to see not just action, but retribution. I sincerely hope those now burdened with governing and cleaning up the mess we’re in can find the balance for both. Because both are needed.

Am I happy. Yes. Ecstatic. I don’t know many of the winning candidates well, but to my eye it seems like decency won last night. Decency matters. Or it should.

I’m also humbled by all those who stood up, were measured and were not found wanting when it counted. I’ve lived through more turbulent history in the last decade plus than I have for the six decades that came before. I don’t think the turbulence is over by any stretch of the imagination. The one thing I learned in those seemingly, but not actually less trying times, when progress seemed to be steadily made, is that it can all be undone more quickly than it can be built. My fervent hope is that those who stood up remain standing, keeping the pressure up so this historic victory and more than deserved rebuke and near-thing resurrection will pay off.

Perhaps I’ll take a nap today.

Hope, Fears, Concerns

What’s ahead is as perilous as the road we’ve all been traversing

I have hope that enough people have seen more than they need to vote out congressional and other enablers of the Trump regime. I’m hoping whatever threats or evil magic spell he’s tossed into the ether have dissipated enough to bring out large numbers of voters in the right precincts and districts.

I have fears that while I anticipate all sorts of shenanigans, legal and otherwise, prior to and in the immediate aftermath of election day that we’ll have to endure another nightmare political circus. Frankly, I fear more what happens on January 3rd when the new Congress is supposed to be sworn in that there will be attempts to not seat democratically elected members.

I have concerns that should the vote deliver overwhelming majorities that none of the efforts to try and negate the results will matter that it will lead everyone to breathe a huge sigh of relief, thinking that we’ve moved out of the morass. Even if/when power shifts in Congress the next two years are going to be more challenging than the last two as long as Trump is still in office. Even if he disappeared tomorrow the work to fix what’s been broken will take maximum effort. That much needed sigh of relief can only be a momentary one before any real work begins.

Vote.

A Question for Senate Democrats: Which Side Are You On?

Showing up is half the battle

Each time I try to lower my blood pressure a bit and calm down about the abhorrent political situation we’re living through in this country, something else pops and causes it to spike again. This time it’s the Democrats in the Senate.

It’s bad enough that we have to deal with the shit that’s continually dumped on us from the Trump regime, but when the Democrats have a chance to at least show up and threaten a fight they seem to forget that showing up is more than half the battle.

Both branches of Congress decided to split out DHS funding from the recently passed appropriations bills, leading to what most presume is a ridiculous two week timeline to debate changes for that appropriation. Call me skeptical, but I see that as another Lucy and the football moment just waiting to play out.

But it gets worse. The Democrats, according to this report from Politico, decided to strip from their demands a requirement banning ICE agents from polling sites.

If it seems feckless, that’s because it is.

At the very least include the requirement as a demand and make the GOP work to negotiate it away. Given words coming out of the White House about nationalizing voting and the pot stirring of its allies, you’d think they’d at least pay lip service to the threat. From a pure political standpoint I don’t understand the rationalization for this move given what we’ve seen with our own eyes and the words we’re hearing.

If Pete Seeger was alive today I’m sure he’d still be singing.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Elections, Government Shutdowns and Other Quick Thoughts

Can dangerous actions continue to outstrip broken politics?

Just a few quick thoughts.

Without question I have to say I’m very pleased with the Democratic election victories across the country last night. Both the winners and the size of the margins in the headline races for governors, NYC mayor, and redistricting in California. I’m even more pleased to see some of the down ballot races yield Democratic victories as well.

Im 06752617.

Especially in my home state of Virginia where the Democrats took enough seats to have quite a majority in the House of Delegates. Here’s hoping that yields very positive results for the newly elected Democratic governor.

Obviously everyone is going to parse all of these election results and find ways to celebrate, castigate, and even dismiss what’s obvious. People are pissed off. They need to remain so.

Today also sets a record for the longest government shutdown in American history. Real people are being affected by this and that will only continue and get worse as long as the shutdown does. Of course when you have one house of Congress refusing to gavel into session and also refusing to swear in an elected member, who knows how long things will last.

In so many ways, the GOP and Trump’s tactics have been the biggest act of self-mutilation and self-humiliation by a political party I think the world has ever seen.

They will never acknowledge that.

Voters sure did.

Meanwhile the evil continues in Chicago and other places as ICE keeps ramping up its horror campaign. That’s not going to abate soon. I heard this morning that yesterday they were checking people’s IDs at the entrance to my local grocery store’s parking lot.

Perhaps those digging these holes that they will someday bury themselves in will keep ratcheting up their insidious actions to a point where events continue to outstrip the usual to and fro of politics. That’s a weird and painful thing to hope for, but it might just be our best hope at the moment.

And on we go.

Governors Are Standing Up

The Chicago Way

For the moment at least it looks like Democratic governors are going to be leading the way rhetorically as we attempt to find our way out of the dictatorship we find ourselves in.

Yes, you read that correctly. We’re already in a dictatorship. That’s my view. Most, including the dictator himself do not want to openly acknowledge it, because as I said in this post, once he claims it all, he cuts off the spigot of easy money from campaign donations. A grifter never cuts bait while there’s still a pond to fish.

But that’s not what this post is about.

Governors are indeed standing up and making some noise. We’re getting different styles and approaches and that’s a good thing. Tossing different kinds of rhetorical punches from different directions makes it tougher to defend against, certainly when your opponent has a tough time completing thoughts and sentences.

If you’re paying attention at all, you already know that Gavin Newsom is playing hardball in his mimicking of Trump’s bombastic style, albeit more in the style of the Savannah Bananas. Juvenile as it may be, on that level it’s working, and has gotten under Trump’s skin more than whatever disease is causing all of that skin discoloration and makeup experimentation on those small hands.

Wes Moore of Maryland has invited Trump to take a walk with him on the streets of Baltimore. If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. Moore even offered a golf cart.

Taking a different approach, Minnesota Governor and former VP candidate, Tim Walz isn’t being shy about expressing his thoughts either. It feels very midwestern stern even as he did take a jocular swipe at Trump’s cankles.

Washington State Governor Bob Ferguson also issued some strong words about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s threats to prosecute government officials over immigration policies. Ferguson is strong willed, lawyerly, and reminded Trump of his legal defeats at his hands in Trump’s first turn at the wheel.

And rounding out the current pushback, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker addressed the Trump threat to send National Guard troops into Chicago by telling the Trump administration to stay out of Chicago. You have to admire this quote:

If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.

You can find the full text of Pritzker’s statement here and watch it below.

In discussing Pritzker’s remarks on social media today I responded to a friend who wondered what could be done to actually stop Trump from sending in troops. I answered that there was probably nothing. But once they get in, they’ll have the devil of a time getting out if it comes to that. That’s The Chicago Way.

It’s good to see these governors taking stands, at least on a strong rhetorical level. That’s the first step and is long overdue. Multiple approaches on multiple fronts addressing the multitude of threats is a positive.

Cynically you can argue that they each may be positioning themselves for higher office. I don’t think that matters, because this is when and where the fight is. More governors need to do the same because obviously the politicians in Washington (if they ever return from hiding) don’t have any knees left to bend.

But tough words are going to need to be matched with tough actions in the days ahead.

Buckle up.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Husbands, Wives, and Voting

Husbands and wives and the ballot box.

My mother and father have both been gone so long that I’m glad they don’t have to live through the political mess we’re in currently. Politics and voting seemed much simpler then. Until my father died my mother always voted the way he told her too. There wasn’t any bullying involved. It was just the way of things. They’ve both been gone long enough that this current political squabble about wives not telling their husbands that they are going to vote for Kamala Harris would make no sense to either one of them.

Jesse watters mad on fox.

As context, my first presidential election was 1972 and my dad and I argued over politics until he died in 1985. Needless to say we mostly didn’t see eye to eye. After Dad passed, Mom declared that going forward she would be voting with her children’s best interest in mind. She’d sound each of us out and make her own decisions. Sometimes we agreed. Sometimes we didn’t. She still leaned much more conservative than liberal, although in a few elections she surprised me. Had she lived long enough I’m convinced she would have voted for Hillary Clinton.

The intriguing thing, as I look back on it, was that Dad, and thus Mom, didn’t always vote one way or the other from a party perspective on a national or state level.

As I recall Dad was an Eisenhower Republican, but he voted for Kennedy and then again for Johnson. He voted for Nixon the second time around, but not his third. He voted for Mills Godwin when he ran as a Republican for governor the second time, but not when he ran as a Democrat the first time. Godwin won both times. So there was always a mix, and Mom always followed suit. Or at least that was the assumption.

Again, that was a different era in what seems like a different land.

From what I’m seeing these MAGAt dunces that are terrified of their wives voting secretly for Kamala Harris and lying to them about it probably need to worry about more than just how their household might split the vote. I’m guessing that’s one reason these Project 2025ers want to do away with no-fault divorce, along with everything else that provides women an equal footing.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Anne Applebaum’s Advice “These are not normal times. Be Prepared.”

Time to get prepared for what comes after the election.

Scary times. Halloween is approaching and so is the election. The scary energy heading into November 5 is more palpable and nerve wracking than whatever might come our way on the traditional fright night.

Contrary to the “undecided voter” narrative the media loves so well, it sure seems like the battle lines are well drawn. Early voting is kicking in, along with the final push to the polls and the legal and extra-legal moves to disrupt the vote.

At some point there will be a result, but that’s the catch in most throats. As decided as most voters are, they also seem to be resolved that what happens in the days, weeks, and months after the election is going to be when things become the most scary and frightful, keeping us awake at night.

Anne Applebaum has put together a guide of sorts for those who feel like spectators in this high stakes drama, offering advice for ways you can get off the sidelines and into the game.

Appropriately titled The Danger Is Greater Than in 2020. Be Prepared, it’s not only worth reading it’s worth noting how you can choose to get involved, because like it or not, we all will be.

Yes, the article might further exacerbate some anxiety, but frankly we all need to be on point and as Ms. Applebaum says “be prepared.”

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Fears rise as the election nears in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading

Time for some Sunday Morning Reading, with more than a dash of politics, culture, and tech mixed together and served up for your pleasure.

Why Do Politicians Lie? My $.02 is because they can and not enough of us seem to care. Bill Adair takes a look at What I Didn’t Understand About Political Lying.

Michael Moore thinks Joe Biden should use the immunity and powers granted the office of the presidency by the Supreme Court in his final days to take care of some business. I may not agree with everything on Moore’s list, but check out what he thinks in Bucket List Joe. I do agree with the principle though.

The election is just around the corner and having served previously as an election judge I know first hand the anxiety election workers up and down the chain are feeling. The New York Times Editorial Board takes a good look at the stakes for those folks, paid and volunteer, in The Election Will Need More Heroes.

The Atlantic, famous for not endorsing a presidential candidate each and every election, has endorsed Kamala Harris. The endorsement is no surprise. Endorsements are choices and Trump has increased their pace of doing so. Check out The Case for Kamala Harris.

Life is a gamble and sometimes you need to go all in. Natasha MH pushes her chips forward with Into the Battlefield Armed with a Toothbrush.

A bit or two on tech and AI that I found interesting this week. Apparently we’re running out of data to train these AI engines on, and we’re also running out of space in data centers to do that environment crushing work. Check out Microsoft Azure CTO: US Data Centers Will Soon Hit Size Limits from Reed Albergotti.

And on a frightening note, apparently Silicon Valley Is Debating If AI Weapons Should Be Allowed To Decide To Kill. Margus MacColl explores this tricky issue, which really shouldn’t be a tricky issue.

There’s also apparently slippage in the great gold rush to Artificial Intelligence as everyone chases a less than Holy Grail of turning these data crunching engines to machines that can reason. Gary Marcus says that LLMs Don’t Do Formal Reasoning-And That Is A HUGE Problem. For the investors, shareholders, and suckers perhaps. I’m guessing the rest of us are just fine with that.

The two hurricanes that hit the U.S have caused so much damage and for those suffering that has been multiplied by the political BS that has followed. Who would have thought that on the ground Neo-Nazi’s showed up to “help” but. more to the point, use the disasters and their aftermath as recruiting tools? Tawnell D. Hobbs, Jennifer Levitz and Joe Barrett explore When The Hurricane-Relief Worker Turns Out To Be a Neo-Nazi. Who would have thought it? Anyone who has read a history book.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

Spread the Word: Today Is National Voter Registration Day

Today is a good day to check your voter registration or register if you haven’t.

Spread the word. Today, Tuesday September 17, is National Voter Registration Day. It’s a good day to reach out to your friends, family members, and neighbors and encourage them to register if they haven’t or to check their registration if they have.

Depending on where you live keeping up to date on your registration is as crucially important as registering. We all know that some states are working to purge voter rolls or make voting more difficult. Certainly you can take care of this on other days, but don’t let the clock run out on you.

You can go to this link to check your registration or register.

Bottom line it is up to you to make sure you’ve got things lined up or raise hell if others are working to keep you from voting.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.