Tag: Politics

Is He Really Naked?

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” The words of Charles Dickens reach out to us over the centuries and still hold true. Within the US, you will find both sentiments existing simultaneously among the political tribes we are sorted into.

You find those who bought a celebratory bottle of sparkling wine after the first step was taken towards holding a former President accountable for his actions. And you will find those in sack cloth and ashes moaning about the complete collapse of the legal system in this nation if they were supporters of the former President. Taken as a whole, this nation has cognitive dissonance in how the actions of the legal system in the State of New York are viewed. But both sides are utterly convinced theirs is the correct interpretation of events. Indeed, I now see where the concept of alternative facts can appear. The facts themselves are not much in question, but how they are viewed through lenses of partisanship varies greatly.

One side sees the status of this nation torn to shreds by having the audacity of indicting a former President. The other side sees the honor of this nation upheld by a demonstration of the commitment to the rule of law, a commitment other nation-states can only dream about. What-aboutism has reared its head as one side tries to equate events in the 1990’s with interns, to the events of the last decade where the price of dalliance was made clear. It takes a bit of historical perspective to view events in their proper context.

It is apparent this nation is not where it used to be. Regardless of the personal sexual habits of politically connected individuals, there used to be a red line that could not be crossed if one wished to be taken seriously by the electorate. That red line was paying at least lip service to the concept of moral consistency with the sexual morality expressed in countless pulpits across the United States. But as the moral exemplars of the church yielded to the temptations of the secular world, be they related to money or sex, the moral authority of our political leadership also became compromised. So much so that when a candidate for President discussed his own privilege and preferences, his supporters were not bothered with his confession. He grabbed them by the pussy, just like he could grab the pussy of anyone else who caught his wandering eyes.

He could not be bought. That was his original argument. His business empire threw off so much cash he could ignore the traditional high rollers of campaign finance. But with a political environment so corrupted with money (equivalent to speech), by the time the second run for office came about, he was less picky about who supported him financially. Sure, the small donor was satisfying. After all, a few million supporters averaging $30 per capita could exceed even the mega moneys of the privileged class. There were efforts made to crack open the aura of financial success, like the reporting of the New York Times. But by the time serious investigation into his business “successes” was made public, his followers had morphed into a cult incapable of hearing any flaws in their leader’s public persona.

So one group sees the Emperor in his gaudy clothes, while the members of another group is blinded by the glare of lights upon the gilded fixtures in his palaces. Meanwhile, his true business successes remain few and far between, and without a television series adding to his mystique, slowly his true nature becomes visible to many. But what is really wild, is that he still reigns over the wreckage of the party he appropriated. Once the Republican party was a party of ideas, and those ideas were discussed and debated on the platforms of this nation’s elections. By 2020 though, the Republicans actually committed themselves to “what he says”. Never have I seen a party completely abdicate its responsibility to enunciate its principles. Not until this last election where the dedication to a cult leader became absolute. It mattered not who objected to this charade. An entire party apparatus was usurped, with the added effect that anyone who disagreed with the dear leader immediately became subject to the charge of being a RINO. Good luck at trying to convince any of his true followers of their leader’s faults and foibles. Indeed, we are now in a world where attempts to hold the man accountable for his actions has become reinforcement for the cult member’s beliefs of unjustified political persecution. It may take shooting someone on Fifth Avenue before his true believers would open their eyes to the actual nature of their leader. But given his style, he would just suggest that someone should be shot, and one of his deluded followers will take it on themselves to execute the desire of the leader. That way, he can claim he was only warning about what was to come, not that he was responsible for nudging someone into fulfilling his desires. Buckle up, because the ride is just beginning.

What Did We Talk About Before 2015?

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Again and again, the national discourse is being hijacked by an unworthy person. The gift of rotting fish just won’t go away. He obviously is incapable of taking a hint, or even 80+ million hints as of the last presidential election. No, what he insists is that he is incapable of making a mistake, and all of the past times when he was captured, in video or on calls violating the laws of the nation, those were just perfect human interactions. Perfectly normal for someone to insist they received five figure vote totals higher than he actually did. I am sorry he feels so persecuted and put upon by the citizens of this nation who were repulsed by this overweight hulk of a man who is nearly incapable of walking down an inclined plane. Surely people should have gotten the message (carefully crafted by his cabinet lackeys) that he was not guilty of collusion with Russia during his original political campaign. Maybe not guilty of legal collusion, but certainly he was intertwined with his Russian counterpart through less formal means of obtaining foreign assistance to help in his initial election.

It continues to amaze me so many still rush to defend this toddler. So many are caught up in his cult of personality, vulgar as it is. I guess that is his appeal. He does not avoid vulgarities, in fact, his entire adult life has been a series of vulgarities and they continue to this day. How can you stand to support someone who is the antithesis of all things patriotic. The image of him literally embracing the flag at some convention of losers was obscene on so many different levels. Perhaps the most obscene was that the person who wanted to claim the literal image for himself (hugging the flag) is the same individual who denigrated and denounced those who had actually sacrificed for this nation. When his generation’s opportunity for military service came about, he manipulated a physician to provide a diagnosis of bone spurs. That has to be the 20th century equivalent of paying someone to take their place, something wealthy New Yorkers were accustomed to back in the civil war.

I still subscribe to the quaint belief that a President should be a moral example to those he or she leads. As in so many cases, that belief was shattered when we elected a moral klutz, incapable of behaving in a consistent, upright manner. Looking at that perspective, it is not necessarily the recipient of the votes who we should be denouncing, but those who so willingly gave their votes. So we will call out those who are determined to be Old Testament and Letters of Paul Christians. They seem to love the tones of vengeance prevalent in the Old Testament, along with the homophobia and misogyny evident in Paul’s letters. The Jesus of the Gospels? Never heard of him. All of this woke, touchy-feely stuff about loving your enemies, and welcoming the stranger is not meant to apply in this day and age. No, if you can’t demand a good smiting of those you disagree with, what good is it to belong to an Evangelical congregation?

Unfortunately, those who feel ill-suited to exist in this nation in the 21st century have shown an ability to project their voices stridently and to shout over those who disagree with them. Since they found a hero who gave voice to their sublimated desires to express their racism, you hear expressions of racism spoken proudly in our public spaces. Those of us who are opposed to these cretins are dependent upon people being reasonable and thoughtful to sway them back to a shared reality. We keep running up against the vitriol of those who insist upon terrorizing anyone who deigns to disagree with the mob who denigrates wokeism. If their leader insists the election was stolen, then by gum, and by golly, it must have been stolen. Anyone who says otherwise is itching for a fight.

I consider myself to be a fighter in this war for the conscience of this nation. I pay for my own platform in the form of this blog to put my own thoughts into the public sphere. I realize I am influencing almost no one, since I have a small readership, and those who disagree with me often will not bother to read anything requiring an attention span greater than a typical Tik-Tok video. Still, I am able to express my thoughts and am willing to put myself out there for hearing opposing points of view.

We are in grave danger of totally losing this experiment in representative democracy. If those individuals who demonstrate antipathy to morality manage to find their way back into power, we will soon find ourselves in a dystopian world where Orwell’s creatures would be totally comfortable. “Who controls the past, controls the future”. “War is peace”. And “The best books … are those that tell you what you know already”. All of these are sentiments just waiting for reemergence in a new administration. After all, we’ve already suffered through alternative facts. We see the extreme efforts aimed at erasing the past, so that we can all read the books that only tell us what we already know. Once we have a totally ignorant generation brought up in these beliefs, it will be nigh unto impossible to reverse the downward spiral we seem determined to impose upon ourselves.

Reduce Carbon Footprint? Ha-Ha!

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I really wanted an opportunity to reduce my carbon footprint by getting rid of my gas stove and going to an induction cooktop. But alas, I live in West Virginia. Here there is no commercial option to replace methane with electricity generated without the aid of fossil fuels. In fact, in this state, we still receive 91% of our electricity from coal – the fuel source with the most possible emissions of carbon dioxide. In this state, we have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the current age, since we want to segregate ourselves in the past when America was great.

In this state, those companies who wish to insure they have a source of low carbon energy are viewed as radical woke environmentalists, and the legislature has made it extremely difficult to implement alternative energy sources. At the residential level, the state has left in place roadblocks against any form of community solar energy, which is about the only option I would have since our house alignment is not conducive to installing solar panels. See, we love coal in this state, and we will do our best to ensure we use this fuel source until we’ve stripped every minimal vein from under our feet. Yes, strip mining is still a thing, only we use explosives to rip off the tops of ridges in order to gain access to the black gold still in the ground. Putting the surface back into some semblance of the previous terrain? Yes, that is what the law says you should do, but even the most responsible companies kind of punt on this, leaving a slightly rolling surface good for – well, just what is this ground good for, once the top soil has been blasted away leaving behind only rubble. More on this later.

Coal mining is macho. The image in this state of a young, virile male coal miner leaving in the morning with their lunch bucket in hand, off to fulfill some companies plan to provide fuel for power plants. This image is strong and resilient. Why bother getting an education since you will likely be involved in extracting coal from the ground for a living? And make no mistake, it is a good living. It is the only job capable of sustaining a middle-class lifestyle in much of this state. But there is so much to coal mining that is bad. Since the veins of coal are so thin, any method of extracting the coal involves much more exposure to rock dust. Rock dust? Try almost pure silica. Increased exposure to silica is fueling an epidemic of black lung among the same young, virile miners mentioned earlier. Whereas black lung used to affect miners in their 50’s, this new variety is hitting younger miners, often in their 30’s and 40’s.

Black lung is not the only problem. Especially when engaging in mountain top removal, the tailings are pushed over the side of the mountain. Selenium is one of the components in the rock other than silica, and it leaches out of the exposed rocks and is released into the disturbed streams. There it can lead directly to fish kills, or indirectly lead to human disease via rudimentary water services requiring the use of the degraded water. And remember, in order to remove the rocks atop of the coal, explosives are used to blast off the overburden. The dust from these blasts settles down in the area, causing exposure to silica dust even for those who do not benefit from mining jobs. In all, a lousy way to free up a burnable resource.

Of course, we should not worry about the end product of coal combustion. Carbon dioxide is a necessary resource for plants, at least that’s what I read in anti-global warming tracts. But what is not stated (perhaps due to an antipathy towards evolution) is that existing plants are finely tuned to their current environment. Changing two of the components necessary for growth (temperature and carbon dioxide) at the same time is, as the movies have said, Risky Business. Of course, most of those who deny that climate change is real and caused by human emissions hold sway at local political levels. We see that in West Virginia where one of the State Senators with jurisdiction over coal adoration has called renewable energy a “fairy tale”. Well, sir, my education was as a chemical engineer, and in my pursuit of that education I took several semesters of thermodynamics and atmospheric science. For humanity to have the hubris to return much of the carbon sequestered over millions of years into the atmosphere in a geological eye blink and not expect any unanticipated consequences is indeed, folly. I do not care that carbon dioxide is only several hundred parts per million in the atmosphere. Greatly increasing that amount will not cause Eden to break out over all of earth. We will instead see instability of weather patterns (polar vortex invasions in winter), flooding events in summer (warmer air can contain more moisture and the increase is exponential), and an increase in what is considered clear weather flooding due to sea rise.

Earlier I referred to the land made mainly level after reclamation from mountaintop removal. What can such land be used for? Since the topsoil was scattered to the winds, the remaining soil makes a poor candidate for any growing activity. It is well suited, though, for solar farms, since this will not displace productive farmland. Can we adjust to a passive energy source after having depended upon land disruption for so long to feed the coal industrial complex? We will have to examine our soul as a state and summon the will to make legislative changes that support this change, rather than consider it a “fairy tale” suitable only for those with gossamer wings. This transition has started in West Virginia, but it is an exception, even at this late date.

Slimey Works For George Santos

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I was ambling down the sidewalk when I spied a familiar form speeding along coming towards me. It was none other than my old friend Slimey, the original DC swamp monster. His 8’ reptilian form was hard to miss, even if he tried to disguise it with clothing.

“Slimey” I shouted, as I attempted to intercept him before he could race past me. It was obvious he was in a hurry, but he did stop as soon as he heard my voice.

“Friend,” he called out. “You are just the person I was looking for. You may be able to help me out,” Slimey hissed in that distinctive accent of his. Amazing what a reptilian accent sounds like. Some of the consonants just don’t come across completely.

“What can I do for you?” I responded. Most of the time, I scarcely knew what to do with Slimey’s issues. I could guess this was going to be another time where I would be at a loss.

“You may be able to help me out with a situation concerning my employer. See, I’ve taken a position in a Congressman’s office.”

I shuddered to think of any representative who would employ an 8-foot tall reptile who crawled out of the Tidal Basin. Then it came to me.

“You are working for George Santos!” I exclaimed.

“A very good guess.” Slimey confirmed my suspicions by his nodding of his enormous head packed full of razor-sharp teeth. “Now, I need your help with a problem he has.”

I thought for a moment about the massive fraud that is George Santos. How he was elected to office as the epitome of a volleyball-playing, large bank lackey, college graduate, with parents who survived the holocaust but somehow didn’t survive the consequences of 9/11, only to be discovered after election as a member of the checked box “None of the above” club. It seemed George Santos didn’t need any of my ideas about how to deal with his issues. Still, I owed it to Slimey to at least provide an effort at a response. “What exactly is George’s problem.”

Slimey took a second before answering, stretching his neck as his head surveyed the heavens, then he said “George really doesn’t need his glasses. He wears them strictly for effect. He’d like to alert the world about this, in order to give up having to remember them, but no one is ready to believe the truth coming from his mouth.”

It took me almost no time to form a response. “You say he’s having a problem since no one would believe anything he says is the truth?”

Slimey shook his head in affirmation. “Yes, that’s his problem in a nutshell.”

I walked along the Washington street in silence, trying to come up with a response that would be practical but also represent my deep concern about this fraudster polluting the halls of Congress. “Can I ask just one question? Given his proclivity to, er, enhance his resume on serious matters, why is he concerned about something he wears?”

Slimey looked down at me, and even though his face was mainly frozen due to his massive jaw and rapier-like teeth, it seemed as if he was sneering at me. He said, “I can’t believe you are diminishing his problem so much. This one item is occupying his mind full-time, and it’s up to me to come up with a solution.”

I nodded my understanding, and stood still in silence. Around us, the hordes of K Street denizens barely took notice of our presence, save to slightly swerve around us, Everyone was engaged with their phone. Indeed, I wondered whether Slimey could have existed in the pre-cellphone days. Someone would have noticed his enormous form.

I finally said, “Maybe you could try this. Since everyone is convinced what he says is a lie, try just one more lie. Say that he has contracted an eye disease requiring him to expose his eyeballs to full air flow. That way he can take off his glasses, and everyone will think, yeah, just another one of his frauds, er, enhancements. He won’t have to worry about carrying those glasses along, and this will slide down to the bottom of the list of items for the press to be concerned with.”

Slimey stood staring at me. Then he went, “Why didn’t I think of that? That is a brilliant solution. I can’t wait to tell him about it.” And he turned away from me and went on down the street, leaving me alone.

All I had to do now was try to remember what I was doing before Slimey showed up, Fortunately, my stomach chose this time to emit a rumble, reminding me I was in search of the perfect chili dog before I was interrupted.

For a previous look at Slimey in his DC abode, see this: https://wordpress.com/view/evenabrokenclock.blog#:~:text=evenabrokenclock.blog/2022/07/19/yosemite%2Dsam%2Dmeet%2Dslimey

What Do We Do Once We Catch the Car?

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So the great speaker chase is over. Kevin McCarthy caught the prize, although the actual prize differed greatly from what he originally sought. Rarely have I seen such naked ambition overwhelm common sense and a sense of self-dignity, but then what do you expect in this, the age of the TikTok 5 second video receiving millions of views. The national attention span has gotten smaller and smaller as social media has gone through successive generations. Pretty soon we will be reduced to subliminal messaging serving as the primary exchange medium for philosophical insights.

There is no doubt but that this is a different world from the one I grew up in. I grew up knowing it was necessary to pay for my debts, not to foist them off on future generations. And so I ended up being a saver, and was fortunate enough to find a life partner with a similar sensibility. As a result, we will not have to worry about our retirement. Heck, it’s now been 8 years since I’ve worked for a salary, and our savings just this year declined for the first time, but that was due to general market conditions and not due to withdrawals. My former employer allowed me to retire and keep family medical coverage, paying a pension in addition. On top of that, we had a savings plan even before the advent of 401k’s which transitioned neatly into a tax-deferred plan later on. As such, I realize how lucky I’ve been when compared to the average person of my age.

Unfortunately, at a national level, we’ve found it extremely difficult to pay for our debts. One political party has insisted reducing taxes for the wealthy is the best way to ensure prosperity for all. Though experience has shown the futility of this practice, it is the original “big lie” we’ve lived with for over 40 years. Only once in my lifetime has the national tax / spend account been balanced. I can still remember the dismay as pundits feared a loss of government paper for all entities who needed a guaranteed income stream. They were certain that the temporary excesses of income over expenditure by the federal government would become a permanent condition. Thus the haste in ratcheting down tax rates as soon as the Republican administration took office in 2001. Then the war on terror happened, and the need to pay for the increased military expenditures never crossed the minds of the party in charge of this national budget.

So when a real economic emergency happened, in 2008, the only solution available was incremental borrowing and throwing money at financial institutions. Of course, we had to pretend we cared about the budget, so a series of machinations took place to keep discretionary spending level. Meaning that we had no money available to deal with the infrastructure needs that kept getting deferred. Then we had a new administration who represented the worst of all possible worlds. A faux-populist who was manipulated into pretending we had short-changed military spending, while insisting on adhering to the mantra of increasing prosperity through lowering tax rates for individuals and most of all, for corporations. Then, when COVID hit, the only weapons available were to: 1) Ignore the pandemic, hoping it was just a ploy that would soon be a minor irritant, and 2) Throw lots and lots of money at the economy in the hopes of keeping personal spending alive.

Now, three years later, we have no clue how to return to normality. Increasing tax rates is still off the table, though experience has shown increasing rates up marginally does not reduce economic activity. Indeed, government sometimes has had to be the first investor in an area in order to spur increased economic activity. Only the government is able to spend money which will not pay off fully for a generation or longer. The private sector cannot operate on that long of a payback period. No, activist investors will instigate a corporate takeover for any public corporation trying to improve the public good rather than maximizing short-term payback. But the insistence on quantifying the 10-year spending for any program lends itself towards propaganda, making it appear to mathematically-impaired citizens that all of the money is being spent right now, and of course, that is why we have inflation. It’s all Biden’s fault!

So how do we get out of the dilemma we find ourselves in? Early feedback from the House Speaker race is not hopeful. We will anticipate the upcoming federal government shutdown as these inept representatives strut and preen pretending to save the nation from overspending. Yet still none will consider any solutions involving an increase in taxation. Look, the ship on adhering to the letter of the constitution sailed long ago. In the name of the commerce clause, and in the name of addressing the general welfare of the nation, we’ve developed an entire series of programs which would be impossible to remove from the fabric of this economy. Imagine how this nation would function without social security? Yet you will not find a single phrase in the constitution authorizing a national pension program.

We will be entertained with a call for a new constitutional convention. Those loudest in this call are those who wish to return to the original intent of the founding fathers. Meanwhile, the world has long gone past the strictures of the 18th century. In order to compete in the marketplace of ideas and economies, we do need a new social contract developed. Can those who favor a more expansive view of allowable government activities ever reach an agreement with those who believe all government is bad? That seems to be the battle of our age.

Thus Endeth This Cycle

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 So the mid-term elections are over. We hear all of the pundits now either crowing about their prescience on their absolute knowledge of the coming lack of a red wave, or bemoaning the fact that the electorate did not wish to continue the trek towards authoritarianism represented by the MAGA wing of the Republican party.

Some trends continued. In North Carolina, which voted 50% Republican to 49% Democrat in the 2020 election for state legislators, but had a 69-51 margin in legislative seats, continued their trend of unrepresentative selections. Republicans won 71 seats in the North Carolina house in this election, although the actual votes for the two parties is not yet available. In my state of West Virginia, almost a complete wipeout of Democratic legislators occurred. 16 of the 17 Senate seats in this state went to Republicans.

But for those of us who like to live in a democratic republic, the national election results did provide some hope. We saw what happened when a drop of Trumpism was placed in a peach tree dish, causing the Republicans in the dish to flee. All Secretary of State candidates who pledged to overturn election results if they were not to their liking, ended up on the scrap heap of electoral losers. We shall see if the Democratic lead holds up for Arizona, where Katie Hobbs is holding on to a razor-thin margin over everyone’s favorite Trump toady, Kari Lake.

In the US House, Kevin McCarthy (or whoever takes the speakership) will find out how difficult it is to herd cats. The House under Democratic control was a messy place, but the Progressive Caucus at least found it possible to hold their noses and vote for policies which they disagreed with. Somehow, the Freedom Caucus does not seem inclined to follow the lead of the Progressives, and have pledged always and every time to put ideology over governing. Good luck on holding a majority together. Expect to see one or two changes in party over the next several months as it becomes evident how difficult it is to govern the rowdy crowd of Republican legislators.

It was in the US Senate where the most interesting results were recorded. Not only did the Republicans fail to take over control, they actually have the potential to lose one seat due to the “quality” of their candidates. It certainly appears that the only ability Herschel Walker possesses is his ability to hit the hole. We will find out in early December whether the Republican denunciation of intellect and ability will overcome the erudition of Rafael Warnock. I’ve had just about enough of the Republican’s overt campaign against people on the right hand of the intelligence bell curve. Republicans do believe in affirmative action. They gather as many as possible who lack mental capabilities. Witness Ron Johnson, Tommy Tuberville, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Matt Gaetz as poster children for needing affirmative action. It is only due to fortune that they will not have to share the stage with Louie Gohmert, and Madison Cawthorn.

So we will end up with nearly the status quo on the national level. Yes, the Republicans will likely have the ability to stuff the House agenda full of nonsense legislation and pointless investigations, but the flame of Trumpism does seem like it is flickering, threatening extinguishment. Just remember. The embers will stay hot for a long while, and it is very possible for flames to reignite from the remains.

Quiet Time In West Virginia

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There are times when it is good to live in West Virginia. We are only subjected to the fringes of political advertising, mainly because there are no large-scale political contests within the state. The closest we have come to a political kerfuffle is the argument between two wings of a single political party over who we give power to in order to reduce our taxes. It is hard to believe the changes in legislative representation within the past 40 years. My wife worked for the Senate Republicans when there were exactly 3 members of the WV Senate who were of that party. Now, it is a super-majority of Republicans who have control of the Legislative agenda.

So we’ve been spared of the endless procession of political advertisements on television. We can still worry about the side effects (excuse me, contraindications) for the endless procession of pharmaceutical products we are supposed to pester our physicians into prescribing for us. I’m glad we don’t have to obsess over obvious falsehoods in the political ad landscape.

It is amazing how one party has rid itself of shame in lying about matters political. One party seems determined to spread as many falsehoods as possible, while distancing itself from all semblance of morality. Once upon a time, there was a serious discussion about whether the electorate could ever accept a divorcee as its choice for the Presidency. Now, we rhapsodize over a thrice married cad who found it necessary to pay hundreds of thousands in hush money in order to cover up yet another dalliance while his newest wife recovered from childbirth. Or, at least the followers of one party wax rhapsodic over this pitiful snowflake.

Anyway, in West Virginia, we’ve avoided all of these petty squabbles. We only have to determine whether we give the Legislature power over all matters scholastic, all matters judicial, and all matters concerning revenues for local services. Somehow, there is also a question about incorporation of churches on the ballot, but it has received no discussion. The only commercials this season has spawned concern the tax issue (follow the money). We’ve somehow avoided the culture wars over book availability, we’ve already cast out those who would change their gender in order to gain advantage in high school athletics, and our Attorney General has already been successful in telling the evil EPA to limit itself. So our airwaves remain relatively unpolluted, unlike our waterways which will continue to receive effluent from untreated industrial sources.

Next election cycle, we will reenter the noise of the election cycle. No, not from the elections for the two representatives for the US House, where our illustrious representatives will undoubtedly continue their content-free reign as our anointed choices. No, we will be subjected to a US Senate race, a Governor’s race, and our Attorney General and Secretary of State offices. Maybe we can do as well as Arizona is now, with armed “patriots” guarding all of our early voting locations, in order to prevent multiple ballots per person. Having voted in the dense urban environment of South Charleston for 30 years, where I at least recognize the poll workers as the same ones who have been there forever, I somehow doubt that we are capable of election fraud. However, that doesn’t seem to matter to one party, they are more than happy to make claims about election fraud even when their side wins by 30%. I can’t wait till then.

It Is Happening Here

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Original gerrymander

I will admit I am more than a bit puzzled over the direction politics have taken in this country. Not just since 2015 when Trump rode the escalator down to begin his campaign, but beginning back after Barack Obama was elected. I saw the Rick Santelli rant live in early 2009 that began the tea party movement, and realized at that time how prescient and how divisive his words were. They were prescient since they acknowledged this country was not of one mind, but had become a bimodal distribution, where one group had grabbed all of the growth in the economy, and one group had lagged behind, suffering competitive disadvantage as the world’s manufacturing was reconfigured to arbitrage labor and regulatory costs. The words were divisive since a sub-group of Republicans used the energy released from Rick’s rant to grab onto elective power, leading to such eminent personalities as Marjorie Taylor Greene.

We now have one of the two political parties in this country who have completely adopted a nihilist philosophy. This party believes our federal government is totally broken, and violence is justified in breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces, leading to its dissolution. That is why so many folks do not recognize 1/6/21 as an insurrection. To true believers of this philosophy, they internalize what Barry Goldwater claimed nearly 60 years ago.  “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!” were the words Barry said in his acceptance speech for his presidential nomination in 1964. It has taken nearly 60 years, but that is now the mantra shared by far too many of the followers of Donald Trump.

What is worse, this philosophy has been successful at the state level far too many times. While Democrats were congratulating themselves over their success at a national level, the real power was slipping between their fingers at the state level. Indeed, we are about to see the fruits of two rounds of redistricting solidify control of Red legislators at the state level. You now have states like North Carolina, which had a 50% (Republican) to 49% (Democratic) result in voting for state legislative seats. Due to just one round of gerrymandering, this resulted in a 69 (Republican) to 51 (Democratic) margin in the North Carolina house. What will happen this year after a second round of gerrymandering? It will probably increase the margin of Republican legislators despite what the voters of the state really want as reflected by their votes.

So the Republican Nihilists are not yet resting on their laurels. They have discovered another tier of government they can eat away at like termites chowing down on a stack of 2×4’s. The down ballot races at the state level, like Attorney General, and Secretary of State, are actively being devoured by deniers. Soon these false prophets will have us writing out our choices for any office in cursive, and woe be to those whose script is deemed illegible. These luddites do not accept that machines have an error rate orders of magnitude less than humans. They realize they only need one cycle of elections to break the habit of citizens to vote. So much of our democracy rests on the premise that our votes count, even if candidates we support are unsuccessful. If an election cycle goes through where it becomes obvious that inconvenient votes do not count, millions who are only tangentially connected to the voting process will make the decision to skip any future elections.

That is when the Republican Nihilists will have truly won. What travesties they will attempt to institute when there is no one to provide a counterbalance, one can only guess. All I keep thinking about is the question I heard growing up – how could the Germans have supported a system that led to Hitler taking power? In future years, after I am gone, I can only hope we do not have future generations asking how we in the United States could have gone so wrong. It can indeed happen here.

Washed in the Bodily Fluids of The Man

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Let me introduce myself. I am the newly anointed nominee for Senator in this state. Why, the big man has approved me because I was willing to lick his boots in exchange for his endorsement. And once I’ve gotten the endorsement for the nomination from The Man himself, I’ve been forgiven of all of my sins in the past.

What sins, you may ask? Well, let me go and summarize just a few of them. But it is important to note that all of my sins are now washed away in the blood of the lamb, or whatever bodily fluid happens to emanate from The Man.

There was the time I may have paid for one of my many admirers to have an abortion. It is important to note that now I am totally against any abortion at any time, no matter the circumstance. But in my past, my sinful past, I had many admirers, and one of them seduced me in a moment of weakness. Wouldn’t you know it? The condom broke, and this admirer found herself in a state of pregnancy. Well, I couldn’t allow that to happen, could I? A good family man like myself carrying on like a teenager? I was much older than that, and I knew better. And I knew there was a way out of this dilemma. I took it, and I’m not proud of it. But you already knew about my sinful past, now that I’ve been totally forgiven for all my earlier transgressions.

Oh, and about the school set up in my name, that seems to have been totally a scam? I can’t believe I could convince so many people to grab another mortgage on their house just to hear my words and learn my tricks. Of course, talking a foreign bank into taking yet another flyer on me and my wonderfulness for a high-rise development is so different from convincing a local bank to allow you to leverage yourself further in order to buy another rental home. But the rubes just kept coming. I couldn’t believe it when the state required me to desist and broke up my school. I even had to refund a portion of the fees! Imagine that. I was held responsible for my actions! Never happened before, never will again. Remember I’ve been forgiven of all of my previous transgressions.

Then there was the time when I used my own weapon to put down some of those rioters way back in 2020. See, I was only trying to protect the law-abiding property owners from the potential harm from the sea of protestors marching down the street. What else was I to do when some of them actually tried to pry my gun from my twitching fingers. Yeah, I’m sorry that two of them were killed, but all of that was in my before times. All of that has now been forgiven.

Look, I know some of the lamestream press went off when they saw those pictures of me in a confederate uniform. For God’s sake, I was at a battle reenactment and you needed some of those taking part to be on the losing side, even though their cause was just. And the uniform fit so well, I just had to wear it for Halloween, and that fancy costume party I went to. And can you imagine someone took pictures of me, and tried to show I had a pattern of only wearing the greys?  Just because I made some posts during the early days of social media wishing wistfully for the return of the previous era, it doesn’t mean I haven’t been totally redeemed and forgiven. I’m a changed man now.

As far as my beliefs go, I will admit that I dabbled in Q-anon, but all of that is now behind me. Just because I have called for my state to reverse its actions in the election two years ago, it does not mean I really believe a group of Democrats are kidnapping tens of thousands of babies, and draining their blood in satanic rituals in order to extract the youth-restoring compounds. Who in their right mind would believe that? And after all, this all occurred in my before times, before I found forgiveness. My past does not matter.

I will admit I had to grovel in front of The Man and proclaim him the rightful winner of the last election. Of course, that means the person in the White House is a usurper, and any actions taken to remove a usurper are perfectly in line with the moral compass of the universe. I do believe we will be able to reinstate The Man to his rightful role, and ignore that stupid clause in the Constitution limiting the terms in office. Why, I see no reason ever to limit the length that The Man can serve in office. And as healthy as he is, he should be able to drive that golf cart down the fairway of life for a long time. Not like that relic usurper, pretending that bike riding is morally and physically better than golfing. You won’t find me doing useless exercise. I don’t want ever to take away from my lifespan by breaking a sweat.

Well, there you have it. I hope you now know much more about me, and you will certainly want to vote for me instead of that Nobel Laureate I am running against. What do those folks on the Nobel committee ever do? Just keep rattling on about contributions to humanity. Well, I have so much more to offer than one of those fakers the Nobel committee chooses to honor. I don’t see that my opponent has ever been forgiven by The Man. That is the highest honor in the world to me.

It Was A Perfect Raid

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So, it is possible that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were correct back in 2016. Donald, for his infamous claim about being able to shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any followers. And Hillary, for her astute observation about the nature of many Trump followers – that they were truly deplorable people. Of course, being as that statement came from the enemy, it was adopted as a badge of honor. I still remember middle-aged women wearing Adorable Deplorable t-shirts to announce their affiliation. In the end, it was a statement that undoubtedly contributed to her defeat. It doesn’t detract from the veracity of the observation.

If nothing else, the events of this past month show that Donald truly does not care about anything but himself. No one else would take the issues about secret files and weave them into a conspiracy blanket of victimhood for himself. As Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Donald Trump has shown himself to a national audience since the 1970’s. The prime example of someone who has failed upwards, he never has had to face consequences for his actions. His multitude of business failures occurred upon piles of borrowed money, so once the debt was restructured, Donald ended up in a nominally better position than when he started. That the epitome of his success is a private club in a soon-to-be submarine barrier island is fitting. He doesn’t even realize his peril in the future. Of course, for him the future is irrelevant.

What we see in his frenzied communications is a refusal to accept responsibility for any problem he faces. In fact, he seems bound and determined to deny he has transgressed at all. And his quislings are more than happy to provide ever more fantastic justifications for his actions. No, there is no problem with storing top secret information next to a country club ballroom. What could go wrong? And in legal filings, we see that we should consider the entire matter as nothing more serious as overdue library books. Gaah!

Of course, the world view of the cult leader and his followers is totally consistent. When you look back at the pitched battle to gain access to the Capitol Building on January 6 as normal political discourse, then seeing top secret information stored at a country club is nothing more than an overdue book. At least he is consistent, although many view him as a self-caricature He thinks he is an alpha male, and his strutting and preening emphasizes his manliness to his fallen admirers. They are the ones with the Rambo images, that head affixed to an assault-weapon wielding savior of the race.

All of these admirers are so far beyond the pale that they perceive any criticism as “divisive”. As if his words and actions brought people together. No, these people not only do not accept criticism, they have convinced themselves that criticism is blasphemy. How do you reason with people who share no elements of rationality with you? You can’t, that’s how. The only way this cult will go away is through repeated repudiation at the ballot box, though the stage has been set for the cult members to reject any such repudiation as just another stolen election.

Indictment is coming. Like it or not, the event that can draw his followers into forming an army of brown shirts with MAGA lettering is just ahead. We know what actions his deluded followers will take, they’ve announced their intentions on all media forums where they hold sway. Those in charge at a Federal or State level must hold firm to their convictions so that we can finally get a conviction for the egregious behavior we’ve seen over the past 7 years. His true followers? They are so far gone it may take a generation for the damage wrought by the orange one to disappear. After all, we have a world full of real problems to face as a nation.  We’ve lost far too much time worrying about the actions of the unhinged. It is time to move on.