Category: politics

Saturday’s Political Thoughts

I’m still trying to understand Trump supporters. A NYT article shows how well Trump’s fears and lies are embedded among his supporters.

From the article:

Karen Cannestra does not like that drop box in front of West Bend City Hall.

Ms. Cannestra, 72 and retired, prefers to vote at her polling place in Wisconsin on Election Day, the way it was always done. It goes beyond personal preference, she says. Who knows the motives of the person who’s pulling those ballots out at the end of the day? Couldn’t somebody tamper with the process?

Isn’t that exactly what happened in 2020, she asked, when, she felt, the election was stolen?

“I don’t trust it, the drop box,” Ms. Cannestra said, before walking into City Hall to pay a utility bill. “No, no, no.”

So, she felt the election was stolen. “Who knows the motives of the person pulling those ballots out at the end of the day?” she wonders.

As much as anything, she’s flouting her ignorance. Not only on how the voting process works, etc. She’s flouting her ignorance about what’s happened in the courts regarding the ‘election steal’. No evidence has been presented that the election was stolen. Trump’s own administration called it the most secure election ever.

But, as we see we greater scrutiny, facts don’t get in the way of Trump support.

Later in the same article…

Another man said that he believed there was “corruption” on the City Council over the issue and that the city clerk, who has local authority over drop boxes, was not doing her job.

“I think it’s absolutely appalling what’s going on in our community,” he said.

He thinks…he believes…he doesn’t cite evidence.

What’s ‘absolutely appalling’ is how Trump has convinced these people to have faith in him and turned their brains into oatmeal. They don’t trust their friends and neighbors, nor their local elected officials. Certainly, they can’t trust Democrats!

And it’s all presented without any evidence.

And likewise, later in the article…

At a rally in Dodge County this month, Sheriff Dale J. Schmidt took the stage, turning to address Mr. Trump, who was campaigning there.

“I have something very important I think you’re going to want to hear,” Sheriff Schmidt said. “In Dodge County, in this 2024 election, there are zero drop boxes for the election.”

As the crowd erupted in cheers, Mr. Trump gave a double thumbs-up.

“We’re going to make sure that we have the best, most secure election in Dodge County history,” Sheriff Schmidt said.

(Sheriff Schmidt was wrong about the number of drop boxes; several municipalities in Dodge County have them, as the clerks pointed out last week.)

You see it yet again — lies and misinformation being offered as facts to a cheering crowd. What have these people done with their thinking? All of these examples show how Trump supporters swallow lies without giving it much thought.

Mind-fucking-boggling.

Imagine the cascade of insanity that will roll across the nation if Trump returns to the White House. Please, vote blue. Save us from the ignorance of Trump supporters.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: umgagleah

Hello. Welcome to Saturday, October 18, 2024.

Beautifully autumn outside. Trees blaze, showing off fab colors. Blue sky highlights the look as the sun beams on it like a doting father. We’re up to 62 F after an overnight shift into the upper thirties. 74 F degrees is being held out a possible high.

My floofs are on this weather like children going after their Halloween candy. It’s perfect feline weather for the moment. Each boi has staked out sunny spots and are living up to their stereotypes as well-groomed, sun-loving beasts.

We received our latest COVID Jab — or COVAB, as I put to others but it’s not catching on. Went much like our first jab back into 2021. First hours, okay. Last night, the vax slammed me down and wouldn’t let me up. I crashed in a big way. Wrapped up in sheets and blankets, my head felt like a match that’d been struck and was burning. Then I spent a period of shivering uncontrollably.

After about thirteen hours of sleep, I forced myself out of bed. The cats helped. They’re like, “Dude, we must be fed and let out. Come on, get your priorities straight and get your ass out of bed.”

So I arose like a creaking suit of armor. Made my path to the kitchen where coffee was administered. Coffee is a wonder drug, don’tcha know. Anyway, I thought along the lines of being out of sync physically and mentally, a condition that borders on being called ‘sick’. The Neurons began playing Jackson Browne and “Doctor My Eyes”. Grazing through the net, I found this version from “Playing for Change”. Hope you like it.

Stay positive and test negative. Get the jab, as it will help, in the long run. Here’s the music. Where is my coffee?

Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Back in the day…

Such a broad, specific expression. Back in the day for me is specific to a time period for me and others of my age, but when you’re a different age, well, back in the day is a different time.

Quick sidebar: while the youngest generations take up the expression, or will back in the day fade away?

Well, back in the day, it was easy to keep up on the news. Read a newspaper, turn on one of the big three network’s nightly news offering, and watch the local news.

Complications arose with the information age explosion and the digital age tsunami. Suddenly, I’m clicking on a story and there’s ten thousand variations on it. What was said, who said it, and what does it mean? You click and read and click, chasing the crumbs to learn what’s right.

Tough work these days, keeping up on truth and facts, and dodging lies and misinformation.

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Friday’s Political Thoughts

My wife and I ventured out of the house and down the street a mile to the Presbyterian Church. We’d signed up for the latest COVID vax shot being offered by Wellness 2000.

All went well with our paperwork and we joined the line for our turn. The woman ahead was wearing a pink ball cap. When she glanced back, I saw that it had “,la” on it. A Kamala supporter!

I began leaning forward to speak to her when my wife stepped up to the woman and said, “I love your hat.”

Nodding, I added, “I was about to say the same thing.”

The woman behind us said, “I was admiring it, too. That’s a great hat.”

The hat wearer replied, “Thank you. I suppose it depends on which side you’re on.”

The rest of us, joined by another woman, agreed. Then several of the women said, “You’re on the good side. We are, too.”

Vote blue in 2024.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: chillycool

Friday morning, October 18, 2024. Outside air temperature is 31 degrees F. Doesn’t stop the floofs from wandering out into sunshine. Heavy sunshine, no clouds, and sharp blue sky herald the trees’ autumn gowns. They show off vivacious, vivid golds, lemons, ambers, scarlets, reds, and orange among the greens. It’s a new show every year. Our high today will be in the mid 60s.

I got struck with a fake virus popup scam. Where they want you to buy, download, or call somewhere to get rid of it. Go in and clean it out later. Right now, it’s just an annoyance.

Picked it up when I was looking for birthday flowers for Mom last night. Clicked on one site. It came up with the standard thing about wanting to send me notifications. They seem like beggars to me with that ubiquitous plea, “Want me to send you notifications?” I can see them at a traffic corner, newspaper and water in hand, ready to clean your windshield for you. Anyway, I clicked no, of course, and bang, here was the scam. Deep grrrrrrrrrrooowwwlll.

I have a Twenty One Pilots song in the morning mental music stream (Trademark scammed). Song came out in 2009. The Neurons plucked it out of the stuff floating in memory because I was out there with the cats thinking, hey, it’s a good day. That’s basically the sense of TOP’s song.

Low-key, I’m alright
Would you say you depend on the weather?
My sunshine
Is a buzz and a light, I’ll be singing out
I know it’s hard to believe me, it’s a good day

h/t Genius.com

It’s a chill song with a simple rhythm. Big jaunty. Jaunty songs talk to me.

Heading off to get another COVID vax. Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee and I are doing our thing. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Political Thoughts

I enjoyed the Trump Univision town hall meeting from the other day. Here was a chance for voters to ask questions, and Trump could directly answer them, all unembellished by liberal media, teleprompters, ghosts, or voodoo. Of course, he didn’t dance for them as he did at a recent rally, so you know, they lost from that POV, I guess.

A man asked Trump about Jan. 6 and Trump’s role. Trump replied, “You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me, they came because of the election—they thought the election was a rigged election and that’s why they came.”

“Some of those people went down to the Capital. I said peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all, nothing done wrong. Action was taken, strong action.”

I like the video pan of the crowd as Trump is answering. Stern-faced, arms crossed, the people listened. When Trump says, “Ashli Babbitt was killed, nobody was killed,” a woman did a double take.

The camera caught it. She was clearly listening to what Trump said and heard the doublespeak inherent in his response.

My other favorite segment of that town hall came when Trump was asked about climate change.

Trump responded with one of his ‘beautiful, rambling weaves’. Yeah, that’s my snark showing through.

I want to highlight how he veers into his standard alphabet cereal answer. “So I always feel that with the climate and I have been a great, I have been an environmentalist. I built many things. I own Doral next door — ”

Point of order: Trump did not build Doral so it has nothing to do with his environmental record when it comes to building things.

But Trump goes on to make you think he did, “I own Doral next door and we did that in a very environment way — “

‘Environment way’? Where did Trump get his great, beautiful degree again?

“I got awards, environmental awards, for the way I built it, for the water, for the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and water.”

Trump didn’t get involved with Doral until 2012. Fifty years after it was built. If he won environmental awards for Doral, I can’t find it on the Internet. They seem to exist in much the same way as his healthcare plan: a concept promise of what could be.

Or an outright lie.

Vote blue in 2024.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeegalvanized

It’s a stillish fall morning outside the windows. Rain’s been falling from darkly loaded clouds. They’ve overtaken the blue and sun today.

It’s Thursday, October 17, 2024. Chilly with that rain, the high will be 61 and the low will be 37 F. Freeze warnings are in effect for tomorrow morning’s early hours. On the bright side of matters, our air quality is excellent, just single digits.

Got a call this morning from the county emergency system. Today is the great shake-out. They wanted us to pretend an earthquake was underway and practice surviving it. I’ve been through a few smaller quakes so I easily imagined the shaking.

The situation provoked some pre-coffee thinking. When I was a child in Wilkinsburg, PA, I remember us doing a duck and cover under my desk, in case the commies launched their nukes. Then, in the military, we were always practicing surviving war and natural disasters. There were fake NBC attacks. Fake unexploded ordinance to deal with. And of course, nukes and EMP. What would happen if we lost our telecommunications; how would we survive? We practiced decoding messages which would send us to war, and other exercises to receive notification hostilities were over. My career’s final years saw me fighting simulated space wars. Throughout, I was engaged in war planning, getting ready to deploy equipment to some theater’s front lines, etc., and reporting on our efforts to get ready and be ready, briefing the general who was our commander five days a week at one assignment, and getting ready to brief him.

Naturally, here in southern Oregon, we stay ready for wildfires. We have checklists and go-bags for evacuation. I’m fairly prepared in that regard, as I wrote local plans, checklists, and guidance for evacuating bases for wherver I was, and trained others in executing that stuff.

Seems like a lot of my life has been about getting ready. I was getting ready to be an adult as a teen. Beyond getting ready for war and natural disasters during, I was constantly getting ready for flu season, to move to another assignment, and I was getting ready for retirement.

Now I’m getting ready for my foot surgery. Getting ready for Mom and Dad to pass. That could be my life motto: “Get ready.”

Of course, as I reflect on my needs to get ready as a child and adult, I think it’s better than the active shooter drills so many children now go through to get ready for the real deal. Their need is driven by people with guns walking into schools and committing mass murder. My need to get ready was much more abstract and distant.

I have a pre-op appointment for my foot surgery next Wednesday. It’s to get me ready for the surgery. Actual surgery takes place the following Wednesday. The pre-op appointment came out of the blue. No phone call or coordination about what time works best for me; just a sudden message through Mychart telling me that the appointment was made. Poor communication, to me, and sort of arrogant, and annoying. Like, hey, what if I was out of town that day? Fortunately, I’m not, but still…

Today’s music comes via Tom MacInnes’s website. I enjoy Tom’s posts about music history, along with his experiences as a teacher and a father, particularly his stories about reading with his daughter and his students. Yesterday’s post was “The Great Canadian Road Trip…Song #76/250: Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne”. I ended up with “Sk83r Boi” in my morning mental music stream (Trademark bopping). It’s a lively, energetic song, and completely free and clear of political nuances, so I latched onto that. I need a political break from scanning news on either side of the schism, and tales of polls, rumors, innuendoes, and courts. Just give me some simple teenage offering.

I’m pretty pleased with it as a song choice. The Neurons had been offering “The Monkey’s Uncle” from the Disney movie with the same title. I don’t know why the hell The Neurons chose that song. Never saw the movie, but I knew of its elements, and obviously that song and some of the other songs the movie offered. That was from an era of beach movies. I never dug ’em.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee has been introduced to my systems once again and I believe I have a pulse. Here’s the music. Get ready for the election.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Political Thoughts

The GOP’s outrageous lying has my spouse issuing full-throated growls.

Some claim that lying is part of the political process. While acknowledging that truth, what’s happening now seems different. The Trump led GOP spreads fictions as easily as others butter toast. It doesn’t matter how far their claims stray from facts, truth, or reality. No subject is sacrosanct. If it will win them a vote, they’ll lie about it, and then lie that they lied about it.

My wife offers a solution. President Joe Biden should use the Supreme Court’s newly forged presidential immunity and start having these people making outrageous claims arrested. She doesn’t know what the charges would be; she figures President Biden is president, so he’s immune, right?

Sure, that’s kind of what the Roberts Court said about presidential immunity, leaving it open to interpretation what goes over the line.

We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity. At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient.

My tack is different; I think doing as she suggests would undermine our democracy and weaponize the DOJ in ways that won’t shut down for many election cycles.

She’s willing to take that risk to keep Trump out of the White House. She’s willing to do so, she says, because she does not doubt that is what the Republicans would do.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: wetandsane

It’s 54 F degrees. 61 is being looked at as the high. Rain and clouds give us a sloppy wet one in greeting. It’s Wednesday, the humpiest day of the week. October 16. We’re on the tenth month’s downside. November and the holidays beyond loom behind an uncertain gray veil, put there by the impending elections and the uncertainty sown by Trump.

Well, for some of us. Others are all, que sera, sera.

Had coffee duty this morning. Ordered two Starbucks Travelers and delivered them to the Family Y, where a surprise birthday party for a 95 year old friend was being put in place by her daughter. Used to be our neighbors across the street. Life and circumstances changed that. Now she lives in a cottage in her daughter’s backyard closer to downtown, about 1.5 miles away. This woman — the 95 yo — no longer drives so she walks around town or takes the bus. She’s vigorously involved in her church activities and other charity, and she exercises three mornings a week at the Y. My appreciation of her and admiration for her remains broad and deep.

I was asked to assist through my wife, natch. Her daughter reached out to my spouse, and my spouse reached out to me. No problem. I was due to deliver the coffee at 9:15 and entered at 9:16. My wife saw me and exclaimed, “You made it!” She made it sound like I’d finished the Oregon Trail.

Today’s music in fact comes from the latest Trump rally fiasco. No, not the one where he left people out there without rides back, without facilities, water, or food, as darkness came down. No, this is another one.

This is the one in Pennsylvania where a few of his attendees fainted. Instead of continuing the rally, Trump requested music.

Rather than continue after paramedics assisted the two people, Trump instructed his staff to just play music from a playlist he has personally curated and famously often turns on during dinners at Mar-a-Lago.

“Who the hell wants to hear questions?” Trump said at the event where the entire point was to take audience questions. “Right?”

What followed was more than 30 minutes of Trump swaying on stage and occasionally doing his well-known two-handed dance to some of his favorite tunes, chatting with the event’s host, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and occasionally interacting with attendees who were seated behind the stage.

“This is the weirdest church service I have ever been to,” a first-time rallygoer who did not give their name told NBC News of the music portion of the event, which opened with “Ave Maria.” 

So rather than questions and answers about policy, as expected at a political rally, Trump delivered some dancing and music. And at least one attendee mused about it being a ‘church service’.

I mean, really, WTF is going on over there in MAGA land?

The music it inspired The Neurons to play in the morning mental music stream (Trademark blown) comes by way of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. “Karn Evil 9” is all about the show. Guaranteed to blow your head apart. That’s how I feel ’bout many of the Trump shows. It’s a show with little substance. He gushs about himself and he insults others.

Off into the rain I go. Be strong and stay positive. Vote blue in 2024. Let’s keep sanity in the White House. Coffee and I have come together on a plan to jumpstart my heart.

Here’s the music. It’s a long one. Great drum solo. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Political Thoughts

There’s a gruff guy whose house I regularly pass. About my age, he sometimes nods but never speaks as he works on his yard, house, or car. If he was a novel stereotype, he’d be a bitter former Marine who saw combat and carries wounds. Just from the way he eyed me as I passed by on my walks, I guessed he was a Trump supporter or leaned that way.

I always remind myself that I can’t judge people by how they look. Appearances deceive. Someone glancing at me, with my American flag pin on my ever-present hat, might think of me as a Trump supporter. Sad that in our polarized age, waving the flag has become associated with our political system’s right wing.

Yesterday, a Harris-Walz sign appeared in his yard. He was doing something over by his outdoor spigot and glanced up. Walking by, I nodded hello, and then added, “I like your sign. I hope Harris wins.”

He replied, “So do I. I’ve donated money to her, and I’ll keep donating to keep that orange asshole out of the White House.”

Go Harris. Vote blue.

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