Question about Scariest Stephen King Villain

 There was an open question posted on my Facebook news feed: which Stephen King villain character is deservedly the scariest?  The comments varied, but the one that resonated with me the most was Randall Flagg, the murderous manipulator from his epic The Stand.  Donald Trump, who speaks and acts like he thinks he's the Supreme Dictator and expects his lapdogs to obediently follow suit, to me seems to pattern his entire presence on the King antagonist.  In that novel Flagg takes advantage of a deadly pandemic in order to establish absolute tyranny over a stricken planet.  i wonder just how far he is willing to go as he attacks civil order here, vulnerable internationals, and even entire nations.  "Our" Trump mentioned in passing that Cuba is "next"...I wonder what unprovoked violence he is about to inflict on a place that, in a more peaceful, reasonable world, could have become a very prosperous, attractive tourist destination.  When I was growing up, Fidel Castro and Krushchev were scapegoated for being America's Cold War antagonists.  But now that they're gone, the Playground Bully seeks only to incite passions and fury. When is he going to turn against his own people? He's already been vilifying our erstwhile allies in the last several days.Where are Hegseth, Noem and Bondi going on all this?  It makes me want to switch to all-day, live Major League Baseball.  I recently watched the Dodgers play Arizona, the Yankees play San Fran, Milwaukee play the Chicago White Sox, the Rockies versus the Marlins, the Reds against the Red Sox, and Philadelphia against the Chicago Cubs.  In viewing the MLB Channel, I'm getting to know each team by their players and staff. 

I can't stand our so-called leader going off at the mouth with his brash, offensive remarks and dismissals: he sounds just like the guy on Twilight Zone (Sounds and Silences episode) who wouldn't shut up. Now it's 4:30 AM and time for me to sign off and get our sweet Peewee Daisy all riled up....

Keep Quiet, and They Come After You

My lament: 

In the first Godfather movie, Don Vito Corleone refuses to enter the narcotics trade, staying quiet and put.  This only invites his enemy Virgil Solozzo to attempt assassination and start a gangland war.  In the same way I wonder whether calmly going about my postal duties on the job (back in 1998) wouldn't have welcomed harassment and bullying from the folks finding themselves with some floor supervisory authority over me at the time.  I refer here to Henry Lang., Art Green's Lorraine, Menal, Jose and the two Lisas. If I were Tom Petty or Bob Dylan I might add a few pointed lyrics for their great Jammin' Me song. Glad to be finally done with the lot of these bullies: completely useless people on every level  Oh, and near the end there was also Willy, a young, ignorant hyper-macho boo-butt bent on crushing people with his alpha-male persona and cutting, combative tongue.  Bye-bye, creepos.  Nothing wrong with me being reasonable and a good worker, but sometimes a little bluntness and confrontation can work well. Later today I have scheduled an infusion chemotherapy treatment at the Cancer Pavilion...I've reacted well so far to chemo in the past.  No ninth grade nonsense and discouragement today, and I've already done about 3 minutes of home exercise. Looks like the bigshots in state and nat'l government are at it again, trying to roll back my already-confirmed citizenship and voting status.  Leave me the eff alone, fascist jerks...

Now that that's off my chest, I'd like to shift a little into gratitude mode.  Those folks were probably, in their own minds, just doing their best and maybe to them I wasn't quite measuring up to their expectations.  Today I had a chemotherapy infusion session at the UF Health Davis Pavilion.  The techs seemed at first unable to find a stick in my arm or hand to draw the needed lab blood, but later all went well.  I'm tired after a long day and would like to rest under pleasant temperatures at home in this warmer than seasonable weather.  Tomorrow's hump day Wednesday.  I've concluded already that the Smiths' How Soon is Now is my Song of the month for February and for the year 2026 as well.  It's a profound anthem on asserting myself in the face of my shyness and deep feeling of social alienation: the ultimate Goth/melancholy song!  Go Morrissey, you hit it out of the park.  As for Bad Bunny, sorry but he just comes across to me more like a gangland hoodlum street pimp than a true musical artist with that phony woke demeanor of his.  Maybe someday one of these folks will produce something musically memorable...but maybe not.  As for Super Bowl halftime shows, though, that does it for me.  A close runner-up to How Soon is Now is Zebra's chilling Who's Behind the Door, with Tom Petty's 1987 Jammin' Me Right Behind in third with its relevant, funny and pointed lyrics.  What a rocker... Running-in-place (IPF) updated counter after today: 22 minutes...

Atttention-Addicted President on the Warpath Again

  I am not at all looking forward to Donald Trump's next year in power as our 47th president.  The man seems to be doing everything he possibly can to degrade life for Americans like me and to lower my country's standing and status in the eyes of the world.  He s addicted to grabbing for headlines; there's always a deliberately outrageous announcement in the works from him. Early in 2025, just as I was about to get on my OPM website at the start of my postal retirement, h e had his henchman Elon Musk, cynically playing the DOGE role, suddenly show up in Washington with chainsaw and an insane maniacal expression as he invaded the OPM,sending out emailed threats to arbitrarily fire thousands of federal employees...I stayed away from there and Musk quickly became the most hated name in my country with widespread protests, Tesla boycotts and vandalism. Well, we'll see exactly what it will take before people begin to elect some polititionsfrom my own party this fall.My full expectation is that he will boastfully sell Ukraine down the river as it struggles to maintain its independent existence against invading Russia...

America (and Florida's) Fascism

Just before the 2024 presidential election took place a year ago, Donald Trump's first White House chief of staff, John Kelly, warned the nation that Trump is a fascist and that people who voted for him are assenting to fascism in the ensuing four years.  Since then I've noted, on the biased FoxNews channel, assorted hacks trying to discredit people who label the current administration as fascist, claiming that they were speaking from ignorance and didn't understand what the term meant.  I don't have a detailed scientific definition of fascism at my disposal, but I recognize when a party or movement emphasizes strongman control of their "territory" over adherence to democratic principles like respecting election results.  I think my current Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is a fascist for this reason as he seems determined to stonewall the overwhelming result of Gainesivlle's local referendum on returning its utility,GRU, to local administrative management.  They're set to file suit to prevent the utility from returning to city commission control...DeSantis only respects election results that go his way. Still, he has his apologists like current GRU CEO Ed Bielarski, who likes to play the fascist game of lecturing people about the dangers of majority rule.  Likewise, Trump wants to make as a priority the drastic restriction of general voter eligibility so that he can manipulate future elections in his favor...and if he loses, then it's all rigged and he has his pet Proud Boys militia group to go cry to. The dude is a right-wing extremist dictator wannabe, making him a fascist in my mind. Likewise, I'm not convinced that newly elected New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani won't cause trouble if he can't just speak desired law changes into effect with his charming, charismatic voice and smile.  I see these elected politicians as public servants, not MY leaders.  If they get the notion into their heads that I need to get into a kneeling position to be their sycophant, then they represent a disturbing turn in the way politics is practiced in this country.  Is America fascist yet?  We'll see what happens in the next few weeks.  I just don't need some freakazoid with a swollen ego lecturing ME about the proper posture to take toward HIM...

Today's Off-Year Election Raises Concerns

Today, the first Tuesday in November, 2025, is a traditional election day in an off-year sense.  It's not a presidential election year and US Senate and state governor races are held in even-numbered years, not this one.  Yet in many localities, mine included, there was at least one measure on the ballot left to the voters to decide.  The results of the question of returning Gainesville's local utility, GRU, to management by its elected commission, will be revealed in a little while.  Meanwhile, there is the election of New York City's mayor to consider.  Andrew Cuomo, who I think should really be president right now, is struggling to catch up with upstart left wing radical Muslim sympathizer Zohran Mamdani, darling of the current opinion polls.  Mamdani, smug and arrogant, always seems to be wearing one of those smiles that never reaches his eyes: his viciousness creeps me out.  Even Trump, in my opinion the worst failure of a president I have experienced, was right when he endorsed Cuomo over Mamdani. But I expect the latter to be voted in to office as the results pour in.  In any event, I have little faith in my own governor in reaction to the Gainesville referendum: government in America is broken and DeSantis will stonewall the results with his own brand of arrogance.  Now for me it's on to life and living it...I'm off the clock with the elections...

Early Voting on GRU Control Today

Today represented the final day in Florida for early voting before this coming Tuesday's election day.  The only matter up for a vote on my part is the question of whether the locally elected Gainesville city government can regain operational and financial control of Gainesville Regional Utilities.  In his shameless plot to defame opposition Democratic Party officeholders as being irresponsible and corrupt, our dictator/governor Ron DeSantis removed GRU from local control and gave it to a purely Republican hand-picked committee.  When they tried putting this measure on the ballot, he sued to stop the vote (and lost)...DeSantis is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-democratic demogogue who should have been thrown out of office for mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21...I believe many in Florida died of this pandemic because of his incompetence.  He doesn't want you or me voting, and I predict that this question, which I predict will easily pass, will garner his focus as he will do whatever he can to sabotage it.  This dude does not represent me or my interests in any way, shape or form.  Melissa drove us to our public library branch building for the early voting, which went off very smoothly with all the workers demonstrating competence and politeness toward us.  If the Republicans hadn't been so deadset against people getting to vote on something, this might have been a reasonable issue to discuss on its merits.  Well, I got up early this morning and exercised a bit.  Now I'm tired and still have a lap around the block to walk.  Still, I'm glad I voted, for what it was worth...

US Supreme Court Stacked, Ideological, Unprincipled

The recent rulings by a politically partisan, stacked United States Supreme Court have made a sick joke of our supposedly highest level of jurisprudence.  It was all foreseeable after Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell stole away a Barack Obama Democratic nomination in 2016 (nine months before that year's presidential election) on the excuse that "the voters should decide" who gets to nominate the new justice while in 2020 forcing through a Donald Trump Republican nomination just days before that year's election...which Trump incidentally lost.  And guess what? McConnell's very proud of what he did.  Now let's look at two rulings and focus on this court's leader, Chief Justice John Roberts.  In the 6-3 ruling striking down the Democratic Biden administration's planned forgiveness of up to ten thousand dollars of college student debt, helping 43 million Americans in the process...not just "billionaires" as Republican opponents like to argue...Roberts wrote that Congress had an appropriate role in the president's actions, which he claimed was denied them.  Yet back in 2010 when he ruled with the conservative SCOTUS wing to strike down a Congress-passed electoral reform bill that sought to properly regulate campaign financing, he had no problem interfering with both the legislative and executive branches, equating spending money with "freedom of speech" protected by the First Amendment.  As a matter of fact, this pretense version of a Supreme Court seems to like to invoke free speech whenever it wants to rule one way or another.  Another recent ruling, playing that First Amendment trump card, was to make an expansive ruling that a Colorado software entrepreneur was legally entitled to deny services to a gay couple due to the businessman's personal beliefs about their lifestyle. Yet John Roberts, from the beginning of his tenure as Chief Justice, always stressed that for a case to be held as worthy of a court hearing, the plaintiff needed to establish standing, meaning that some party had actually done something to them.  That didn't happen in this case, as our Chief Justice conveniently chose to ignore his cherished standard in favor of ideology.  And, sad to say, of all the six conservative justices sitting on the high bench, it is John Roberts who I regard as the most fair-minded!  Like I said, the US Supreme Court is stacked, ideological and unprincipled...truly a sick joke...and I haven't even started to discuss the alleged corruption on the part of Justices Thomas and Alito...

Just Finished Reading I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier

A couple of weeks ago while in Lexington, Kentucky we paid a visit to their Peddler's Market, a regional chain of flea markets presented on a higher, more customer-friendly level.  I found there an old paperback book, I Am the Cheese, by Robert Cormier, read the back accolade (School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, 1977) and picked it up, having just finished reading it.  It belongs to the "young adult" genre of fiction, and vividly reminded me of what was in vogue in film during that era.  We're talking about films and books full of devious government "deep state" secret and ruthless organizations preying upon innocent Americans, depriving them of their civil rights and even killing them should a decision come down from the top...The Parallax View, Marathon Man and Three Days of the Condor immediately come to my mind.  In I Am the Cheese, a teenage boy, Adam Farmer, finds himself desperately riding his bicycle down treacherous roads in rural Massachusetts to find his father, who he thinks is confined somewhere in southern Vermont.  Interspersed with the narrative of his adventures are sessions of him as a sort of patient/inmate being interviewed by a man calling himself Brint and being fed drugs whenever he gets too anxious as he describes his life, families, friends, enemies, and the special circumstances that had resulted in him being here.  The author presents it all as a mystery...one which is resolved at the book's end.  The question is whether an ordinary citizen can live a life of integrity and decency and, when presented with a tough decision, be able to rely on his government to back him up.  The answer in this story by Cormier, known to have written some pretty depressing books, is a resounding NO...which shouldn't surprise anyone recalling the culture of suspicion and conspiracies popularized in the kinds of movies I mentioned earlier. Somebody I know talked to me about this book many, many years ago but I forgot who...I just know that it came out after I finished high school.  But it's clearly the kind of reading I suspect many, many school kids from that time were assigned in English classes.  I'm not knocking the story per se, but the narrative here...along with the stuff coming out from other sources...fed into what I think eventually caused a groundswell of popular cynicism about government and its intentions: demagogic political outsiders, I believe, like Ross Perot and Donald Trump, would later manipulate that negative feeling to their advantage...

McCarthy Having Difficulty Becoming House Speaker...Not My Problem

The paper-thin majority in the United States House of Representatives that Republican caucus leader Kevin McCarthy is "leading" has left him short of receiving the votes needed to become Speaker, which Democrat Nancy Pelosi had occupied for the previous four years.  It's all about the extreme wing of a party leveraging their power out of proportion to their numerical strength...well, that's politics!  No fan of McCarthy, I felt he let the country down in the hours immediately following the insurrection on the Capitol building on 1/6/21 when he and two thirds of his caucus took the dangerous, undemocratic...and, frankly, fascist step of refusing to officially acknowledge the counted Pennsylvania 2020 presidential election votes that gave the state to Joe Biden over election-denying sore loser Donald Trump.  This guy has to be the slimiest politician on Earth...and that's saying a lot.  No doubt when whoever does finally take the gavel, the Republicans will resume their endless pointless investigations that nobody believes worth the effort and expense...other than their hardcore, unquestioning FoxNews followers, that is.  Hillary's e-mails will soon morph into Hunter's laptop as a continuous Fox/Republican headline...and there will probably be payback attempts to impeach President Biden as well.  If you want to follow all that crap, you're welcome to it.  But as Soundgarden's late front man Chris Cornell once sang, "Keep it off my wave"...

I Voted, Let the Election Take Its Course

Melissa and I have both filled out, signed and mailed our ballots for the November general election this year.  But those political ads continue on TV, annoying in their negativity and dishonesty...wish I could somehow get some sort of exemption from having to see them...wait a minute, how about just muting them and looking away!  Although progressive documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has predicted the Democrats will do very well in this election, most other people...including myself...think that the Republicans will take over control of the House of Representatives and possibly even achieve a Senate majority, while continuing their control of most state legislatures and governorships.  Why?  One reason as I see it: Democratic-leaning voters reverting to their old habit of sitting on their hands during off-year elections whenever "their" president is in power, as if they expect him to wave a magic wand and decree everything they want.  Folks, that ain't how things work here in America!  You have to be a consistently active, interested voter on the local, state and national level in every election presented to you.  If one party's constituents statistically pass over elections that don't "excite" them, then the other has a built-in advantage that regularly results in unpopular politicians elected and unpopular legislation enacted (upheld by unpopular judges).  Getting out on the streets and protesting the actions of people you could have voted against is NOT "democracy in action" as one deluded senator had earlier claimed.  In spite of all the rhetoric about voter suppression going on in various states, the sad truth is that the drop-off in voting during off-year elections is primarily due to too many registered voters WILLFULLY REFUSING to exercise their civic duty as Americans.  Not that I plan to let this election get under my skin...I performed my voting responsibility as a citizen and can't control what others choose to do (or not do).  Along with our mail-in ballots we received a notice that we will have to reapply to receive them for future elections.  I myself would much rather vote in person on Election Day and only went absentee because of Covid...

Just Finished Reading Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

Profiles in Courage is a 1956 history book by John F. Kennedy while he was still a United States senator...it won him the Pulitzer Prize the following year, after which it was revealed that his speechwriter Ted Sorenson wrote the bulk of it.  Regardless who actually put the pen to paper, it was Kennedy who placed his stamp of approval on it, and for the sake of simplicity I'll refer to it as his book.  It is comprised of a set of short biographies of eight men who served over the span of American history as U.S. senators: John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, George Norris, and Robert A. Taft.  Kennedy was careful to spotlight members of differing parties and ideologies...his main thrust of argument was that at crucial points in their Senate careers they made principled decisions that went against the passions of their constituents, ending their political careers or at least delaying their fulfillment (Adams would later become president and then a representative in the House while Lamar would make it to the U.S. Supreme Court).  I don't think this book could (or should) have been written today since some of those profiled were on the pro-slavery side in the nineteenth century, even to the extent of owning slaves themselves.  And there were also a number of historical figures around these eight that the author criticized perhaps a bit unfairly.  Still, I think Profiles in Courage makes a couple of significant points applicable to today's political setting and the Senate in particular.  One, our national legislative bodies operate on the premise that we are a representative republic whose leaders are either directly or indirectly elected by the people...this gives them accountability to the population while acknowledging that they are in a better situation than most of us to get the needed information, expertise, and wisdom for the often difficult decisions that go with their positions. And two, the fact that Kennedy felt the need for this book to highlight just eight senators for their political courage demonstrates that in the vast majority of cases senators and other politicians...when push comes to shove...will usually abandon their principles and succumb to popular prejudices and pressure from their colleagues on important, divisive issues.  You don't have to look around very far today to see this going on with too many of our elected national officials, sadly... 

Political Toxicity Mushrooming

Politics has become so toxic nowadays that I'm hesitant to write articles about it, especially since what I express is often bound to sound toxic in itself.  On January 6th Donald Trump attempted to overthrow democracy and install himself as unelected dictator through his flunkies...I'm not talking about the loser Capitol building rioters but rather the elected representatives who chose to vote to overturn the election...some two thirds of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and seven in the Senate (including my own representative and one of my senators). In my next-day article I called them all fascists, and explained why, bringing up the term's commonly accepted definition.  I don't believe hardly any of those politicians who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election actually believed that the election was stolen, but they were taking their cues from Trump...the biggest fascist of them all...who seems to have a Jim-Jones-like hold on millions of adoring Americans who apparently have long pined for an authoritarian strongman to affirm their own talking points and smash down the Enemy (i.e. those who disagree with them). HBO host/comedian/egghead Bill Maher recently warned that the 2024 election may well portend the end of democratically-elected representative government if Trump runs and loses a close election again. The former president has already begun to call for a civil war, and several state legislatures have passed new laws giving themselves carte blanche authority to arbitrarily decide elections held in their own states...even the presidential vote...based on any "trumped"-up phony fraud claims.  In such an environment I don't know how one cannot feel toxic about our political situation here. The only reason Donald Trump has any political influence is because a large segment of our adult voting population has relinquished their own responsibility to discern the character of their leaders and has decided to accept any foul or deceitful thing coming from their chosen idol's mouth.  No, I don't always agree with Maher, but I think he's got it right this time.  As someone who often agrees with the conservative take on issues, I am dismayed by today's extremely toxic Trump phenomenon that precludes me from supporting any Republican candidate...

Also referring back to political toxicity, I am dismayed to see moderate elected Democrats who represent more conservative constituencies being raked over the coals for the crime of having a backbone when legislation is foisted upon them to support that they feel is excessive, either in terms of spending or government overreach.  The "progressive" Democrats who attack these public servants to me are incredibly short-sighted as well as ignorant: short-sighted because without the moderates in the Senate and the House, their own party would be in the minority and powerless to introduce legislation or confirm (or reject) federal judges and Supreme Court justices...and ignorant because historically the only stable legislation that doesn't tend to be undone when the other party comes to power is that passed with at least some semblance of bipartisan support as the result of negotiation and compromise...

My Take on Senator Manchin's Present Senate Role

West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin has lately been receiving his share of criticism...some of it excessively personal...from others in his party, including the President.  Although not addressing Manchin by name, Biden referred to him and colleague Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona as two senators who seem to vote more with Republicans than Democrats...a patently false statement: Manchin votes overwhelmingly with his party.  But in some matters he represents a lone voice, opposing any move to eliminate the legislative filibuster as well as his party's current For the People bill about voting and election reform.  As it is, I think that with just about any piece of legislation there is room of compromise, but in this climate of political gridlock with each party catering to their extreme wing, that word "compromise" is almost always depicted as betrayal instead of the logical result of elected officials recognizing the importance of getting things accomplished in a constructive manner for the American people and passing legislation that won't automatically be rescinded the next time the "other" party gains power...and it always eventually does.  Now Manchin is being depicted as some kind of racist for his principled stands...nothing that I know of the man, though, indicates anything of the sort. What many in his own party don't seem to "get" is that in an overwhelmingly red state he represents like West Virginia, Joe Manchin...its former governor...is nowadays probably the only Democrat they would elect to statewide office.  Instead of running him down, Democrats should be counting their blessings and realizing that his presence in the Senate is the reason they can get Biden's nominees brought to the floor and approved and their bills can be sent through committees and also brought up for votes... 

My overriding concern about voting and elections is the number of laws recently passed by Republican-run state legislatures that transfer the authority of certifying election results to those highly partisan legislatures, meaning that in any close election occurring under their jurisdiction they can let Republican victories pass unhindered while overturning Democratic wins under any pretext of false fraud charges.  The For the People Act doesn't seem to address this threat to our democracy, but rather tends to focus on making the act of voting much more a passive endeavor than one requiring the participant to make any sort of effort.  It also imposes a code of ethics on the Supreme Court and pushes for D.C. statehood, issues that are worthwhile to discuss but not directly germane to the bill's topic.  I personally oppose ballot harvesting, a process that this bill would impose nationally and which grants political operatives the opportunity to canvass neighborhoods for voters in their own party, pick up their ballots and deliver them to the elections office...all sorts of trouble can result from this.  And I'm also not a fan of universal vote-by-mail where the population regularly gets doused with mail-in ballots, as with the recent U.S. Census many of them to incorrect addresses.  To its credit, though, the bill does place restrictions on state officials purging voter rolls just before elections and gives such voters recourse to contest their removal. Senator Manchin has clearly stated that he objects to the For the People Act in its present form...in all likelihood he's seeing some of the same things I am.  There is no way I see him supporting eliminating the legislative filibuster, so the Democratic leadership has a choice: either work with the Republican opposition to come up with bills that can pass (and remain in law when power inevitably changes hands at some future time) or wait until the 2022 election and hope that they retain control of the House and expand their Senate majority to the point that Manchin and Sinema cannot thwart the move to end that 60-vote legislative threshold.  Will Joe Manchin disappoint me in the future by something he says or does? Almost certainly as he's already done so in the past, but unlike the millions of Trump idolaters and those who adoringly "feel the Bern" for Senator Sanders, I question elected officials and don't worship them...

Quote of the Week...from Mitch McConnell

You'll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.       ---Mitch McConnell

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (from Kentucky) made the above quote back in 2013 just before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat from Nevada) foolishly did away with the 60-vote threshold for confirming non-Supreme Court presidential appointments as a response to perceived Republican obstruction on some of Obama's federal court nominations.  As Majority Leader, McConnell later expanded the "Nuclear Option" in 2017 to encompass Supreme Court nominations as well, in order to allow incoming president Donald Trump's selection, Neil Gorsuch, to be confirmed.  Yet during that presidency, McConnell resisted Trump's pressure and taunts as he refused to eliminate the filibuster for normal legislation...something for which I give him credit amid my many criticisms of his actions as GOP Senate leader.  Now, with Democrat Joe Biden narrowly elected president, the House of Representatives barely holding on to its majority, and the Senate with a 50-50 split and only in the Democrats' control due to there being a Democratic president, many on the political left are pushing to abolish the legislative filibuster with yet another Nuclear Option...are you kidding me?  McConnell's above 2013 quote was true then and it is now.  In the 2014 off-year elections just the following year, the Republicans gained control of the Senate, and only relinquished it early this year...during Trump's single term in office they pushed through Cabinet officers and federal judges by the hundreds...many of them highly controversial...and by dint of McConnell's follow-up action in '17 regarding the SCOTUS, three very, very conservative Supreme Court nominees were confirmed to the high court, none of whom would have ever passed the earlier 60-vote threshold.  Now, on the Democratic side only Senator Joe Manchin (WVA) and possibly Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) stand in the way of abolishing the legislative filibuster.  The way I see it, suppose the Nuclear Option is implemented in the legislative sphere and the Democrats push into law bills that normally wouldn't pass the scrutiny traditionally embedded in Senate consideration: the next time the Republicans are elected into power (and this may be "a lot sooner than you think"), what's then keeping them from going right down the list of Democratic accomplishments and rescinding all of them, after which they pass legislation of their own that runs 180 degrees in the other direction?  Really, is this instability in our elected, representative national government what we want for our future?  The party in power always seems to act as if they think they'll forever be in power.  There's a good chance that the Republicans will retake the House after the 2022 elections...if that happens any subsequent legislation will require the Democrats to work with their counterparts in a highly bipartisan manner and the perceived need to eliminate the Senate's 60-vote minimum will be a moot point.  But if the Republicans can get their act together and reclaim the White House, Senate, and the House after the 2024 elections...something very feasible from my viewpoint...they could find themselves with a big "green light" to jam through anything they want after that, should the legislative filibuster be torpedoed.  Recently McConnell was quoted as saying he was 100% focused on stopping Joe Biden...that open obstructionism will only fuel the push to end the legislative filibuster.  But he had said and done the same when Obama was president, and Harry Reid's response was still very ill-advised...  

About Republican Election Reform and Voter Participation

The push by Republican-controlled state legislatures to change election laws has caused alarm and accusations of suppression and discrimination against minorities in order to ensure their own party's victories in future elections. I understand the concerns, especially the cynicism involved in the timing, following so closely in the aftermath of the 2020 elections in which the presidency and U.S. Senate switched to Democratic control...high minority turnout spelled the difference.  There's only one problem I see with the criticisms, though. From where I stand, the act of voting is not only a right, but a civic duty that should require some active engagement and discipline on the part of the voter...and that means to be consistent about participating in whatever elections that come up, not just the "sexy" ones with a charismatic candidate or one that evokes strong negative feelings.  Barack Obama was elected in 2008...and reelected in 2012...with fervent, emotional support from the black community: I supported him twice myself.  Yet in the off-year elections in 2010 and 2014 that followed these Democratic victories, voter turnout from this group plummeted...with the same election laws in place, and the Republicans not only won back the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, but also many state legislatures and governorships...including that of some so-called "blue" states.  But I NEVER hear this in the mass media...how could Florida go for liberal Obama and then for a right-winger like Rick Scott for governor in the intervening years? The answer is simple: much of the electorate DELIBERATELY chose to sit on their hands and let the conservatives win those off-year elections...it had nothing to do with voting suppression on the part of the Republicans.  In 2022 if the Republicans win back control of the Senate and/or the House...as well as keep control of "blue state" legislatures...it will be not because Democratic voters were denied their rights, but rather because they refused to get off their collective butts and vote.  Case in point: in my home town of Gainesville we had two city commission races in March, one by district and one at-large...so the whole city was involved.  As per last year's presidential election, mail-in ballots were sent out...I imagine the same amount as last year. But even with all this incredible convenience...not even postage required for the ballots...only 11% of the eligible voters took part!  So please don't talk to me about voter suppression...if you live in Gainesville you're most likely one of those who passed up on your precious "right" last month: really, how much effort does it take to fill in a bubble or two, stick the ballot in the envelope, sign and seal it, and then stick it in the mailbox??!!

My main concern with this new legislation is that some of it was drafted and passed by lawmakers whom I regard as fascistic...that is, those who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election amid false claims of fraud and were in favor of overturning it to keep loser/fascist Trump in power.  The voters' verdict at the polls should never be subject to the whims of partisan legislators afterwards...a part of Georgia's bill did just that, though.  That having been said, there are other criticisms to the reform efforts in that state that I think are a bit overblown.  For example, the number of mail-in drop boxes was drastically reduced from last year, which was the COVID-19 pandemic emergency...in case you've already forgotten...but not from previous levels.  That a picture ID is required for mail-in voting is somehow being depicted as Jim Crow in nature...what's that all about? They added a measure to it banning outside groups from providing water to voters in line at the polling places...although politically foolish of them to include this provision I wonder if we've really come to this ridiculously passive, victimized level of thinking where we act like we're plants that have to depend on others to water us: just fill up an old bottle with tap water and take it with you, for crying out loud!  And the notion that voting was banned after 5 pm was a flat-out lie, sadly echoed by President Biden...who has long had a penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth when off-script.  Hey, I'm a Democrat but I think the outrage over much of this Republican-generated reform legislation is a little uneven: just stick to the fascist-leaning parts that truly threaten our representative democracy and cut it with the BS, please.  And if you're a Democrat with an axe to grind about voter suppression, how about you stop cherry-picking which elections you feel like participating in?

Quote of the Week...from Mark Mellman

A future president need only consider whether he has 35 partisan defenders in the Senate to embark on whatever course he or she deems fit, regardless of its democratic propriety.     ---Mark Mellman

The above quote by Mark Mellman, head of the Mellman Group...a business and political consulting organization, appeared in The Hill recently and made it to my computer's MSN newsfeed.  It directly refers to last month's Senate impeachment vote about former president Donald Trump and the fact that 43 of the 50 seated Republicans from his own party voted for acquittal, despite the enormous amount of evidence pointing to conviction and that the senators themselves were directly threatened by the January 6th invasion of the Capitol building...where they were convened to count and confirmed the electoral college votes for the 2020 presidential election...by fascist thugs spurred on by Trump's encouragement.  I think he should have been convicted, but sadly a large swath of the American population seems to be under his spell, having made him into an idol and believing and acting on every lying word coming from his mouth.  And since they have the numbers within the Republican party to "primary" any sitting politician of theirs out of office with a candidate more to their cult leader's liking, senators and representatives...within some remarkable exceptions...are too scared to openly defy Herr Trump in anything.  The situation is so extreme that Republican caucuses of different state legislatures are routinely holding censure votes against national legislators voting against their fascist supreme leader.  So I get what Mellman is saying here.  But as I like to say about politics, what goes around comes around.  And the "flaw" in our system that allows only 34 senators to protect a president who has seriously abused his or her office against our Constitution also protects a sitting, possibly controversial president who has done nothing wrong but has a vengeful opposition party with a majority in Congress.  The Republicans while Obama was president were adept at turning anything hinting of controversy into a scandal requiring extensive hearings and the fascist-leaning talk radio and TV hosts have been there to whip up the loyal extremist sector of the population into pressuring them to take the most punitive actions possible.  So if you're a Democrat and wish impeachment convictions were attainable with only a majority Senate vote instead of the two-thirds as the U.S. Constitution mandates, think again and thank your lucky stars that it is this difficult... 

Which Mode is the Politician Operating In?

It has been very frustrating for me to observe the actions and words of some of our United States senators over the years and praise some of them, only to feel betrayed by them later on. Recently I've felt this way in particular with Texas senator Ted Cruz and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, both of whom I've lauded on this blog in past years.  But in just watching the confirmation hearing for incoming Biden Secretary of State nominee Tony Blinken on C-Span the other day, a new way of viewing these politicians...and all of them, quite frankly...has emerged with me.  Here it is...

When listening to one of these politicians, you have to discern which mode they're operating in: (1) the actual issues themselves, (2) their partisan status and official leadership roles, (3) their relationship with the current president (stretching to either agree with or disagree depending on which party he's in), (4) whether they're either up soon for reelection or plan to soon run for president themselves, and finally...(5) their desire to suck up to media extremists like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin by towing their lines (Democratic politicos have their own leftist hosts to placate).  So in Blinken's confirmation hearing Graham, simply a committee member here with his turn at questioning, sounded very lucid, flexible, congenial, and reasonable in asking the nominee his views on various issues...no ranting, name-calling, conspiracy theories, or threats.  Those latter activities Graham reserves for his other roles as a either a partisan Republican player, a Trump apologist, or pandering to the fascist talk jocks.  It's disconcerting to see him presenting himself one way in one situation and assuming a completely different attitude in another...I'm seeing the same with Cruz, whom I have praised before for both his grace and courage during the 2016 election campaign against Trump and his tax reform plan, before he seemed to turn fascist and antidemocratic with his recent election objection...in this he sounded like someone in Mode (4) who's positioning Trump voters to support him when he runs for president in 2024 .  I really don't like to use the word "fascist" to describe anyone in today's political or media world, but those who stand with Trump and his zombie worshippers in denying the outcome of a free and fair election are by definition right-wing and antidemocratic, ergo fascist...

I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the recent voting behavior of the Republican caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.  It's clear that whenever a vote was held and Donald Trump would be interested in the result, the overwhelming majority of those voted on the fascist ex-president's side...examples are the objection to the Pennsylvania counting of presidential electoral votes following the Trump-inspired violent insurrection at the Capitol and the more recent vote to remove freshman Georgia representative Margorie Taylor Greene from key committee assignments because of earlier online comments that called for execution of political opponents and claims that Jews started the California fires with lasers from space, among others...all but ten of them voted in her favor.  Yet when Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy scheduled a secret ballot vote on keeping Liz Cheney in House leadership after her vote to impeach Trump, some 70% of House Republicans voted to support her, against the expressed wishes of their cult idol. This also reveals the modes that politicians operate in, depending on whether they are acting in conscience or are pandering to special outside interests in political self-interest.  Ironically, I...vehemently opposed to Greene and her fascist, conspiracy-theory-laden and violent approach to politics...thought that the Democratic Party blundered badly by holding this vote about her and think that the first time the Republicans regain control of the House they will set about stripping any Democratic member whose views are controversial of their own committee assignments.  In politics what goes around comes around, but nobody seems to ever learn this...

Quote of the Week...from President Joseph R. Biden

Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together.  Uniting our people.  And uniting our nation.  I ask every American to join me in this cause.  

                                                                   President Joseph R. Biden

Congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as they were sworn in Wednesday as our new president and vice-president.  The above quote came from Biden's inaugural address...I'm all for national unity but only on the level of dealing with one another with grace and empathy as we work out expressing our legitimate differences with one another...denying the 2020 election results just because your idol-president lost is NOT one of them.  And can we please dispense with the wacko conspiracy theories and speak plainly with reality as a common basis for debate?  Hey, I realize that's probably not going to happen but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway... 

Speaking only of my own history following presidents, although I was born in 1956 during the Eisenhower administration and clearly remember the time of John Kennedy's assassination in 1963, I really didn't begin to take notice of the U.S. presidency until Lyndon Johnson began sending American troops to Vietnam in 1965...and would often preempt regular evening TV programming with his "My fellow Americans" speeches. After Johnson there were Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...and then the first presidential election I voted in, 1976, between the latter and Jimmy Carter, who won it. Then came Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and finally Donald Trump. For the ten presidents I've followed over the past 55 years I've liked a few and disliked a few...but have never placed any of them on a special pedestal as an idol the way tens of millions of Trump supporters have over the past five years.  There has been no president for whom I couldn't find some things to both criticize and laud...and I confidently expect the same to be true with Mr. Biden.  I don't expect the fascist-leaning media talk jocks like Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin or Laura Ingraham to do anything other than demonize our new president in everything he says or does...if you're depending on these people for your information then you're deliberately bubbling yourself off from reality, in my opinion. I wish the new administration success in making our country stronger and managing crises, both the ones we are currently experiencing with the pandemic, economic displacement, racial inequity, fascist extremism and those to come.  I don't expect that much of the progressive agenda will be passed through Congress, and that's fine with me...let's see if the two parties can get that old spirit of compromise back into swing...at least in the Senate (the House Republicans are overwhelmingly fascist) and work out some meaningful ways forward to the country's benefit.  And I'm glad that, at least for the next two years, the President's party will (barely) control the Senate...meaning that his nominees for Cabinet, federal judges...and potential new Supreme Court justices...will be considered and voted upon.  I know that Mitch McConnell and Biden go back a long time together in the Senate...maybe ol' Joe can be more personally engaged and effective with those in Congress than Barack Obama was.  And then maybe I'm again throwing something out there that's probably not going to happen...

Electoral College Congressional Objectors Merit Fascist Designation

I looked up the definition of "facism" on Bing..."an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization".  So henceforth, in light of the attempted coup d'état instigated by Donald Trump and carried out by his personality-cult-transfixed worshippers when they stormed the Capitol during Congress's counting of the Electoral College vote certifying Joseph Biden as the next president, I am now classifying those senators and representatives voting to object to the count and thereby overturn our democratic election as "fascist", no longer Republican.  I am also calling Trump, who expressed approval of the defeat of his own party's US Senate candidates from Georgia, a "fascist" along the lines of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco.  But not Vice-President Pence, who in the final hour has demonstrated courage in the face of God knows how much pressure to conform to Trump's dictatorial agenda.  Here is a link to the list of who I consider to be fascist traitors...including Kat Cammack, my own newly-sworn in (to uphold the US Constitution) representative and my senator Rick Scott: [Congressional Objectors List].  By the way, a poll recorded that 45% of Republicans at large approved of the insurrection yesterday: they're fascists as well, in my estimation...

Bean Counting Motivates Everything in Washington

Bean counting is what politics in Washington is all about, whether we're talking about amassing enough Electoral College votes to swing a presidential election, manipulating the U.S. Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process to gain or enhance a like-minded majority, passing legislation to address either emergencies or the ideological interests of one's own party, or getting enough senators or representatives elected on one's own side in Congress to assure their party's control of the Senate or House, respectively.  I have been watching snippets of Amy Coney Barrett's Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing as she aspires to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a justice on the high court, just as I've observed similar proceedings with the nominations of current justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito and Roberts in recent years.  It's obvious that the underlying motivation, both in the nomination process from the view of the President as well as those of the Republicans and Democratic senators considering them in through advice and consent, is primarily a matter of selecting someone whose expressed ideology and judicial record will help to tip or maintain the Court's voting numbers in their party's favor on key political issues.  In our current world it's issues like the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, gun regulation laws, LGBT rights, environmental legislation, voting rights and the limits and extent of allowable presidential and congressional authority that motivate the bean counters as they look at the new nominee.  But during the hearing all we've basically seen is Barrett sitting there batting back question after question as if she were in some kind of verbal tennis match, with the objective of avoiding transmitting the least bit of information as possible about her judicial temperament or philosophy, much less anything about specific issues...in a similar way that the four previous nominees performed.  Maybe the hearings serve an educational and political purpose for the voting public by allowing the different senators on the committee a forum to express their own opinions, but as far as enlightening anyone as to what kind of Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett will be, I think we'd be better informed by a journalist or announcer just sitting there reading verbatim the nominee's previous statements from earlier times.  Of course, this hearing is a charade: the Republicans have enough votes to confirm and will do so in plenty of time for Barrett to sit in on next month's case as the deciding "bean" on Obamacare's fate.  And since it is clear that Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell's actions are only designed to enhance his own party's power through partisan bean counting, the Democrats had better regain control of the Senate if Biden gets elected, otherwise few if any of his cabinet, judicial, or other nominations will ever see the light of day...