Arizona, Once Known For Its Citrus Fruit, Is Now Known For Its Nuts

And I'm not talking about the produce. 

According to a September 15 editorial in the Herald Review, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Daniels was approached by a parent who brought a petition signed by 72 people asking that he investigate the "massive child abuse" occurring in the city of Sierra Vista, Cochise County's largest city, population 43,000 including the adjacent military base, Ft. Huachuca.  After meeting with the individual making the complaint, the Sheriff dismissed the allegations.  The parent was asking the Sheriff to arrest the superintendent and members of the Sierra Vista Unified School District board because they mandated the wearing of masks in all of the school's facilities.  

There are 5,500 students in the Sierra Vista Unified School district.  This petition was signed by 72 people, presumably parents though that is not specifically known.  These people are loud, insistent on getting their way, and they are a very small minority.  They get a lot of attention because it doesn't take very many people to fill a small room the size of where most school boards meet, they make a lot of noise and threats.  

It's laughable to equate requiring students to wear a mask with child abuse.  I'd be willing to bet there's not a single parent in that same school district who has a child that plays football who wants to arrest the superintendent for making their son wear a helmet.  And yes, it is exactly the same thing.  Maybe there are parents who think any clothing at all is too restrictive, and therefore abusive.  Is wearing a bra abusive?  What about shoes?  

Under normal circumstances, I'd say to school boards and school officials, who have a tremendous responsibility to keep students safe and schools open every single day so that these parents can send their children there safely, ignore them. They're a small minority and they're just making noise.  Threats are just pressure because they are a minority and that frustrates them.  It's the day and age in which we live, the kind of behavior some politicians and leaders have been exhibiting when they don't get their way.  But it is, indeed, this day and age.  Stupidity and ignorance are on the march and it is a sign of some really unstable, unbalanced thinking.  So under these conditions, I'd say, be careful, because some of these people are obviously nuts.

"We Know Where You Live and We're Coming For You" 

That's the threat received by State Senator Michelle Urgenti-Rita, one of two Republicans in the Arizona senate who, after watching the whole Cyber Ninja scam unfold for months, concluded that they were completely incompetent and would not produce a report that could be trusted.  

Senator Urgenti-Rita concluded that the Cyber Ninjas were not competent to conduct an election audit and said, "Sadly, it's now become clear that the audit has become botched."  

She also took Senate President Karen Fann to task, saying that her incompetence "deprived the voters of Arizona a comprehensive accounting of the 2020 election. That's inexcuseable, but it shows what happens when Republicans do not take election integrity seriously."  

Well, in reality, Arizona had two election audits, along with a recount, done by competent firms experienced in election audits with an impeccable record of accuracy, so the voters were not denied a comprehensive accounting.  They got two, both of which showed that there was no fraud.  But Senator Urgenti-Rita nailed it when it comes to Senate President Fann.  Hiring a scam audit like Cyber Ninjas, backed by money from Trump contributors and campaign officers, was inexcusable.  Republicans no longer take election integrity seriously.  Fann needs to step down or Republicans will take an electoral beating like they've only read about happening.  

And so, a Republican state senator tells the truth, and Republican nuts issue threats.  

Now all of that happened before the Cyber Ninjas released their "report" which concluded that there was no massive voter fraud, that babbled here and there about nothing significant related to the election and then concluded, predictably, that the certified results were wrong because they found that Biden actually won Arizona by even more votes than the state certified.  We've left the pecan orchard at this point and we've walked through the doors of the insane asylum. 

And Then There's Congressman Gosar

There's a video out showing Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar speaking to a small group of constituents in Scottsdale pushing more Trumpie insanity about election fraud.  Gosar blames Dominion Voting Systems, the company who builds the ballot counting machines, claiming that there were between 400,000 and 700,000 mis-counted fraudulent ballots in Arizona.  

That's nuts, especially since that would have required a massive number of Republican Trump supporters to be in on a conspiracy.  But what's even more nuts is Gosar's demeanor in the video.  He looks like there's something wrong with him.  His head moves from side to side, his eyes are wide and frightened-looking, he speaks in hushed tones and makes wild claims which, of course, turned out to be untrue.  

But that's not the first time Gosar has spouted baseless election fraud theories.  Back in 2018, he claimed Martha McSally was cheated out of a win by none other than Kyrsten Sinema.  And yeah, maybe it is just his appearance and the way he speaks, but he looks like a bad actor in a horror film talking about the conspiracies.  

Gosar has also stepped up to defend the insurrectionists and rebels of January 6th.  And his facial expressions, head movements and overall demeanor leave the impression that he's not all there, that something's not right somewhere, that he's waiting for a boogeyman to jump out from behind a wall and frighten everyone.  

His sister provides some insights, sort of like Trump's niece, Mary. 

Jennifer Gosar on Paul Gosar's January 6th Blabber

An Insult to Those Who Are Abuse Victims

Claiming that making kids wear masks to school is "child abuse" is not only an insult to every child who has been abused, especially in that particular community, it diminishes the seriousness of child abuse, minimizes the victims and demonstrates inexcusable ignorance.  That's the same kind of deplorable insensitivity displayed by Trump when he mocked a reporter who had cerebral palsy.  But I guess its the kind of rudeness we can expect from conservatives from now on, since they're a frustrated minority and they're not getting their way.  

To the vast majority of parents who want their kids to be safe when they go to school, if they're old enough, get them vaccinated.  If not, just remember which of your legislators was partly responsible for that insidious law that went into effect today, preventing your school officials from mandating protection for your children at school.  If the conservatives want this to be about politics, then they've sure picked a loser.  Trump and now being anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers.  That's a lose-lose combination for sure, and in a purple state like Arizona, it's a big step toward Democrats controlling the state legislature, increasing their representation in congress and electing a new governor.  It's coming and this kind of stupidity and ignorance is not something people tend to forget.   

Noah Rothman, MSNBC: "Calamity" in Afghanistan is the Result of Biden's Obsession with Deadlines

OK, I get it.  It's supposed to be a demonstration of balance in the media to have commentators and opinion columnists who express opinions that represent "the other side," if you want to call it that.  I've never heard of Noah Rothman before I saw the referenced opinion piece in small print way down at the bottom of MSNBC's web page.  Yep, I took the bait and clicked to read the piece because of the headline on the page, not exactly a match to the point being made in the piece, but obviously intended to stir up feelings in order to attract attention.  Good job, MSNBC.  It worked. 

Noah Rothman on Biden's "Calamity" in Afghanistan

The difference between good journalism and tabloid sensationalism is how the facts of an event or incident are observed and laid out in context.  Facts are essential to the interpretation of any historical event and they have a very clear context for interpreting them.  In his evaluation of the Biden administration's policy regarding the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Rothman ignores both facts and context to jump to his conclusions, taking statements from administration officials out of context to support his pressupositions and his opinion.  The placement of the piece on the MSNBC website, the mis-matched link headline with the actual conclusions drawn in the piece and the way my attention was drawn to it lead me to conclude that it's more the latter than the former. 

A Few Relevant Facts in Their Context

Setting timetables are an effective means of accomplishing goals.  Trump fussed and puttered about a lot of things he wanted to do, brought them up in rallies to get cheers from the crowds half-filling the seats, but they just never got done and when the press pointed this out, his press secretaries screeched and whined about media bias and not understanding or comprehending what he really meant by what he said.  

Trump was "firm" according to his apologists, about wanting to get the United States out of Afghanistan, and he had some timetables in place as well.  But like everything else he did, his own political preservation, not the best interests of the country or its military, was the motivation behind his decisions.  Dates set to happen after an election and inauguration so that he couldn't be held accountable were deliberately self-serving.  But Rothman ignores that fact.  

The fact that the Biden administration's preparation on vaccinations made it possible for them to project July 4th as the date when the country would hit a 70% vaccination rate is a testimony to their effectiveness of their planning and the efficiency of their plan. It's not support for Rothman's contention that the Biden administration is "obsessed with deadlines." It could easily have been achieved had it not been for the self-serving resistance of some Republican governors who want to play politics.  Let's note one thing here for the record--It's unfortunate that not all of them will pay a political price for this, but a lot of them will, along with other politicians in the Republican party.  They got on the wrong side of this and you can mark my words and take this to the bank, it is going to cost them dearly in 2022.  

Rothman looks to support his thesis by quoting the Wall Street Journal's Yaroslav Trofimov,  "In the wake of President Biden's withdrawal decision, the US pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan's planes and helicopters, that meant the Afghan military simply couldn't operate any more." 

But the United States has been operating in Afghanistan for over 20 years.  How is it that Biden, who had only been in office eight months when Rothman wrote his op-ed piece, is the only one responsible for providing the Afghan military, whom the US has been helping all of that time, with support, intelligence and contractors servicing the planes and helicopters?  Why were they not provided with the ability to do this for themselves during the twenty years that our mlitary occupied the country and spend $6 trillion on the military?      

Why didn't Trump, who started muttering about getting us out of Afghanistan before he was elected, take steps to make sure that the Afghan army had everything it needed?  Why didn't he insist on accountability and cleaning up the corrupt mess in the Afghan government instead of undermining the democracy by his attempted secret negotiations with the Taliban, which legitimized their insurgency?  The stage was set for Afghanistan's collapse because of Trump administration policy, Mr. Rothman. It was one of many messes his incompetence left behind for Biden to clean up, including the vaccine distribution.    

 If providing Afghanistan with a "democratically elected government" was a conservative political priority, then the conservative presidential administrations who pushed that narrative, Bush and Trump, should be the ones held accountable for that abysmal failure.  Those two administrations were responsible for spending 80% of the trillions spent in Afghanistan (so much for conservative government, huh?) and a lot of their contributor friends made fortunes off of it.  The fact that the Afghan military was so ill-trained and equipped and that it fell apart when the US announced its withdraway is a failure of Bush-Cheney and subsequently Trump.  At least, it is if you believe the conservative narrative.     

Withdrawal Means Leaving, Not Surging

Let's be honest here.  The only Americans who would want to consider living in a primitive, backward, war-torn and devastated fundamentalist Islamic country are either humanitarian workers and Christian missionaries who saw a window of opportunity to help, and those who were employed by the military industrial complex in a six trillion dollar government expenditure, fishing in that revenue stream.  It can be gathered from the record of media reports that the American Embassy, surprised as it was at the rapid collapse of the counrty, did its job in informing Americans of the ungency and importance of taking advantage of the means they were given to leave the country as quickly as possible.    

Getting out successfully meant no hesitation.  It meant planning to leave and executing those plans without delay.  We know this because journalists, who take bigger risks than most of the rest of us in situations like this, have told us that was the case.  And as an American, if you choose to live in a country like Afghanistan, it is prudent to have a quick exit plan in the event of something just like this.  So the words of an American journalist describing his exit from Afghanistan, who doesn't use terms like "chaotic" or "botched," but describes a fast but orderly process organized by embassy staff under embassy policy carries more credibility than the opinionated criciticms of a journalist writing from the comfort of his own American office. 

And as many embassy officials, military officials and journalists who were there have said, ten more days or ten more weeks wouldn't have made much of a difference in how many Americans remained behind.  It's the same thing that happens when a hurricane is about to hit the coast and a general evacuation is announced well ahead of the disaster.  Those who are smart enough to plan ahead and are already prepared leave.  But there are those who, in spite of being warned that there will be no one around to help them if they get in trouble, don't heed the warning and stay.  

Some of those journalists are among those who confirm the administration's assessment of the situation in stating that those Americans who didn't get out made a personal choice to stay.  I also don't doubt that there have been some Americans who wanted to go but were prevented from doing so by Taliban roadblocks.  That's the risk involved when the choice is made to live in a place as unstable as Afghanistan.  The state department has warned Americans about travel there for decades and those who were there knew the potential for danger.  Living and working in a war zone has its risks, and in every sense of the word, Afghanistan was an occupied country.  Isn't it a conservative political byline that people must be accountable for their own actions and stop depending on the government to bail them out every time they make a bad decision?  Our military personnel, embassy staff and everyone for whom the goverrnment was directly responsible all got out. 

"Shoddy planning" doesn't get more than 120,000 people out of a collapsing country in a short period of time through a single runway airport.  

Twenty Years Weighed Against Eight Months in Office

Afghanistan was most definitely a botch, a colossal military and political mistake that never should have been made. That's on Bush, Cheney and their military advisors who wanted to cash in on the political popularity of the WTC attacks and help some of their major contributors make huge profits.  There were plenty of mistakes made along the way and lots of blame to be shared by leaders but those who were involved in the original decision to expand the mission beyond its original objective are the ones who must bear the responsibility and blame for it.  

Getting us out of Iraq was a priority for the Obama administration.  Iraq was a needless war in the wake of 9-11 based on the false claim that Al Qaida was operating from there and they had "weapons of mass destruction."  Neither of those claims was true.  They decided to give Afghanistan more time to develop, and had to hold off a Taliban insurgency, or they might have exited there as well.  

Rothman, as a conservative, somehow managed to miss Trump's obsession with deadlines.  Afghanistan was one of them and in fact, the mess that he passed along to Biden was a result of his setting deadlines deliberately into what he thought would be his next terrm in order to avoid the certain political liability that would go along with it.  This was one of many promises Trump made that he did not fulfilll.  He had four years, why didn't he work on Afghan self-sufficiency in order for the US to withdraw?

By the time Biden reached the Vice-Presidency, he was solidly in favor of a withdrawal.  He was one of the advocates for it during the Obama administration.  Getting out was a campaign promise, just like his pandemic recovery plan.  Deadlines get those things done and at the rate that money was pouring in without getting any results, the sooner the better.  It was a courageous decision, a commitment to keep a promise and the evacuation was nothing short of remarkable.  And as I write this, we are out. 

I don't think public opinion has been as negative as reported.  It may be anecdotal, but the people who I am around every day and the social circles in which I move are not made up of hard core Democrats.  Far from it, many of my friends and associates are Evangelical Christians, most are Republicans some are Democrats, few were opposed to the withdrawal and aside from those who only listen to certain newscasts, most would not call the evacuation a "calamity."  MSNBC and their "opinion columnist" missed the boat on this one.  

What Today's News Headlines Should Look Like

 Here are a few of the headlines we should be seeing somewhere today. 

Trump Looses Grip on Reality in Denial of Arizona Audit His People Paid For

Donald Trump's dementia was observed to be worsening as his statements today regarding the Cyber Ninja Audit in Arizona appear to be disconnected to the actual circumstances.  Trump called for Arizona governor Doug Ducey to decertify the 2020 election results in Arizona and appoint electors to cast ballots for him.  Trump seemed unaware that the Cyber Ninja report released yesterday did not provide any evidence whatsoever for decertifying the results and in fact confirmed that Biden not only won the election, but actually got more votes than originally reported. 

Trump's statement seemed to indicate that he was completely unaware of the findings of the Cyber Ninja group, linked to him via their conspiracy theories and was also completely ignorant of the fact that the time for "decertifying" an election, under law, has long since passed by.  Apparently, no one in his group of advisors is either aware of the law or the constitution.  In spite of his continued insistence, Governor Ducey stated that "Arizona would abide by the law."  

Biden Makes Plans to Eradicate Coronavirus While Republican Governor Actions Make Pandemic Worse

The governors of Florida, Mississippi and Texas, where the delta variant of COVID is overtopping hospitals, spreading through schools, killing teachers and students, and is worse now than it was at its peak back in 2020, continue to resist attempts to stop its spread.  

In Florida, a denialist was appointed by Governor DeSantis to be the state's surgeon general.  You can't go much lower than that, and make a move that turns COVID-I9 into a partisan issue than to put someone in charge who is just going to "let it run its course" no matter how deadly it is. Let that be on him, then.  

In Mississippi, where Republican Governor Tate Reeves referred to I3 year old M'Kayla Robinson, who died from a COVID infection she got in a "mask optional" school as "that young kid in Smith county" while claiming to pray for her family and that the 9,000 Mississippians who have died "break my heart.", while at the same time calling the threat of federal mandates "tyranny."  As if he even knew what that word means. 

In Texas, well what can we say about Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott is now losing court battles he is fighting to prevent schools from mandating masks and to try and keep vaccinations from coming into the state while patients who are seriously ill with non-COVID medical issues have to scramble around to find hospitals that will take them.  

Trump Sues Niece While Admitting NY Times Story on His Taxes Was True

Mary Trump may be one of the only people with that last name who actually does tell the truth.  In the quirky way that legal maneuvering sometimes works, the evidence of Mary's true statement is found in his filing of the law suit against her.  Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, is advising Mary Trump which should make for some interesting news to follow if the suit even moves forward with a judge.  

Former Trump White House Press Secretary Points to Rise in Murders in 2020 Under Her Boss

Via twitter, former Trump White House Press Secretary Katy McEnany put out a chart showing the rising murder rate in 2020.  She tried to blame the rise on President Biden with a graphic making that claim and showing a 30% increase in murders during the year.  She couldn't get the attribution down quick enough when it was pointed out that Biden was not president in 2020, but took office in January of 202I.  Data from the FBI has shown a flattening of the murder rate since Biden took office.  Oops. 

Critics Have Little Evidence to Prove Biden's Afghanistan Withdrawal Was a "Botch" So They Resort to Criticizing His "Obsession with Deadlines" 

And in the "Is this for real" category, an op-ed by Noah Rothman concludes that the biggest problem, demonstrating the need to use words in headlines like "calamity", "undermining political victory", and "in a masterclass of bad management" is his "risky obsession with deadlines."  

So rescuing over I20,000 Americans and Afghans, through a single-runway airport in a country whose own military was a zero and whose President had himself fled, was bad management because a deadline was set, extending the one set by negotiations with the Taliban through the previous President who had absolutely no plan whatsoever for evacuating anyone by then, was in a "masterclass of bad management."  

If that's Rothman's conclusion, then he has failed miserably to make his case.  On the other hand, he is an "opinion columnist" for MSNBC.  If he's trying to make a mockery out of the ridiculousness of the criticism of Biden's withdrawal, which, while not flawless was one of the most courageous and righteous decisions ever made by a sitting President of the United States, then he succeeded.  He has proven that even MSNBC has the capacity to be as much of a journalistic zero as Fox News or Newsmax. 

NO MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD IN ARIZONA! Retraction Alert! We Made a Mistake

Commenting on Arizona's phony election "audit" conducted by Trumpie and Q-Anon conspiracy theorist Doug Logan, the author declared certainty that the whole thing was a fraudulent, phony scam and that it would, predictably, find the "massive voter fraud" in Maricopa County's ballots that Donald Trump has been so desperately looking for, but has failed to find anywhere, including in his own justice department investigations, state recounts and multiple Republican led audits that have cost taxpayers millions of wasted dollars.  

I was wrong.  😄

What the Cyber Ninjas found, coming out today in a long anticipated, long awaited, much delayed report that had to be forced out of them by the courts (which should have provided a clue as to their contents), was that the Maricopa County vote totals were off, by a little over 300 votes...in President Biden's favor.  This after months of comic relief that included the conspiracy theorist-owner, Doug Logan, coming down with a serious case of COVID-19, multiple requests for help in understanding how machines operated, how to use computer programs, how to login to data bases, how to read data bases, and in effect, like a group of kindergartners given instructions who have to keep coming back to the teacher because they can't remember all of it at once.  

Oh, and wasting $150,000 of the taxpayer's money, and somewhere north of $6 million from Trumpie supporters and contributors.  I tend to think that this wasn't really about the ballots, it was about the money.  Logan walks away, after paying those who worked for him next to nothing, with millions, bilked from Trumpies.  😆

I still don't trust their results.  This was not a qualified or certified auditor and it wasn't a professional audit.  Maricopa County's two other audits, and Arizona's recount, are trustworthy figures.  And while it's funny that these people discovered the count was off, and in Biden's favor, I doubt their numbers are accurate.  With all the evidence that has been produced surrounding Trump's attempts to subvert the constitution and steal the election himself, I have little doubt that attempts by Trumpies and the Trump campaign were made in Arizona, and in other battleground states where it was close, to try and cheat, covering them with the "massive voter fraud" accusations leveled at Democrats.  I'd like to see a real audit of North Carolina's votes.  Or Ohio.  

The Big Lie Will Keep Going

This won't stop the big lie.  But it will put a big dent in it.  And I think it will help make it more of a political liability than it already has been.  It gives ammunition to anyone running against a conspiracy theorist Republican to accuse them of being a liar.  It will help fundraising for candidates running against Big Liars.  It will tip some close elections in favor of Democrats and it will provide support in other places, Pennsylvania, for example, where Republicans want to keep taking out and playing with ballots.  

I mean, if a Trumpie conspiracy theorist could not find a deceitful and dishonest enough pathway to evidence of cheating in an election, who can?  Stop me if you think I'm having too much fun with this.  

Arizona Democrats Need to Start a Recall Against Karen Fann

Karen Fann is the senate president who tried to make this look like it was something legitimate and real.  Her insistence on pushing this through even though there were two legitimate audits that both showed identical results, and that there was no evidence at all supporting the need to waste money on a third, cost the taxpayers of Arizona a lot more than the $150,000 they gave to this failed effort.  The Cyber Ninjas, unlike the previous auditors, got into access codes and login information for countless voting and counting machines that will now have to be replaced by Maricopa County.  The taxpayers should force her to pay for that out of her own pocket. 

And I think there's enough ammunition here for a recall.  She represents a pretty well gerrymandered district, but recalls, especially when there's motivation, tend to get more opposition out than normal.  A wasteful Republican who already looks and acts like she doesn't have a clue is a good target for a recall effort, especially after a huge botch like this that got a lot of attention.  Getting her out flips the balance of the senate and would put a stop to a lot of state legislative shenanigans that have been plaguing the Arizona legislature over the past two or three decades. 

She needs to be gone.  In all honesty, any other senator who supported and voted for this needs to be gone.  They have shown a measure of incompetence that disqualifies them from serving in public office.  They are agenda driven, not representatives of the people.  But getting rid of Fann would correct the senate's problem in pretty short order.  Are there any Arizona Democrats who are up for this?  

This is Still Not Right

Something is wrong with a system that allowed something like this to happen in the first place.  A legislative body doesn't have any checks and balances on it when it pushes forward like this, with no evidence and simplistic ignoring the facts.  Leaders are supposed to be reasonably intelligent representatives of all the people, not robots that do the bidding of party leadership without giving a thought to those whom they represent.  There had to have been a campaign in which Fann had to run to get elected.  Did she have to speak anywhere or make a public appearance?  And if that was the case, how in the world did she convince enough people to elect her?  

Something is really wrong when you can draw legislative boundaries around enough people who elect legislators like this.  It happens in every state.  It's illegal, but no one ever does anything about it because the authority never winds up in the hands of people who will be accountable.  

But that's a topic for a whole different discussion.  

Breaking the Filibuster: It Can Be Done

Though almost 15 years of experience working in voluntary "legislative advocacy," I learned a lot of things about how to influence politicians.  It takes time, a lot of effort, willingness to be frustrated and disappointed, and not being surprised when things take unpredictable twists.  But it can be done.  There are some ways legislators are influenced that are effective, from the state level all the way up to the Congress.  

The group I worked with did not have any connections to potential big donors, which is a quick route into the door.  But we did represent a constituency that was large enough to affect the outcome of congressional and state-level elections in about 75% of the legislative districts in the state where most legislators were elected by margins under 3% of the vote either way.  And that's the other route into the door.  If they think your position will gain votes, they're all in.  

We found that most politicians, whether in a state legislature or in Congress, work by the numbers.  Potential increase in the donor base is a big motivator.  So is a constant barrage of emails, phone calls, letters and personal contacts from constituents directed at a single issue.  During a session with a legislative aid to my congressman, with whom I was meeting one morning, he flat out told me that if they get a dozen emails or phone calls on an issue, it gets their attention.  People really don't call their senator or congressman to give their opinion that often.  So when it happens, it gets their attention. 

And, according to the aide, the means of delivery doesn't really matter, either.  Some groups use an automatic, electronic email set which constituents can access on line and send a pre-written message to whatever legislators or executives they choose, right up to POTUS.  Even though they all say the same thing, it clues the legislator in that a lot more people than usual must be thinking about an issue.  

Organize a "Break the Filibuster" Movement

I specifically checked the websites of state democratic parties in West Virginia and Arizona, just to see what's up.  Voter registration buttons, find out the issues, here's how you can donate, but nothing there, nothing, about the key bills in Congress now that will need every Democratic senator to vote on.  Nothing about voter suppression, virtually nothing about January 6th,  I think that might be a clue as to why there doesn't seem to be much traction on the filibuster, or much action.  There's no pressure.  Somewhere, on both of those websites, should be an encouragement to voters to pick up the phone or send an email to their senators.  

It will take getting the Democratic party leadership in both of those states behind a movement to bombard their senators with enough support to convince them they need to move on this specific issue.  It doesn't take much.  If aides are spending the majority of their day responding to messages, calls and emails about the same thing, it won't take long to get the attention of either senator.  And in both cases, that has to come from the "grass roots."  

This doesn't have to be in the form of an attack.  Just thousands of constituents expressing their concerns about the possibility that we could lose our right to vote and our Republic with the restrictive laws states are passing, and pointing out that breaking the filibuster is the only way to get this done.  It takes organization and communication at the state level to inform voters and get them involved.  If you can get a couple of their major donors on board, that's icing on the cake.  

Think about it.  It would be virtually impossible for a senator's staff to respond to more than a couple hundred emails or phone calls a day.  There aren't enough working hours in the day to field that kind of communication.  Multiply that by an office in Washington, DC and a couple of offices in their state, and it is not hard to imagine that some kind of response would be forthcoming from the member.  I've seen this approach work with a congressional caucus.  Representatives join caucuses based on their political interests, or to please a donor, and when the caucus gets bombarded with constituent contacts, it pushes them to meet and act.  The senate sometimes seems a bit more distant, but in this case, we're talking about bombarding a couple of reluctant Democrats, one in a purple state, one in a red state, neither up for immediate re-election, to change their current perception.  

If you're reading this and you're from Arizona or West Virginia, call your senator now.  It won't hurt anything and they need to hear from you.  Make the call exclusively about breaking the filibuster and tie it to the voting rights issue.  Sometimes a grass roots movement like this doesn't get state party leader attention because it doesn't fit with their corporately organized "strategy" which is exactly why it has to be grass roots.  And if you are a contributor with a record of financial support, let that be known.  

I'm not a resident of either state, but I have called both Senator's offices.  I tried to set up meetings last month when I was in DC, but of course, there are plenty of reasons for them to say "no" to someone who isn't from their state.  So the noise has to come from within.  Both of these senators are of the opinion that their continuation in the senate is in the hands of conservative voters.  In West Virginia, that may well be the case and Manchin's declining vote totals over the years from his gubernatorial races and then the Senate may well be an indication of that.  If that's the case, he's not going to get re-elected anyway, so he might as well do the right thing for the people who did put him there.  Sinema may be misreading the direction of the Arizona electorate, which has increasingly gone toward Democrats.  I see the possibility of a strong Democratic challenger, someone like Rueben Gallego or Ann Kirkpatrick, beating her in a primary, then going on to win a general election.  

It's Worth A Try and It Has To Happen Now

A sudden, abrupt change in the attitude and posture of these two senators when it comes to taking these final steps to defeat the GOP and put some permanent changes in place to prevent the Republicans from setting up a fascist oligarchy that would destroy the Republic is necessary now.  Otherwise, the time is coming soon when it won't matter how you vote.  These are Democratic senators elected by a Democratic constituency and the expectation is that they will behave like Democrats 100% of the time.  Their political future depends on it and our Republic depends on it.  

Like many others, I'm no longer patient with sitting around, seeing what the party leadership decides it will do.  I'm in.  Opportunity is being wasted.  We can no longer play the old games, hope things will work out and depend on some kind of mutual respect for the other side to behave the same way.  That's not going to work.  This is where the wedge must be driven.  

The US Supreme Court Has Already Ruled Mandatory Vaccinations Are Constitutional

Supreme Court Rules Mandatory Vaccines Constitutional

It's going to be difficult to argue that President Biden's recent vaccination mandates are unconstitutional and therefore illegal.  Not according to precedents set in the US Supreme Court.  And apparently, many of the laws which can be used to mandate vaccinations for COVID-19 have already been passed, are on the books, have been declared constitutional by the court and can be used in this case without requiring the approval of some cloistered Republican obstructionists.  

So roll up. your sleeves.  This is not something that violates either your personal individual liberties or your religious beliefs.  There's legal precedent for measures taken by state governments, including executive orders by governors, to protect citizens from the spread of an infectious disease.  

In 1905, in a case known as Jacobsen v. Massachusetts, the court ruled that a community has the "right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members."  The disease threatening the community of Cambridge, Massachusetts was smallpox.  While the court limited is ruling to just the specific case in that particular city, in 1922, Justice Brandeis, writing for a unanimous court, stated that the Jacobsen case "settled that it is within the police power of a state to provide for compulsory vaccination."  That decision came in the  Zucht v. King case which established the constitutionality of laws requiring students to get vaccinated in order to attend school.  

In the Jacobsen case, it was also argued that since a religious-based argument could not be made, religious objections or exemptions did not apply.  It is interesting that the court upheld a person's right to object to laws on religious grounds if there were any existing theological or doctrinal beliefs connected to a person's religion that forbid the practice of vaccination, but that in this particular case, the religious beliefs involved had no such teaching.  What that means is that if you are Christian, you shouldn't be lying about objecting to a vaccine on the grounds of your belief if your belief provides no support for the objection.  

Mask-wearing, which is not medically invasive, would also fall under the same protection.  So much for all of the lip-flapping and shrieking about "tyranny."  Clearly, mask mandates and vaccine mandates are means for government to exercise its constitutional duty to protect its citizens and that practice has already been upheld by the Supreme Court.  There are existing laws mandating vaccinations for a variety of diseases in all fifty states, and in order to attend school, students must have them.  Even in Texas and Florida.

Hey, now, wait just a minute?  That sounds an awful lot like a vaccination passport! 

Leave it up to Americans to have gone through this before, and settled the issue, only to have people act like this is a whole new thing and we've never been through it before.  Education is supposed to keep this kind of ignorance from happening.  Isn't the whole foundation of our public education system helping to support and preserve the Republic by creating informed voters?  Let's stop playing games and start teaching history. 

The people who are screaming the loudest about vaccinations and mask mandates are also the ones doing the most complaining about government restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of COVID.  Why?  Because if COVID ends soon, President Biden might get the credit for it.  

 

There Must Be Consequences for January 6

 After all the warnings and a lot of hype, the "rally" in support for those who have been arrested and charged in the January 6 Trump Insurrection sort of fizzled out.  Not only did it not materialize in Washington, DC, but in other cities across the country where organizers planned rallies for support, there wasn't much participation. The main reason for that is that there really aren't that many people in America who are part of the kind of extremist groups that Trump called together on January 6.  He really didn't want a lot of law-abiding citizens who respect their country and its Constitution.  He wanted criminals, deplorables and anarchists who would destroy, kill if necessary and be his private army to attack "we the people."  There aren't nearly as many of those kinds of people around as he might like to think.  

Conspiracy theorists are paranoid by nature.  So I'm sure all the chatter discouraging attendance had at least something to do with why the crowd just never really materialized.  Word went out that the FBI would be roaming around trying to identify those who had been there on January 6, or that there was some kind of "set up" involved to nab more protesters.  I think we can pretty well assume that the FBI's surveillance of the event itself is pretty good evidence of who was there and what they did, and whether or not a perpetrator actually comes back to the scene of the crime won't make much difference. 

But there is, I think, another reason for the low turnout and that is the fact that most of those involved in that insurrection and rebellion against us--and I use that pronoun because the attack was against "we the people of the United States"--don't really have the kind of popular support that they thought they did when they organized it and after the fact, have even less of it.  The estimates of the crowd on January 6th was "in the thousands," which has been more recently guessed at around 3,000 based on the size of the areas where they had gathered.  The majority of them were obviously associated with extremist groups like the Proud Boys, an assortment of white supremacist groups, Klansmen, Neo-Nazis and right wing anarchists.  For all of his bellocose verbosity, Trump's call to action didn't bring in anywhere close to what he thought it would.  

I'm not going to waste time arguing about whether or not Trump, or any of the rest of the speakers at that rally, incited the crowd to attack the Capitol.  They clearly did.  It's a travesty of justice and an insult to the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution that any of those who spoke at that rally are not already sitting in a prison somewhere contemplating their fate.  Their intention was to disrupt the constitutional process of certifying the electoral vote and subvert the will of the people--us--and to pull off a coup that would somehow allow Trump to remain in office. 

There is absolutely no constitutional provision that would have allowed that to happen. More damage could have been done, and there might even have been some assassinations of members of Congress or even the Vice President, but it's clear this coup did not have anywhere near the popular support it would have needed to survive and carry out much more than a temporary occupation of the Capitol and a temporary disruption of Congress.  They tried, unsuccessfully, to convince police officers to join them.  None did.  No one who has respect for the law would ever associate themselves with the deplorable human trash that attacked the Capitol on January 6. 

This was, and will remain, an extremist movement.  That's clear from observing the relatively small size of all of the protests that were organized around the country on the I8th for the January 6 perpetrators.  I'm not even sure their ranks have been swelled by the addition of Trump supporters.  Those who came out to openly fight against the laws of this country on January 6 should bear the full weight of whatever penalties the law requires in these kinds of cases and that includes making sure that Donald Trump, and the whole slate of speakers at that rally, go to prison for the rest of their lives.  

Our Constitution and our laws are so fair, and are so packed with justice, that it is difficult to bring the full weight of the consequences of these actions on the perpetrators.  Freedom of speech and free expression are so highly valued that even despicable deplorables like this January 6 mob are protected.  But they clearly broke the law and they need to spend a lot of time in prison contemplating what they did, including Trump.  Otherwise, they'll make a mess somewhere and cause more death and destruction.  

Why Don't Republicans Want an Evangelical Presidential Candidate?

As the largest constituency in the GOP, white Evangelical Christians have more or less dictated a lot of party policy in its platform for quite some time.  But in all of the years that they have controlled the GOP, they have yet to nominate an Evangelical, buy the true definition of what that means, for the Presidency.  The closest they've come is with the Vice-Presidency, though by what has been considered a "standard" definition of Evangelical Orthodoxy, Sarah Palin might be the only GOP VP candidate who fits with that definition.  

The Republican party's leadership "flirts" with Evangelical Christians.  Some of them actually belong to Evangelical congregations or have connections somewhere in that faith tradition so they know how to push buttons and motivate voters.  The bottom line has been the GOP's ability to keep opposition to abortion rights and the judicial goal of overturning Roe v. Wade in the platform despite growing opposition to doing that from other segments of the party.  As long as that is in place, it is not difficult to convince Evangelical voters to go along with policy or positions that, in many cases, fall outside the boundaries of their orthodoxy.  But "being against abortion" has been the mantra. 

Jerry Falwell and the "Moral Majority" 

Falwell was the agent who officially linked the GOP to many American Evangelicals.  Among Falwell's brand of Independent, Fundamental Baptists, voting in "secular" elections was considered a dependence on "worldly power" and there were segments of that group that dropped their support for Falwell when he pushed into the party and supported Reagan's candidacy for President.  The incumbent President Jimmy Carter was also a Baptist, but had been marked as a "liberal" by Falwell and his group because Carter had been among a group that left a church because it would not baptize African Americans or allow them to become members.  They established the Plains Baptist Church which was open to integration.  

There is a separation among Evangelicals between those who have been branded as "liberal" and those who are "conservative" which does run along political fault lines.  It can be discerned, in all of the rhetoric from sermons and writings in books that integration was the issue which defined whether or not an Evangelical church, especially among Baptists and Pentecostals in the South, was liberal or conservative.  Being in favor of integrated schools was a bad thing, but integrating churches was messing with God's holy order.  Carter, who was and has remained a doctrinally and theologically conservative Southern Baptist, was branded "liberal" because he belonged to an integrated church and favored integrated schools.  Abortion, in the late 70's, was still up for discussion. 

It took a while for the impact of bringing the moral majority and Falwell's brand of Evangelical into the GOP fold.  As their presence led the party to become more focused on social issues and less focused on Barry Goldwater conservativism, it began to lose members from among those who tended to be less fundamental and conservative in their faith.  After the Reagan presidency, that's where the fault lines developed in the GOP.  And that's where the foundations started tearing apart, producing the rift between social conservatives and economic conservatives that continues to exist.  Ironically, it would be the social conservatives who pushed the nomination of the world's most immoral, evil, wicked politician as their party standad bearer in 2016.  

Few White Evangelicals From Which to Choose

Jimmy Carter was a Southerner from Georgia, a Sunday school teacher, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who was uncomfortable and somewhat awkward in political settings, but whose mixture of southern accented conversation comfortably contained the jargon of those who are lifelong members of Southern Baptist churches and have a strong faith undergirded by the Bible's narratives.  Ronald Reagan, a divorced former Hollywood actor and non-church-goer, was awkward and uncomfortable talking about Christian faith.  When he was asked by a reporter if he was "born-again," a term that Carter had used which initially confounded the media because of their ignorance of it, Reagan had to ask exactly what that meant before he answered the question.  

But in spite of those obvious differences, Reagan picked up a majority of the white, Evangelical vote, though the 56% that the exit polling showed he received was not enough to best Carter's 65% support from people who considered themselves to be "born again Christians.'  The percentage of white Evangeicals voting Republican would eventually grow much larger, but even though Carter still got a higher percentage of church-goers overall, the support from Falwell and the "Moral Majority" was enough to get Reagan elected. 

Democrats Don't Seem to Mind Nominating Evangelicals  

The only three identifiable Evangelical Christians, by church membership, doctrine and theology and regular church attendance, elected to the Presidency since World War 2 were all Democrats, and ironcally, like Carter, all Southern Baptists.  Harry S. Truman was from Missouri, not exactly a Southern state but he had been baptized upon his conversion experience into the membership of Benton Boulevard Baptist Church in Independence at age 18.  He later joined First Baptist Church of Grandview, and was a regular church-goer for the rest of his life, though he claimed that he did not always live up to the expectations of his faith.  

And in addition to Carter, who was the second Evangelical President since World War 2, there was Bill Clinton, also a southerner and a lifelong Southern Baptist.  As a child, attending Sunday school at the First Baptist Church in Hope, Arkansas, he was baptized and became a member of the Park Place Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas at age 9.  During his years as Arkansas governor, he belonged to Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock where he played saxophone in the church orchestra.   

During that same period of time, since World War 2, all but one of the Republican nominees and office holders have been members of liberal, mainline Protestant churches except Reagan, who was never identifiably a member or attender of any church, and Nixon, who was a Quaker, a very theologically broad, open and mostly liberal branch of Protestant Christianity.  Eisenhower was raised Mennonite, but was not baptized into the membership of any church until 10 days after his inauguration, when he joined the National Presbyterian Church, an extremely liberal congregation belonging to the extremely liberal PCUSA.  Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush were members of the liberal Episcopal Church, U.S.A.  George W. Bush, raised Episcopalian, is a member of the liberal United Methodist Church and once declared that he believed the "three great world religions", Christianity, Judaism and Islam, were all "pathways to God."  

Then there's Trump.  Prior to running for office, he claimed to have been "Presbyterian" but family members say that's in name only, without much substantiation.  He still has not made anything that Evangelicals can identify as a "profession of faith," in fact publicly denying that he has ever done anything requiring forgiveness.  His "spiritual advisor" (his words) is Paula White, a self proclaimed "prophetess" in the Word of Faith tradition, a Charismatic offshoot that most Evangelicals consider completely heretical and idolatrous.  The vast majority of Evangelicals also do not recognize women as pastors or "prophetesses."  So there's that. 

The GOP Has Rejected the Evangelicals Who Have Sought Nomination Since 1980

The irony of the whole GOP nomination process in 2016 was that several Evangelical Christians were in the original GOP field before Trump emerged as the front-runner.  They included two Southern Baptists--Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham along with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, whose background is Catholic, but who frequents a large, Southern Baptist megachurch near his home.  The party of "faith and family values" picked a twice divorced, publicly proclaimed adulterer, strip club and gambling casino owner, business fraud, pathological liar and overall con artist over the Evangelicals, and at least three devout, practicing Catholics in the field.  Did they see their character as being worse, or have they abandoned the values that brought Evangelicals into the party.  

I would submit that, apart from using abortion and now the issues surrounding the rights of LGBTQ persons as political footballs to gather votes and for election purposes, the GOP was never the party of "faith".  True conservativism has a hypocritical appearance of respect for religion, but Christian values and the pursuit of money do not work together well.  I would also say that the nomination of Donald Trump, in and of itself, was a very clear statement about the values held by the GOP and it is quite obvious they lack any consistency or compatibility with those of Evangelicals, or any Christians, who take their faith seriously.  

Cruz and Graham, while members of churches that belong to the Southern Baptist convention, have not demonstrated much personal conviction or character related to their faith when it comes to their political posture or position.  Their political positions are not very compassionate or caring when it comes to people's needs, they're both rich men supporting selfish politics.  Even so, both would have been a better choice than Trump if the Evangelical connection to the GOP had been seriously considered.  

The most bizarre episode in this whole political scenario was the nomination of Mitt Romney in 2012.  Romney is a Mormon who demonstrates a reasonable committment to his religious beliefs.  There are multiple Evangelical sources which carry a lot of theological and doctrinal authority who have dissected the Mormon doctrines and beliefs and have declared Mormonism a heretical cult on grounds of Biblical evidence.  There are several conservative Evangelical apologetics ministries that have built an entire career on exposing the false claims and distorted theology of Mormonism.  

But it was the weight of Evangelical support for Romney, when the race for nomination came down to two candidates and his opponent was former Southern Baptist pastor and Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee.  Huckabee has become much more of a politician from a character perspective than a pastor, and Romney, while also occasionally being more politician than man of faith, had few real political differences other than Romney's less strident and much more lenient view of Roe v. Wade.  But Evangelical support gave Romney the edge in the nomination.  The former Falwell bastion of empire, Liberty University, gave Romney their stage at convocation.  

The Power of the Presidency, Not the Power of the Cross

The direction of Evangelical support toward a Mormon, and then toward a debauched playboy adulterer and liar points to the conclusion that Evangelicals in politics are after the power of the Presidency, not the power of the cross.  Maybe prayer is still involved in trying to resolve humanity's problems for some Evangelical Christians who haven't sold out like this, but those who have lent their name and influence to the GOP have made the choice.  They aren't after revival.  If Mormonism is a cult, in Evangelical belief, then a Mormon President isn't going to bring a Christian revival to the US.  And an unrepentant adulterer and pathological liar who waves his fist in God's face and declares himself to be the essential element of resolving humanity's problems isn't going to bring it either.  

That's not to say that Huckabee, Cruz or any other Evangelical who might, one day, succeed in getting elected is God's man for the purpose of bringing a spiritual revival to this country.  Spiritual revival is going to come from the church, not the government.  The nation is better off in the hands of a President who depends on his own faith for guidance and strength and gets his rest and renewal from it than it is from someone who uses their faith as a vehicle for gaining political power.

Response 9/I9/202I

Though some of his apologists insist that George W. Bush fit the definition of Evangelical because of his claim to a personal spiritual conversion experience, I point out that's not just an Evangelical characteristic but is also a Wesleyan distinction common among Methodists.  Bush has continued to keep his church membership in UMC congregations that side with the liberal faction of the church promoting the ordination of LGBTQ persons to the clergy.  If you ask an Evangelical pastor if Methodists are Evangelicals, he'd say "no."  

Clinton's experience, on the other hand, is very typically Evangelical.  He was reached by the church through its children's ministry program, pre-school, vacation Bible school, Sunday school.  He had a conversion experience at age 9.  If you read biographical or auto-biographical work on Clinton, it wasn't just that he knew the language.  He knew when he'd gotten away and he knew how he had to go back. And like most people who know when they're not "right with God," he tried to postpone repentance to a more convenient time.  But he came back.   Carter teaches Sunday school and has left a long, long record of straight-up Evangelical belief and theology out in the open.  He matured, like you'd expect of any Christian, crossing over into the kind of acceptance of people where they are, that is the faith trajectory of Christianity.  He's not a "militant" Evangelical, but he is Evangelical.

Do Democrats Need Trump to Motivate Voter Turnout For Their Candidates?

Though he wasn't on the ballot in California's recall election, Trump was the big loser. Californians really like their governor.  So do I.  He's one of those who, regardless of whether it was politically popular or not, took the necessary steps advised by medical science to protect the people of his state from the spread of COVID-19.  They responded by showing their gratutide and appreciation last night, giving him an even bigger mandate than he got when he was elected.  

Mask and vaccine mandates won last night, and they won big.  Contrary to them being "tyrannical" as the Republicans claim, they are seen as the best path forward toward the end of the pandemic.  It will be that way across the whole country if COVID is still around in 2022.  Whining about mask mandates and vaccine mandates is a loser, politically.  More than just a handful of Republicans running for the Senate, for Congress or to be a state governor or legislator are on the verge of finding out just how many votes they are going to lose because their position on those issues isn't resonating with the voters.  

But looking at the exit polling and some of the commentary from last night's election, it appears that one of the big factors driving Democratic voter turnout to record high levels for such an election is "the Trump factor."  The man most likely to have become governor had Newsom lost the recall was a rabid, flag waving, nasty Trumpie, a guy who makes his living lying on Trump's behalf.  And from mid-summer to the election, fear of getting someone in the governor's office who listened to and got his marching orders from Trump drove many Democrats and independent voters, along with some Republicans, to the polls to make sure that didn't happen.  

The standard rhetoric about mid-term elections, you know, the "fact" that the party in power in the White House loses congressional and senate seats during the mid-terms, has already been floating around.  Sometimes, it sounds like people just take that for granted.  Turnout is everything.  There is no way that Republicans can gain a foothold in Congress if the size of the Democratic electorate is in the neighborhood of the 81 million, as is was in 2020.  It's pretty clear that the anti-Trump vote drives turnout among Democrats.  So what are the implications of that? 

We're at a point where any Republican victory at the federal level is going to mean a threat to voting rights.  Republicans seem to believe that if people have the right to vote, they aren't going to win elections so they must change the laws to prevent elections from determining who serves in government.  Any Republican is going to support something like that if they get elected.  So that means Democrats have to be motivated to turn out and it seems that being anti-Trump does get the margins up where they need to be.  

What happens if, as a result of the hearings on January 6, Trump winds up going to prison where he should be?  Will that motivate Democrats to go to the polls? 

I certainly hope that's not the case.  I believe, at the very least, Trump's role in inciting January 6 should make him permanently ineligible to run for President, if it doesn't send him to prison as it should.  Democrats should be motivated by the Republican threats to suppress the vote and what would be the certain loss of voting rights if they are in charge.  The "big lie" has to be beaten into the ground by a turnout unlike any ever seen in a mid-term by the party in power.  

Protecting the right to vote means turning out at the polls every time there is an election and casting a ballot.  

To Republicans Wasting the Taxpayer's Money: It's Time to Shut Up and Move On

No more conversation about Trump really winning or massive voter fraud unless there is hard evidence and not just speculation, outlandish theories or false allegations which is all that's been offered so far.  Of course, what can be expected from someone like Trump who never met a lie he couldn't use. But let's see the real evidence.  Otherwise, it is time to shut up and move on. 

Arizona, the "La-La Land" Of Voter Conspiracy Theories

Even the theoretical possibilities that are being put forth now are laughable.  In Arizona, which has somehow become the La-La Land of voter fraud conspiracy theories, the ridiculousness of having a Trump supporter spend Trump supporter contributions on an effort to find voter fraud has turned into a comedy of errors.  These "auditors", who call themselves "Cyber Ninjas" have had to go back to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, like kindergartners go to their teachers with questions about everything, how to operate the machinery, how to access the voter registration database, how to tell if someone voted or not, how to tell the difference between mail-in ballots and drop-box ballots, where the verification lists were kept, and on and on.  

The other two full audits conducted in Arizona, by reputable, certified vote auditors, canvassed about ten times as many ballots as the Ninjas have been able to count, verified addresses and registration records, signatures and other identification in about ten days.  They did indeed find several cases of "voter fraud," about the usual number for an election and predictably, neither candidate actually benefitted from it.  The Ninjas have demonstrated their incompetence to the point where over 85% of Arizona voters don't believe their results will be accurate or trustworthy.  That's based on their bumbling incompetence, not on the fact that the $6 million they collected to pay for the audit came from Trump campaign contributors, though the state senate did kick in $150,000 of the taxpayer's money. 

Their results, long past due, are invalid and good for nothing.  The state should ask for their money back because no product was delivered by the deadline.  They are dragging it out to try and bilk some Trump supporters for more money, which is the only remaining purpose of the whole futile effort.  They have cost Maricopa county taxpayers additional hundreds of thousands of dollars because the county can no longer use the voting machines or ballot counting machines because the Ninjas have compromised the operating codes.  

Now, there's a real estate agent in the Phoenix area claiming to have discovered that thousands of mail-in ballots came from vacant lots.  That claim was based on their use of google maps showing swaths of desert with the addresses where the ballots came from.  Problem is, Arizona is a fast-growing state and since the maps and satellite photos used to make this determination came out, houses have been built on the land that previous maps showed to be vacant.  Oops.  And indeed, the very first case of "fraud" that was introduced turned out to be a new house with two residents who legitimately mailed in their ballots from that location, along with thousands of others in the neighborhood, many of whom voted for Trump.  

Other addresses identified as "vacant lots" were in a trailer park.  Uh, do we have to explain what a "mobile" home is? 

This is typical of the stuff that is passing for "evidence" of massive voter fraud.  To say that it lacks credibility is an understatement.  This is not a lack of credibility, this is stupidity and ignorance on a historic scale.  

It's Like Taking Candy From a Baby

The image of the Trump baby hot air balloon created by the British pops into mind when this subject comes up for discussion.  Trump whined and belly-ached about "massive voter fraud" and everyone being out to get him and deny him a legitimate election for the whole time he was in office.  Most people realize that's just subterfuge to distract from the facts of the Mueller investigation and from his own meddling with the election to fix the results in his own favor. 

With all of Trump's blabber and whining, you would think that Republicans, especially those who were in charge of state elections and ballot counting, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where he focused his complaints, would have been keeping out a watchful eye to catch any attempts, and to grab hold of the evidence.  But when Giuliani and Powell, Trump's primary attorneys in these challenges, went to court, they had allegations but no credible evidence.  That leads to two possible conclusions.  One, as hard as they were looking for it, the Republicans found no evidence of "massive voter fraud."  Or, two, the Republicans who were on the front lines in the battleground states and who had responsibility for verifying the vote count and certifying the results are the most gullible and easily fooled people in the world.  

And in the follow up after the election, the Trump claims meet with a whole lot more credibility problems.  

They lost the most credibility in Michigan.  With the help of a woman named Melissa Carone, a Trumpie nut case who somehow got in front of a camera, they made a spectacle out of their phony presentation that will provide Democratic candidate campaigns with lots of footage for a long time.  At the very moment Carone was claiming that the poll signature books were off by over 30,000 from the actual number of ballots being cast, a state representative had the poll books in hand and observed that they were off, but only by a very small number, consistent with normal clerical error in an election.  

Producing a witness who testified to the fact that they saw "something strange" going on with ballots in Edison County, Michigan was another clue that the fraud being committed was coming from Trump, not the Democrats.  Sidney Powell produced a witness who claimed that Biden received "more than 100% of the votes at 5:59 PM EST on November 4, and again he received 99.61% of the votes at 2:23 PM EST on November 5. These allocations are cause for concern and indicate fraud."  

I guess that you don't have to know much about geography to be a lawyer, huh?  Was there no one in that whole herd of Trump's legal team who could have told Powell that there is no Edison County in Michigan before the witness went to court and made them all look like, well, stupid Republicans?  

Such is the state of the credibility of Trump claims of "massive voter fraud."  

It's Pointless, No Evidence Exists, But They're Going to Keep Looking

Constitutionally, the 2020 election is done, over, certified, in the books and cannot be overturned or undone.  That deadline passed in January.  Continuing to search is evidence of a lack of Constitutional and legal knowledge that is laughable in one sense, frightening and dangerous in the sense that many of those who keep pushing this narrative are lawyers, politicians and a former President of the United States.  They should know better.  Most of them, except Trump, probably do.  Most Americans are incredibly ignorant when it comes to civics, government and their Constitution, so this is a deliberate attempt to undermine the credibility of the election process.  And that is a major threat to our democracy that must be stopped in its tracks right now. 

This week, Pennsylvania is launching a "forensic audit" of some of its ballots.  No one really knows exactly what that means, though the implication is that somehow legitimate ballots were replaced with counterfeit ones.  The Cyber Ninja audit in Arizona came complete with special cameras to detect "bamboo fibers" in the paper, implying that some ballots may have come from China.  Counterfeit ballots from China is a common Trumpie conspiracy theory.  In Pennsylvania, every ballot, whether cast at a computer screen or by pen at home and mailed in, has a unique bar code.  No counterfeit ballot could get through the counting machine because it couldn't match the bar code of the voter's registration number.  But some people are incredibly ignorant, insensate and gullible.  

If You're Republican, This Will Hurt, But Do It Anyway

Joe Biden won the election legitimately and he is the legally and legitimately elected President of the United States.  Republicans who still think Trump won need to say that sentence one hundred times.  If the words can't be forced out, then write it a hundred times like your teacher used to make you do.  

Four years of Trump was all the Democrats needed to get a large majority of independent voters on board, and a slice of the GOP as well, and beat Trump into the ground.  The shenanigans that went on in 2016 and the evidence from the Mueller investigation motivated Democratic party leadership to work to get a voter turnout that couldn't be challenged by claims of voter fraud and that's what they got.  Biden got a majority of the popular vote, 5% more than Trump, and over 81 million votes.  His campaign strategy was to carry the states Clinton won in 2016, and bring back the blue wall in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and he achieved that, along with the added bonuses of narrow wins in Georgia and Arizona.  

Every challenge to the legitimacy of the vote total was thoroughly investigated, largely because Republicans were the majority and in charge of the election process and ballot counting in the states where Trump's campaign challenged the results.  Legitimate audits and recounts, as required by law, were conducted.  And though there is always voter "fraud" along with clerical error, none of the recounts or audits conducted by certified firms and experts turned up any evidence of "massive voter fraud" on a scale that would change the expressed will of the voters.  

All of the Republican observers, election officials, secretaries of state and poll watchers and workers verified the reports, that there was no "massive voter fraud," and that the certified results of the election that we see represent the actual numbers and the true will of the voters.  Trump knows that, his legal team knows it, but most of his base still live in some kind of La-La Land and they will believe whatever they choose to believe, including some of the most outlandish and discredited claims of massive voter fraud that are made.  

Louder and Larger Opposition

The only way that this will be brought to a conclusion is for the majority who are tired and fed up with it to take action to put it to an end.  Every time there is an opportunity to cast a ballot, go and vote and make sure you find out if a Trumpie is running to vote against them.  Find a few extra dollars here and there and send it to the DNC through either Act Blue or directly.  Speak up every time you have a chance to discredit all of this crap whenever you are in a position to do so.  Write letters to the editor to your local newspaper or get on the call in shows.  

If there's a Trumpie rally near you, find out about the counter-protest and join it.  A friend of mine put up some social media posts from a counter-protest he attended at a recent Trump rally and there were more counter-protesters than Trumpies going to the rally.  One of the claims that Trumpies make as evidence of voter fraud is that Trump had rallies and more people showed up than Biden, who had "drive in" rallies and far less people.  Of course, that is as ignorant and stupid as it sounds, but at Trump rallies on this side of the election, the counter-protests have been either equal in number or bigger, in some cases much bigger.  Yes, there really were 81 million people who voted for Biden and they are actual voters who aren't going to switch. 

And VOTE!  VOTE!  VOTE!  

The "Pearl Harbor Moment" of the 21st Century

Like most other Americans, I won't forget where I was or what I was doing when I first saw the news about the 9-11 attacks.  I had just arrived at work when a couple of co-workers wheeled a portable television into the employee workroom where there was a cable connection and we started watching the coverage about a half an hour after the first attack.  The room soon filled up with horrified people watching as the second plane hit the tower, the Pentagon in flames and the crash in the open field in Pennsylvania.  

There was a surge of emotion, an unusual mix of feelings that I can't really remember ever having before. I had never been to New York City, but the first time I ever visited there I felt compelled to go to the WTC site.  The memorial was complete, but it was one week before it opened so I didn't get to see inside.  But standing there, looking at those holes in the ground where the towers once stood, I got the same feeling that I had when I was watching the news coverage.  

The Pentagon Memorial was complete by the first time I visited there.  I walked around, planning to spend an hour, but I felt compelled to read every name and the information on the memorial about all of them.  And I got that same feeling there, and at the memorial in the field in Pennsylvania when I visited there.  When I go to museums or memorials, I like to get the feel of the place by looking at the information that is displayed, but at these 9-11 memorials, I had to read everything.  

There were lots of references to 9-11 being the "Pearl Harbor Moment" for the current generation.  It's the kind of event that only happens once in a generation.  I heard a lot about Pearl Harbor from my parents, who were in their early 20's then.  I was too young to remember much about the Kennedy Assassination.  So 9-11 was that "once in a generation" experience for me, too.  

The Comparison to Pearl Harbor

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it unified a country that was divided over isolationism versus getting into the European war on Britain's side.  All the attention was focused on Japan.  War was declared, giving Roosevelt what he needed in terms of support when Germany and Italy decided to line up with their Japanese allies and declare war on the United States.  All of the American energy and attention, though was focused on Japan, though with most of the Pacific navy sunk or damaged at Pearl, there was little the US could do to avenge the attack right away.  

In order to keep the country unified and moving ahead, the "Doolittle Raid" was a stunt by the air force with two purposes in mind.  One was to boost morale at home with an air strike against the Japanese mainland.  The other was to convince the Japanese to make a strategic military decision to commit its navy and air force resources in the Pacific, aimed at the keeping the United States at bay, rather than securing the Chinese coast and their conquests in Southeast Asia.  

The raid itself was very small, 16 B-25 bombers took off from aircraft carriers and headed for Tokyo. Though it was a small raid that did little damage, setting some fires, hitting a few war-production facilities and killing about 50 Japanese, with about 400 injured, it was a tremendous shock to Japan's military leaders, raising doubts about the ability to defend Japan from air attack.  It was also a tremendous boost to the home front in the United States.  The war aims were clear, the US was defending its own territory and protecting its people from the aggressive military dictatorship in Japan, and also from the spread of Nazi domination as a result of Germany's declaration of  war.  

Where It Went Wrong

After 9-11, Bush had a window of opportunity open that included support from a previously fractured Congress, to avenge the attack and to make an effort to end the kind of terrorism it represented.  The strongest influence in the White House was Vice President Dick Cheney, a leftover from the previous Bush administration, a war monger and heavily invested in defense contracting.  Cheney saw the same window of opportunity.  It was the might of the US military going after a terrorist organization that had planted itself in remote, rugged, primitive Afghanistan.  

The US vented its frustration and anger over the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center in the brief war that resulted in toppling the Islamic Emirate government of the Taliban, and sending Bin Laden and what was left of Al Qaida into neighboring Pakistan.  That raised some big, and still unanswered questions about US aims.  Pakistan is a full military ally of the United States. Why didn't the Bush administration exhert some pressure to get them to either hand over Bin Laden, or let military forces go in after him?  Eventually, the US did get him, under President Obama's leadership.  

But what happens in Afghanistan, where the Taliban government had been deposed?  It does not appear that the Bush administration gave much consideration to the past history of the country when it decided that it would remain in the country, rebuild it, and establish a democratic constitutional government.  There are plenty of theories and opinions about what should have happened, most concluding that a short occupation to restore order, allowing the various tribal and provincial groups to set up a provisional government and then getting our military out completely being the best course.  

The problem was that after the terror of 9-11 that included the devastation to the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the four hijacked planes, Afghanistan was an anti-climactic military operation.  Americans wanted revenge and they wanted to do some damage so that no terrorist organization would ever dare try something like that again.  Most people couldn't separate Al Qaida from all other Muslims in the Middle East.  In order to claim success and satisfy the anger and frustration of Americans, Bush would have to get Bin Laden.  Short of that, they needed to find someplace where they could drop some bombs, vent some of the frustration and anger and declare success.  

And one of the Middle Eastern dictators attracted enough attention to make his country the target. 

Shock and Awe in Iraq

Saddam had taunted the US following the 9-11 attacks, made a lot of noise and helped fuel the anti-Islamic sentiment in the US by siding with Al Qaida and saying that the US had deserved what it got.  That opened the door for the "big lie."  The Bush administration claimed that Iraq was harboring "weapons of mass destruction" and was also giving safe haven to some Al Qaida leadership who had fled there instead of to Pakistan.  Cheney was one of the war hawks from the First Gulf War who had advocated for taking out Saddam as an objective and was held back by George H. W. Bush.  As it turned out, there were never any "weapons of mass destruction" found, in fact, Iraq's war capacity was extremely weak.  

Nor were there any members of Al Qaida anywhere near Iraq. Iraq itself is not a traditional Arab or Muslim province.  It is a state created mainly by British influence following the first World War based on their economic interests and ability to control the region when the Ottoman Empire was dissolved.  Saddam Hussein's ability to remain in power depended on a shaky coalition made up of majority Shiite Muslim population and Sunni and Kurdish minorities.  It would have been suicidal for his regime to harbor a terrorist group like Al Qaida, though he couldn't resist taunting Bush when the attack happened. 

The record shows that Bush and Cheney knew there were no weapons of mass destruction and likely knew that there were no Al Qaida members being harbored in Iraq, but they couldn't resist taking advantage of the war fervor and the anger and frustration that the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center had created to do what Cheney had wanted to do in Iraq during the First Gulf War.  He wanted to overthrow Saddam and make Iraq an American military outpost in the Middle East.  

And so the United States invaded Iraq, bombing Baghdad in a night called "shock and awe" by Bush, toppling Saddam and wrecking one of the more modern, progressive countries in the Middle East. Instead of eliminating terrorism, as was the supposed aim of US military action in the region, it incited more insurrections and launched more terrorist activity than existed before.  The whole reason groups like Al Qaida form in the first place is to resist the presence of foreigners in their own countries whom they see as a threat and who deny them the full benefit of the natural resources their countries produce, specifically oil.  In fact, the Bush administration originally planned to call the invasion "Operation Iraqi Liberation", but backed away when it was pointed out that the acronym was OIL.  So it became Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

Remembering Why Americans Loath Dick Cheney

Most Americans couldn't tell the difference between any sect of Islam, and were ignorant about the difference between the 1% of Muslims who were "radicalized" and the 99% who were not. Iraq was already on the "Bad Arab" list because of its invasion and occupation of Kuwait and the war that followed.  Hussein was a brutal dictator, but no worse than any Saudi or other Middle Eastern Emirate who were close allies and business associates of the Bush family's oil business.  Iraq was a balance of a Shiite Islamic majority, and minority populations of Sunni, Kurds and Christians.  

The US invasion toppled the balance and made Iraq an unstable mess.  The US created "democratically elected government" was a Shiite majority that existed only inside the "green zone" of US military security in Baghdad.  A brutal Sunni insurgency formed, engaging in an alliance with a rebel group in Syria and morphing into ISIS.  The Kurds pushed the American occupation for more autonomy, and the Christian minority was placed in mortal danger, with many of them either fleeing the country or being slaughtered.  Instead of preventing Iraq from being a place that "harbored terrorists," the US invasion turned Iraq into a cluster of terrorist regimes. 

That is the political legacy of the Presidential administration of George W. Bush.  His successors were all forced to clean up the mess.  

We're Out and That's Where We Need To Remain

The United States spent $8 trillion on the Afghan and Iraq wars, and sacrificed the lives of 7,000 American servicemen and women.  We did not achieve the goal of preventing either country from serving as a base for terrorists, nor did we establish self-sustaining democratic governments in either country.  Terrorism is the only weapon that has worked for the people of this region against the domination and influence of foreign powers, and so as long as they sense oppression and manipulation from "the big countries" terrorist insurgencies will form. 

And where did all that money go?  Much of it made its way into the pockets of those who had a vested interest in our invasion and occupation of both countries.  The oil business buddies of Bush had their eyes on Iraq's vast oil reserves.  Defense contractors, including Cheney himself, made vast fortunes in Afghanistan.  The fact that it was as much about making money as anything else is evident in the number of expatriate Americans that had to be evacuated from Afghanistan prior to the withdrawal.  

Nothing can change the fact that it was President Obama, trusting his military advisors, who made the decision to take out Osama Bin Laden when the opportunity presented itself.  It was politically risky, especially if it had failed, but he took the risk and made the decision.  Getting out of Iraq was an even bigger mess than anticipated, requiring a series of difficult decisions, but it had to be done and that decision stands in contrast with the one made on false pretenses by Bush and Cheney that got us in there. 

The decision to end the military presence in Afghanistan, made by President Biden, was also courageous because of its political implications, but necessary because it had a high cost and wasn't achieving its ends.  It was the right thing to do and when the time came, hastened by the collapse of the Afghan government and army, he made it without hesitation achieving the evacuation of over 120,000 people ahead of it, a remarkable logistical and military achievement.  Anyone calling it a "botch" just doesn't know the truth. 

Notice to the GOP: Stop Playing Politics With COVID-19 or You Will Lose Big

Texas Governor Abbott "Worst Poll Numbers"

Florida Governor Desantis Approval Falls 14 Points

Yeah, so polls are polls.  Polls don't vote, people do.  You can twist questions to make polling data say whatever you want.  And so on. 

In two big states with Republican governors where Democrats have excellent chances of winning house and senate seats in 2022, the fights over vaccination and mask mandates has yielded wonderful news for Democrats.  Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis have not just failed to take action to stop the spread of the virus, they have opposed the efforts of others to do so, screeching about "individual rights" and then trying to stand in the way of those who want to exercise their "individual rights."  

Fighting to prevent school districts from instituting measures to protect their students from the threat of COVID-19 was a gigantic mistake by both of these incompetent, egocentric and politically self-absorbed governors.  You don't mess with people's kids.  And while their overall inaction when it comes to COVID has eroded their support all along, the big nosedives have come as school has started, the delta variant is surging and they both went to war with school officials over mandatory masking and employee vaccination.  

The school officials won.  

As Republicans across the country are getting bent out of shape over Biden's tightening and moving forward on efforts to get the US through this pandemic and back to normal, you can hear Republican poll numbers crackling and crashing down.  I don't get why it takes such a long time for people to see where things are headed, but the constant resistance to doing anything that will actually stop the spread of COVID, and prevent the virus from mutating even more, and the constant whining about restrictions and mandates and measures taken to protect people from getting sick appear to finally be yielding some fruit.  An increasing number of people are waking up and seeing that these Republican politicians, and the people who listen to them and make up most of their base, really are that stupid and that ignorant, and it is beginning to look like it will be a major factor in how they cast their vote. 

Democrats aren't really having to spend much money to push the narrative, either.  It's catching on really fast as schools reopen, cases among school-aged children surge, especially in states with governors fighting mask mandates where there are also low vaccination rates, and the death rate, including children, climbs once again.  It's an eye opening experience for parents who are already fearful about sending their children to school to spend every day in a room full of other kids, to see their governor on television every day doing their dead-level best to prevent the school officials from protecting the students.  

At a religious-based private school in Broward County, Florida, when a "mask optional" policy was announced, parents lined up to withdraw their children, until the administration relented and made masks mandatory.  At a large, suburban Chicago religious-based school, the administration announced a "mask optional" policy until a large group of parents called the state board of education which then pulled the school's recognized status, affecting scholarship dollars and credit for coursework.  Large public school districts in Texas simply hunkered down and dared the governor to take action against their mask mandates, then went to court against his actions.  

Governors, mostly Democrats, in states that have been both pro-active and competent in preventing the spread of the virus are being rewarded, not only with lower numbers of cases and deaths, per-capita, but with high job approval ratings.  J. D. Pritzker, of Illinois, may be the "dean" of COVID prevention.  The most recent polling data reported by the Chicago Tribune shows him at 57% approval of his handling of the pandemic.  With 54% as the low, and 58% as the high, it looks like Gavin Newsom will hold on to his seat, and that's about what Californians think of his handling of COVID as well.  

Doing More Than Most Republicans

West Virginia Gov. Justice Goes Off on Antivaxxers

Whether he is so confident in his popularity, or just has common sense and doesn't care about the politics, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice has taken a big step forward in helping his state resolve its pandemic problems.  West Virginia ranks near the top of the pile in terms of unvaccinated residents, and in per-capita COVID infections and deaths but the governor is not an antivaxxer.  It doesn't appear that he is doing all that much to mediate the spread of the virus, except talk, but that's more than most Republicans are doing.  

The Republican threat to sue over Biden's tougher mandates has little chance of succeeding.  Legal precedent is in favor of the mandates and many of the laws necessary to put Biden's mandates into effect are old laws already on the books and have already passed court muster.  I'll be curious to see if the threats materialize into actual court cases.  I don't think Republicans will want all of that negative attention, keeping the narrative focused on being the party that doesn't want to keep children safe.  They already resist efforts to keep students safe from mass shooters and gun violence.  Do they really want to flood courts with lawsuits against masks and vaccinations that keep children safe?  Someone needs to come up with a good meme linking Republican resistance to masks and vaccines with their resistance to gun laws that keep schools safe.  

Republicans Want COVID-19 Relief to Fail

It doesn't appear, at this late stage of the pandemic, that Republicans will be able to reverse their fortunes and recover from the negative image they have created for themselves by their resistance to ending the pandemic.  If it ends, they reason, Democrats will get credit for it.  That's too bad, they had their chances.  But they also had Trump.  Maybe Republicans like Jim Justice, or Larry Hogan, Maryland's governor who has been among the more aggressive when it comes to fighting the pandemic.  It shouldn't be a political issue.  We should all want to do everything we can to get past it and resistance to that out of fear that another political party might benefit from the results is selfish and cruel.  If the Republicans want to take that risk, then they deserve to lose, which is exactly what is going to happen.