Monthly Archives: October 2020

¿¿ PROTEST — OR, GENERAL STRIKE ??

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COPS know how to protest without getting hurt.  It’s called Blue Flu.  A Guardian article focusing on the historic futility of street protests makes it clear that risking safety has accomplished little, as governments allow the public to vent, up to a point.  And then heads get busted, and people are damaged for life, or die.  But there is another way : Just stay home. Call in sick. Sit on your hands. Slow down. >>> This is powerful.  The wisdom of crowds should be to work smart instead of hard or dangerously.  Investing our energy where it has the most leverage and the least risk will win.  We the People have a hammer.  With it, we can restore democracy.  Use it skillfully, gently, wisely.

Photo from Crucible Tool (fair use)

FYI : : REPUBLICANS HATE DEMOCRACY !!!

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Bagley cartoon, Salt Lake Tribune (fair use)

ONE dropbox for ~5 million people, in Houston?  Thank you Governor Abbott for “protecting the vote”.  But the voters, nah!

EXCERPT:

Directives from Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose, and Texas governor, Greg Abbott – both Republicans – limit drop boxes to one per county. In Harris county, Texas, home to Houston, that’s one box for 4.7 million people. For the 228,000 residents in more sparse Mahoning county, a single drop box could result in a lengthy trip to the board of elections. In stark contrast, for the 2.3 million residents of King county in greater Seattle, there are 73  24-hour drop boxes within easy reach of voters.  Click for Guardian article.

EXCERPT:
“For the past few days, some New Yorkers have been forced to stand in line for four or five hours to cast their ballots.
But across the country, the group most responsible for making voting harder, if not impossible, for millions of Americans is the Republican Party.  Republicans have been saying it themselves for ages. “I don’t want everybody to vote,” Paul Weyrich, a leader of the modern conservative movement, told a gathering of religious leaders in 1980. “As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
This strategy has become a central pillar of the G.O.P. platform.  [ . . . ]
The second bill would, among other things, create a national voter-registration program; make it harder for states to purge voting rolls; and take gerrymandering away from self-interested state legislatures, putting the redistricting process in the hands of nonpartisan commissions.
The House of Representatives passed both of these bills in 2019, with all Democrats voting in favor both times. The Voting Rights Amendment Act got the vote of a single House Republican. H.R. 1 got none. The Republican-led Senate has refused to act on either.  [ . . . ]   When more people vote, Republicans lose.”  SOURCE.

 

Cartoon by John Cole , York Dispatch (fair use)

VOTE REPUBLICAN IF YOU HATE DEMOCRACY

US Senator Mike Lee is proof that Republicans hate democracy.

I defended America for four years, for this?

 

 

PREPARING FOR A COUP d’ÉTAT

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Cartoon by Horsey, Seattle Times, (fair use)

Excerpt:

. . . [P]lanning to defeat a coup can actually help reduce the chances of attempts to overthrow democracy since plotters are likely to think again if they know the public is well prepared. In addition, power grabs tend to succeed or fail in a matter of weeks or months. Scholars such as the political scientist Stephen Zunes, who studied a dozen attempted coups around the world since 1958, have shown that opposition forces that did not prepare for a coup often lost valuable time building alliances and mobilizing for action subsequently. Advance preparation often made a decisive difference in defeating coup attempts.  [¶]  Here are some of the steps those who wish to defend democracy should take in the weeks we have left before the election . . . [CLICK BLUE LINK to The GUARDIAN article]  :

PREPARING A FOR COUP d’ÉTAT

Strike !!!   (Excerpt):

There has not been a general strike in the United States since 1946 – and that was restricted to Oakland, California .[ ¶ } The local labor federation in Rochester, New York, was the first union group to officially support the idea. Union federations in Seattle and in western Massachusetts have followed suit, approving resolutions saying a general strike should be considered if Trump seeks to subvert the election outcome.  Source:  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/30/us-unions-general-strike-election-trump-biden-victory

 

HealthCare Loss: Senators Need to Hear You!

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Republican Senators. Photo from MichaelMoore dot com (fair use)

You, and millions of other Americans, are at risk of being branded with a pre-existing condition – IF you’ve had covid-19, and IF Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to sit as a justice on the Supreme Court.  This could cost you BIG at the hospital.  Don’t snooze, or you will lose.  Contact a Republican senator today, insisting that they vote NO!

IF just three Republican senators vote NO, we might dodge a bullet.  (Two have already said they wish to delay until after election day.)  Don’t delay.  Protect your health coverage.  Reach out today!    EXCERPT:

In a book review published in 2017, for example, Barrett denounced Roberts’s opinions in both NFIB and King, claiming the chief justice “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute” in the first decision.

If Obamacare is struck down, roughly 20 million Americans will lose health coverage — a likely conservative estimate, as it does not count many people who have lost their employer-provided health insurance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Contact Tool for US Senators.

(At the Senate .gov link above, select your state in the upper left corner.)

FINAL SEASON : : Firing The Apprentice President

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You’re fired, Don!  (Such a loser.  What an amateur. you DICKtator!)  Pack your bags.  Do not pass GO.  Do not collect $200 million. Go directly TO JAIL in NY.  Smile for your mug shot, you cheater:

Excerpt:

The most serious legal threat facing Trump is the Manhattan district attorney’s broad criminal investigation into the financial workings of the Trump Organization. Prosecutors have suggested in court filings that the investigation could examine whether the President and his company engaged in bank fraud, insurance fraud, criminal tax fraud and falsification of business records. 

!! GUNS & BALLOTS !! — A WAKE-UP CALL

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Photo by Jubre2016, Wikimedia Commons (fair use)

Q:  What’s more slimy than a salamander, and more slippery than a one-eyed eel after coitus? Answer: A Gerrymander! 

Many voters know that politicians from both sides of the aisle own the game simply because they know where you store your ballot, which is to say those slippery pols know where you live, and which  party you joined when you registered to vote.   Both sides want to keep it this way so they can rig the primaries by redesigning the districts after each census — by drawing congressional districts to favor one party over another — first done in Massachusetts by a pol named Mr Gerry, which district was said to look like a salamander.  And most voters feel powerless to do anything about these unbalanced districts.  But wait!

Few voters recognize that the smoky backrooms of the party bosses are where elections are decided.  Nobody can run for office on “their” ticket without kissing their ring.  If you were to be allowed onto the primary ballot, you owe them! And they will extract repayment, as this is how the parties control us..

Voters in a few states have been alert enough to prevent this.  How?  They’ve designed their voter-registration and primary balloting so that, once registered, any voter can show up on primary day and ask for a ballot for whichever party has the most interesting nominations. This removes predictability from the gameboys’ tool chest.

If un-affiliated registration became the law in your state, it would mean that your predictability can no longer be gamed by either party, simply by their knowing where you live, when it comes time to redraw districts, meaning they can no longer Gerrymander effectively, after each census. But it would take a ground-swell of citizen action — such as a public referendum demanding a chance to vote on a change of rules, for voters to retake ownership of the election franchise.  Got grit?  Call for a referendum!  Launch a petition drive.

So, what does this post have to do with guns?  If you don’t want the gummit to know that you own guns, shouldn’t we all be just as private about where we store our ballots?  He who snoozes, loses, kids!  WE the People need to take back our power.  We are the gummit, dammit!

 

 

¿¿ IS ABORTION  “ALWAYS IMMORAL” ??

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Justicia. Baden-Würtemberg. Wikimedia Commons (fair use)

Healthcare is complicated, and costly.  We don’t need another busybody telling us what is right or wrong about settled law.  Life will become more costly yet, if the current nominee is confirmed.  While I find abortion repugnant, I won’t tell you how to manage your body, within reason. But the current supreme court nominee seems inclined and happy to do so.  

Mrs Barrett apparently has already decided the question posed by my blogpost, for you.  (In  a law journal article she has cited a teaching from her church that calls all abortion immoral. ~see paragraph 5.)

So let’s conduct a thought experiment in which the above-named woman, in her youth, was raped and impregnated by a pedophile priest.  Now, we can’t know what she would have decided under such circumstances. (But I trust we can agree that the priest was immoral.)  If she were your daughter, what would your preference have been? … Would you want to retain an open window for allowing your family’s  consideration (and prayer) to protect this choice?  

He who said  Judge not, lest ye be judged (Matt 7)  arguably has not lost any of his well-deserved eternal rest over the question of abortion.  Let us recall that he also said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground, but that the Father knows (Matt 10).  Yes, and he also agrees that Thou shalt not kill. And yet he instructs Peter on minding his own business.  (John 21:21).  It is noteworthy that he did not say Don’t allow your neighbor to kill.  Case closed.  Court is adjourned.

There’s more to be wasted than lives and dollars with this nomination. Liberty and justice are at stake.  Does America still value separation of church and state, codified as first  among our Bill of Rights?

¿¿ WHAT’s THAT BAD SMELL ?? . . . .

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When the Cosmic Mind speaks, pay attention.  That now Famous Fly stayed there for two minutes while Pence was saying that there was no such thing as institutional racism. (see comment section.)  Get the message — like stink on shugga !!!    Mr Pence, this is no personal condemnation of you, Sir, but of the administration’s policies and practices and viewpoints. 

Now, I ask you, dear Reader, was that fly sent by the Chinese Army?  Was it a socialist? – a communist? – a liberal?  Perhaps it was a divinely-sent Apostle Fly – an Angel Fly sent to deliver a message.  Will we heed the Messenger?  (Personally, I think America is paying close attention, and is well-able to read between the lines.)  

WEATHER TOOLS : : HURRICANE WATCH

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I love these animated weather tools!  (Click the orange links to see current imagery.)   On Tuesday, October 6, we learned that Tropical Storm Delta, in the Caribbean Sea, had suddenly blown up into a category four hurricane in record time.  It came ashore near Puerto Morelos about 5:30 pm, local time as either a Cat 3 or Cat 2 storm (reports vary) , where a screenshot of landfall is visible below.  At the orange links there are pulldown menus, and many choices for viewing. You might want to bookmark the sites.  (Note: the remnant of TS Gamma is in the Gulf to the west of Yucatán, in the graphic above.)  

Here in Mérida, measured at our house, we’ve had nearly ten inches of rain between Friday and late Wednesday.  Wind has not yet been a factor, but had been forecast not to exceed 30mph this far inland (about forty-minute drive from the coast).  I doubt it exceeded 10 mph.  And the storm did not follow the predicted track, but instead, traced the northern border of Yucatan from east to west for most of the day,  so it now looks like it’s going to Texas, instead of Louisiana, to me.  (But NOAA has not yet re-charted a pathway.)

Most houses here in Centro adjoin, and are stone or block, so wind is less of an issue (aside from blowing trash, if winds get cranky).  And unlike blizzards, there’s no snow to shovel!  If water comes into the house, just push it out with a squeegee.  The soil is so well drained it will disappear quickly.  (Pasta tile floors don’t need carpets.)  

For daily forecasts I rely on Wunderground.com, rather than “the weather channel” as twc is owned by a climate-change denier. Tonight’s forecast?  I predict it will be dark and humid <grin>.

 

Hurricane DELTA comes ashore. (same site: GOES East)

 

 

East-west track along north shore.

The readout of my rooftop weather station signals by wifi indoors.

HOW TRUMP STOLE 2020 : : A Book Mention

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Greg Palast, photo by Gabriel Olsen (fair use)

UP FRONT :  I don’t know this guy, and have not read his book, HOW TRUMP STOLE 2020. I happened upon an author interview that is worth visiting, which I’ve excerpted below.  Our author, depicted above, is intriguing — especially his very focused work on election fraud.  Here’s an excerpt between him, and Chris Hedges.  I ask you, dear reader, how crooked is this? — (note that I’ve blackened some type for emphasis, and quick digestion):

GP: Okay.  So, starting out with–you mentioned the system created by a guy called Interstate Crosscheck, created by a guy, as you’ll find the book called Kris Kobach of Kansas.  If you can’t remember that name just remember KKK.  Mr. KKK who was [INDISTINCT] State of Kansas created a hit list of people to remove, which he called Interstate Crosscheck, got a lot of press pray–praising him from the mainstream press saying he was hunting down all the people voting and registering in two states, which is a crime.  No reporter until I got in for Rolling Stone ever asked for the list, for the names, who were these evil double voters?  Why aren’t you arresting them?  They didn’t arrest anyone, 7.2 million suspects.  And you’ll see in the book there’s a chapter called 358 James Browns.  So, 358 James Browns were removed from the voter rolls of Georgia based on this hit list by Mr.KKK because he found, believe it or not, a James Brown in Detroit, and a James Brown in Baltimore, a James Brown in Phoenix, of course, they were matching and they’re saying it’s all the same voter, so they’re removing them.  Even though it’s James Edward Brown…

CH: Let me just–let me interrupt–let me interrupt you because this is …from the book.  They often… …have different middle names.   [ . . . ]

GP: Yeah.  So, you go James Thomas Brown–and this is an exact–this is a real example, James Thomas Brown and James Edward Brown are supposed to be the same voter.  But here’s the trick, how do they know it’s black?  Well, it’s simple.  So, I asked the Secretary of State of Michigan, “What color do you think Michael Brown is?”  I gave him a list of whole Michael Browns where not one middle name was matched that he’d removed.  They removed 50,000 voters in Michigan.  Fifty thousand voters in 2016 with names like Brown, and Garcia, and Kim, and Park, and Ho.  So, what’s happening is they take the common names.  Eighty-five–the one hundred most common names in America according to the census are minority names like Garcia and Rodriguez.  There are 832,000 Garcias in America, Chris.  And so, if you’re–like our expert said, if your name is Jose Garcia, you’ve been–you’re being accused of voting in 29 States.  I’m not kidding you, this is the stuff that they’re doing.  They’re not arresting anyone for double voting.  They’re simply erasing them because these clearly aren’t double voters.  But, yeah, at 1.1 million voters almost all voters of color were removed from voter rolls using this–that’s just one system.  You also mentioned this thing of–it’s kind of called Use it or Lose It or Purged by Postcard, what happens, you missed an election or for example, they blocked you from voting.  Wisconsin, you walk in, you’re a young person, you hand in your student ID, they say that’s no good.  You walk away, you didn’t vote.  Now, they take away your registration.  They say, oh, you skipped the election.  You’re “inactive.”  Now, what is an inactive voter?

source: podcast and text

Author bio, wikipedia

Is U.S.a banana republic?

BOOK LINK :  HOW TRUMP STOLE 2020