Wednesday/ where the young voters are

You know you’re old when you didn’t even know about the existence of ‘Among Us’, a massively popular online game on Twitch.

(Twitch is a platform for streaming online games to viewers that follow the players. The players can talk live, but viewers usually participate via text chat.  Amazon owns it; bought it in 2014).

In the game Among Us, up to 10 players work together to complete tasks located around a map or a series of rooms. One player is secretly designated as an Imposter. When a body is found or an emergency meeting is called, the players all must vote for who they think the Imposter might be.

Anyway: on Monday, progressive politician with star power, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (elected to represent New York’s 14th congressional district in Congress at 29 yrs old), also known by her initials AOC, tweeted that she will participate in a game of Among Us.
Even before the game started, some 300,000 viewers were signed on, and later on the count reached 430,000, making it one of the most popular streams ever.

Why would AOC play in an online game? That’s where the young people are, and she told them how important it is to vote, and how to check how voting works in their State.  (I suspect it is a little late to register, if you have not yet done so,  though).

Here’s the lobby of the spaceship in which the game of Among Us was played. That’s congresswoman AOC bottom center. Her avatar for the game is above her (‘aoc’ character in pink with the sprout hat).
Here’s a very funny scene from the game. It went as follows.
AOC goes to the electrical room. Poki follows her (that’s Poki in the picture).
Poki:  Ma’am, are you OK?
AOC:  (Talking to viewers of the game, but muted and unbeknownst to the Among Us players) I can’t kill Poki – she’s so nice .. (AOC is the designated Imposter in this game).
AOC:  OK, I think I’m gonna have to do it. STABB! (Poki is ‘killed’).
Poki:  (Mortified, shocked) Shrieks .. Aargh! (Laughs, knows it was AOC that ‘killed’ her) .. It was an honor!
Poki:  It was an HONOR. (Bends forward on her desk, arms raised, laughs). 

Monday/ vote him out

My ballot has been counted.
The man they call ‘President’ (of the United States) attacked Dr. Fauci today, and called Joe Biden a criminal – and all journalists criminals, as well.
Those are not good arguments to make, with 15 days to go, and given that you are the criminal and the liar!

Sunday/ no sun today

The sun did not come out today, but the soft rain had cleared up by the afternoon so that I could go for a walk.
The high was 60 °F/ 15 °C.

The letter balloon display by this house was a little deflated — but it is still getting its message out.
And here is a new sign by the Biden campaign. Get it? Bi-den = Bye Don(ald Trump). It’s not a done deal, of course. The Washington Post reports of a Democratic voter that says ‘I am feeling anxious and trapped between a sense of unbridled optimism and sheer dread’. How can we not, remembering 2016?

Friday/ my vote is in

18 days until Nov 3.
I walked down to the ballot drop box on Broadway this afternoon to drop in my ballot.

There it goes! Yay! There was a lot more than just Joe Biden for president, to vote for on the ballot. We vote for Washington State governor (Jay Inslee), for our House of Representatives member (Pramila Jayapal is mine), and for a number of local ballot initiatives as well. The two US senators for Washington State are not on the ballot. US senators serve 6 years, and Patty Murray was re-elected in 2016, and Maria Cantwell in 2018.
Here comes the Seattle streetcar. This is on Broadway, right where the ballot box is. The new apartment buildings across the street are coming together nicely. They might take a little longer to fill up with renters, with the pandemic hit that the economy has taken under the Trump Disaster Administration.
A little further down is the Broadway Performance Hall, part of Seattle Central College. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1911 and renovated in 1979. The performers (singers, speakers, poets, musicians, dancers) will be back, but not any time soon.

Thursday/ 17 million, plus mine

17 million people have voted in the election already, a number vastly outpacing the early vote numbers from 2016.

My mail-in ballot arrived in the mail today, and I will get it in the mail ASAP. Psst! Donald Trump, I’ll let you in on a secret. You’re not getting my vote.

P.S. Check out the appeal to voters from the New York Times editorial board, in the black frames below.

Not even 2 out of 3 eligible voters (US citizens older than 18) vote. 138 million, which is 58.1%, voted in 2016. Those 80% numbers from the 19th century are the most accurate available, but exclude large swaths of voters that were still disenfranchised. Women only got to vote in 1920. And it was really only in 1965 when the majority of African Americans in the South were able/ allowed to vote. Voter suppression efforts by the Republican Party continue to this day. Every election, voters from some states still report that they had to stand in line for 8, 9, 10 hours to vote. That is not democracy. That is voter suppression.

 

 

Wednesday/ Lord of the Fly

Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves.


The vice presidential debate between candidates Kamala Harris (Democrat) and Mike Pence (Republican) took place in Salt Lake City, Utah tonight.

There was a fly that made itself comfortable in Mike Pence’s hair for a good 4 minutes, and screenshots made the rounds on Twitter  (naturally).

The fly in Pence’s hair. Pence has been in charge of the White House Coronavirus Task Force that was established on Jan 29, 2020. The Task Force’s efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic, have been undermined at every turn by Trump. My impression is that Pence has been no help at all, either. 
And the debate was barely done, when the Joe Biden campaign tweeted out this cheeky picture. ‘Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly’ said the caption to the tweet.

 

Tuesday/ four weeks to go

Only four weeks remain until The Election of a Lifetime on Tuesday, Nov 3.
Polling done after that disastrous debate, shows that candidate Joe Biden had widened his lead over Trump in the national polls. (Trump’s positive Covid test and the drama of the last few days have not been factored in).
Biden also holds sizable leads in most of the swing states, and is at a statistical draw in Florida (come on, Florida – don’t vote for Trump!).

The FiveThirtyEight website (owned by the New York Times) give Biden an 82% chance at winning. Look at that Fivey Fox mascot on the left, though: ‘Upset wins are surprising but not impossible’. Well. Let’s just say if Trump does win, there WILL BE VERY, VERY MANY PEOPLE THAT WILL BE MIGHTILY, MIGHTILY UPSET, and I will be one of them.

Sunday/ but not much sun

The paint on the Black Lives Matter artwork on East Pine St was recently refreshed. I trust that those hands in white paint are from the artists, and not from imposters!

It was a gray Sunday, with just a little bit of sunshine coming late in the day.
I walked down to the Pike/Pine corridor to check on the freshly repainted Black Lives Matter artwork on the street.

P.S. It’s impossible to know how seriously ill Trump is. One of the doctors ducked and sidestepped questions about the president’s condition. Trump said he’s doing well, but his chief of staff (Mark Meadows) said he was not. So far Trump has gotten oxygen and remdesivir and antibodies .. were all these necessary, or just given as a precaution? Trump even went for a jolly ride today in The Beast, around the hospital, to wave at his supporters gathered there. Did he care that the Secret Service or other staff might get infected by him? Of course not.

Thursday/ October surprise

October surprise
noun
(United States) any political event orchestrated (or apparently orchestrated) in the month before an election, in the hopes of affecting the outcome.
“even the much-vaunted October surprise might fail to move the race in one direction or another”


It was still 1st of October here on the West Coast, when Trump tweeted that he and wife Melania had tested positive for Covid-19.  They may have gotten it from aide Hope Hicks, who came down with mild symptoms on Wednesday and then tested positive.

Trump has to cancel his campaign rallies for now, and the two remaining presidential debates will probably be cancelled as well.

And if Trump gets sick? Under the 25th Amendment, a medically incapacitated president has the option of temporarily transferring power to the vice president and can reclaim his authority whenever he deems himself fit for duty.

A little history from the New York Times:
Four presidents have died in office of natural causes: William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt, while Wilson endured a debilitating stroke and Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack in his first term and a stroke in his second.
Four others were assassinated while in office: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy.

Here is the New York Times from late afternoon on the East Coast on Friday.

 

Tuesday/ tonight’s ‘debate’

Don’t be fooled by the nice-looking formal debate stage. It was ugly, made so by Trump. Debate moderator Chris Wallace (middle) lost control of the debate three minutes in, and never regained it. ‘No more men for president‘,  said some women on Twitter. ‘No more debates‘, said many others (there’s TWO MORE – unbelievable). Can we just vote and get it over with?

I was spared from watching Trump and Biden ‘debate’ tonight (I play socially distanced tennis on Tuesday nights). Lucky me. The highlights (lowlights, really) were available, and discussed afterwards, of course.

Once again, Trump would not disavow white supremacist groups, specifically the Proud Boys: a far-right and neo-fascist organization.
‘Stand back and stand by‘, said Trump. The Proud Boys celebrated their mention at the debate afterwards.

Here is the New York Times’s six takeaways from the debate:
—Trump trampled over everything.
—Biden, at his strongest, pivoted to the camera — and away from Trump.
—Trump still wants to wear the outsider mantle.
—Trump would not condemn white supremacy, or urge his supporters to stay calm.
—Trump did little to address the gender gap (women support Biden far more than they do Trump).
—Biden rebuffed the leftist label that Trump tried to pin on him.

Sunday/ confirmed: Trump, the tax cheat

The New York Times has finally gotten its hands on more than two decades of Trump’s tax returns, up to 2017 (even Congress, with a lawsuit, has so far not been able to get it).

The bottom line: for many years, Trump has gotten away with paying zero federal income taxes. He paid a paltry $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the presidency. In 2017 he paid another $750. (Presidents Bush and Obama regularly paid more than $100,000 year each, in federal income taxes).

Tax avoidance is legal, but tax evasion is not. So is a super-complicated scheme of shell companies, and offshore accounts avoidance – or evasion? I don’t know the answer to that, but $750! That’s less in taxes than that paid by the 18-year old cash register attendant at Walmart.

The presidency has helped Trump’s businesses, says the NYT, but has not resolved his core financial problem: many of his businesses continue to lose money.

The NYT reports that Trump appears to be responsible for loans totaling $421 million, most of which is coming due within four years.

Saturday/ “We’re going to have to see what happens”

From the Washington Post Editorial Board:

IT WOULD have been unthinkable, not long ago, for a White House to have to issue such a clarification. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany averred Thursday that President Trump “will accept the results of a free and fair election.” Ms. McEnany was not rebutting some kind of fevered left-wing conspiracy theory but the president’s own words. “We’re going to have to see what happens,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday when asked whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power. “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” he said.

Sadly, there’s a limit to how much reassurance Ms. McEnany can provide. Mr. Trump will reserve to himself the right to determine whether the election is “free and fair,” and he has already said the only way he could lose is through fraud. Mr. Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr have pre-spun the results by fanning conspiracy theories about mail-in ballots. “Get rid of the ballots” means curbing the mail-in voting that large numbers of Democrats say they will use this year.

There’s a touch, but only a touch, more reassurance to be had from the mild condemnations that Republicans issued following the president’s antidemocratic statement. There is some comfort in the fact that they said anything at all; such things are not guaranteed these days. But it is easy for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to say that “the winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th.” It may take more gumption for them to do the right thing after their president has spun a narrative of massive electoral fraud.

The most distinct danger, in other words, is not that Mr. Trump will refuse to cede power after unambiguously losing. It is plausible he will lead in key states on the evening of Nov. 3, based on an advantage in in-person voting — and that his lead will then diminish or disappear as mailed ballots are counted. If he falsely portrays the shift or the delay as scandalous, will Republicans stand up for democracy and the truth? Or will they support him as he seeks to do what he has openly said he intends — to “get rid of the ballots”?

A president with a modicum of decency would seek to reduce national tensions and assure Americans that the government is working to ensure that every American has a fair opportunity to vote. During a pandemic, that would mean acknowledging that many more Americans will want to vote by mail, which was not controversial until Mr. Trump decided it might hurt his chances. It would mean explaining that the shift toward mail-in voting might make things feel different — full results will not be available on election night, for example — but assuring people that this is not evidence of fraud.

That is not the president we have. So it falls to others — Democrats and, we hope, Republicans — to explain and explain again. Mail-in and early voting are safe and appropriate. The winner may not be known on election night. It is more important that every vote be counted. Vote, be patient, and do not be swayed by the president’s lies.

Friday/ Ruth Bader Ginsberg (1933-2020)

The children’s book ‘Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequality’ by Jonah Winter, Stacy Innerst (Illustrator).
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and ’40s, Ginsburg was discouraged from working by her father, who thought a woman’s place was in the home. Regardless, she went to Cornell University, where men outnumbered women four to one. There, she met her husband, Martin Ginsburg, and found her calling as a lawyer. Despite discrimination against Jews, females, and working mothers, Ginsburg went on to become Columbia Law School’s first tenured female professor, a judge for the US Court of Appeals, and finally, a Supreme Court Justice. [Description of the book from barnesandnoble.com]
Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (87) passed away today (pancreatic cancer).
She was a trailblazer and a champion of gender equality. Now that she is gone, there may be profound consequences for the Court, and for the country.
Only 3 of the remaining 8 justices are now considered progressive or liberal, with 5 conservative.

A growing crowd gathered on Friday night at the grounds at the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. for an impromptu vigil for Justice Ginsberg. [Picture posted by Kelsey Reichmann @KelseyReichmann on Twitter]

Wednesday/ ‘law and order!’ shouts the liar-dictator-conspirator

The reporting of Trump calling American soldiers ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ is still fresh. Even so, recorded interviews with Watergate journalist Bob Woodward surfaced, of Trump knowing full well, as early as February, that the coronavirus was deadly and airborne, even as he lied about it to the country.

Voters already punished the Republicans over health care as the No 1 issue in 2018 (they lost the House). Hopefully, they will do so again in November. (Trump’s administration is asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act. If successful, this move would permanently end Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans). 
Here’s the American Medical Association in June: ‘Striking down the law at a time when the system is struggling to respond to a pandemic that has infected nearly 1.4 million Americans and killed more than 80,000 at the time of this writing would be a self-inflicted wound that could take decades to heal’.

Yet .. Trump’s game is to say: look at all the chaos and uncertainty! Law and Order!

‘His Game: To stir up fear of chaos and violence, promise the voters ‘law and order’ – does that put Trump into the White House again?’ .. we’re at the mercy of the six battleground states. Biden needs to win Florida OR Pennsylvania OR two of the other four. One would think it’s doable, but look at that second graph that shows Trump narrowing the gap with Biden in the battleground states. [Graphs and map from Der Tagesspiegel newspaper]

Saturday/ the Lake Travis Trump Boat Parade: a sinking proposition

It’s Labor Day weekend, and people are up to all kinds of crazy things .. like going onto a lake in relatively calm weather, and still managing to sink four boats.

There were no injuries. So it’s hard for me not to have a little schadenfreude over the mishap during the Lake Travis Trump Boat Parade.

From the New York Times:
Mr. Salinas (organizer of the boat parade) said he had seen boats of all sizes Saturday — from 60-foot yachts to eight-foot boats. Mixed with the number of boats headed in the same direction, their various sizes and the choppy water, Mr. Salinas said, accidents were bound to happen.
“You can have really great water one second, and it could get some pretty heavy swells in a matter of minutes,” he said. “Once boats get on a lake, mother nature has its own plans.”
Boaters were set to travel around the lake, which is about 15 miles northwest of Austin, at 10 miles per hour, according to the event’s Facebook page.
Other boat parades to display support for President Trump have taken place this summer.

Thursday/ two months to Nov. 3

There it was, on the radio today: the undecided voter. Some clueless person from Pennsylvania that told the interviewer that neither Trump nor Biden was an appealing option, and that she ‘had not made up her mind’.

So! I thought: you’re telling us that you cannot choose between the blue skies of a sunny day, or the pitch black of a moonless night; between candidates that are polar opposites — one good, and one a destroyer of decency and democracy.
We cannot help you. Don’t bother. Just stay home.

A banner that has been up for quite some time, near Madison & 20th Ave. (Apologies for the f-bomb). The banner assumes (correctly), that voters in Seattle will overwhelmly vote for the right candidate .. if only they can be convinced to vote.
‘This week, a slew of new, high-quality polls out this week confirmed their off-record observations: Biden continues to hold a steady lead over President Trump’. – Amy Walter writing for the Cook Political Report.

Thursday/ all the Trumpublicans

Here are some 1,500 people (very few masks, no social distancing in the seating), sitting through 71 minutes of Trump’s rambling acceptance speech for his nomination as the Republican presidential candidate, in front of the White House at the final night of the Republican National Convention.

All this violates the Hatch Act of 1939*. And now the White House is good enough as a prop for Trump .. did he not once call the White House a ‘dump’?

*The Hatch Act (1939), an ‘Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities’, prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are working in an official capacity (such as setting up & hosting a political convention at the White House!).

Here is Steve Schmidt on Twitter@SteveSchmidtSES, mincing no words:

The desecration of the White House for Trump’s perverse political use is an abomination. The question of whether voters care about the Hatch Act is beside the point. It is the law. Trump’s convention was a pageant of breathtaking dishonesty, racial incitement and demagoguery. 1/

It was an exposition of lawlessness where the powerful symbols of State that belong to all of us were profoundly abused in the name of Trump’s personal vanity and political narcissism. The playing of Hail to the Chief and the use of USMC sentries attired in dress uniforms for 2/

political purposes was grotesque. Make no mistake about what Trump declared over these last four days. In essence he said, I AM THE TRUTH, I AM THE LAW, I AM THE STATE. The Republican Party’s platform has but one demand. One requirement. Obedience and loyalty to Trump. 3/

It is the definition of a cult of personality. This cult of personality is sustained by a vast, disaggregated and pernicious propaganda network that includes misinformation incepted and distributed by Russian Intelligence Services and other state actors, Fox News, OAN, 4/

Breitbart, a rancid collection of pundits and talk radio hosts , Internet trolls, Q Anon, and a thousand Facebook sites that teem and boil with conspiracy theories, extremism, menace, racism, antisemitism and misogyny. All of it together represents a grave danger to our 5/

national unity and democracy. There is a war being waged on truth and it turns out truth like the concepts of duty and patriotism was surrounded by many faithless friends. The complicity through both deed and silence of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and 6/

so many more in service to the maliced alternate reality of Trumpism seen this week isn’t just disgraceful, it’s tragic and deadly. The RNC began with the appearance of the contemptible McCloskeys. Their awfulness was experienced by the children of the Synagogue who have 7/

the misfortune of worshipping God next door to the McCloskeys. The children established bee hives to curate honey for the Jewish holidays. The hives were accidentally placed inches over the property line. McCloskey took an axe to them. The only reason they were on television 8/

this week was for pointing weapons at Black people who were peacefully marching for justice and equality on their street. Their message speaks for itself. Their words had meaning. Matt Gaetz’ words had meaning. Kimberly Guilfoyle’s messianic blatherings of devotion had meaning.9/

A 17 year old heard the message. He lived in Indiana. He sat in the front row of a Trump rally. He heard it all. He took it all in. He was poisoned by it. He was converted by it. He was radicalized by Trumpism the same way young men in the Middle East are radicalized by extremism 10/

He drove to Wisconsin with his AR-15 to join the fight. He became a killer there. We ignore this radicalization at our great peril. There is indisputable cause and effect. We do not have the luxury to pretend there is not. 11/

This was another week of needless suffering and death in America. Thousands are dead since the gavel was struck on Monday. More families are shattered and more businesses are shuttered. That is the reality. School openings are in chaos and there is no plan. This week was 12/

Another putrid chapter in this ghastly Trump era. America knows the truth and the truth is this. Trump is untrustworthy and dishonest. He is a liar. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone but himself. He doesn’t care about your family or mine. He doesn’t care for our troops 13/

And he doesn’t care for America. He lacks humanity and decency and processes none of the noble virtues that built our nation. It is all on the line in November. Vote. @ProjectLincoln

Monday/ the uncertainty of everything

Everything remains entirely uncertain.
– Andreas Kluth writing in an article for Bloomberg titled ‘An epidemic of depression and anxiety among young adults’


Credit: VAN DAM | Source: Landsmeer, Netherlands | Provider: CartoonArts International

As we careen toward the election-of-a-lifetime of Nov. 3, the Republican National Convention, with its scaremongers and ‘they are coming for you’ themes, has started.

The Trump Republican Party ditched its party platform this election cycle— essentially saying, we’re all-in with Trump, whatever he does and plans. In a way, they have no choice. They have destroyed everything, down to the US Postal Service, which had reliably been delivering mail for 240 years.

Trump is trying to steal the election again – the only way he can win. So will the lies & propaganda get the criminal, immoral, idiotic president into office again? .. with no plan to stop another 100,000 Americans from dying from the pandemic that has BY THE WAY also destroyed our ability to see family and friends, and celebrate life?

P.S. I’m really OK, I just feel bad for young adults, starting out in their lives and careers, and that did not deserve any of this mess.

Thursday/ and here’s Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s acceptance speech, of his Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 general election, was well received.

Next week is the Republican Party’s Carnival of White Grievance (they call it a convention). Then there will be three debates —as if there is anything to debate— between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on Sep. 29, Oct. 15 & Oct. 22.

Tuesday/ 1984, 2016, 2020: third time’s a charm?

It’s official: 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden (age 77) has picked Senator Kamala Harris (55) as his running mate for vice president. Ms Harris’s father is Donald Harris, a renowned Stanford professor and an immigrant from Jamaica. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was an India born Tamil American cancer researcher and civil rights activist (she passed away in 2009).

The pundits say at least part of Biden’s choice of Harris was driven by demographics: he needs women, and African American voters to turn out in 2008 numbers (when they came out to vote for Obama).

In 1984 we had Walter Mondale that picked Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, only to lose big against Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. That was the last time a Republican presidential candidate won the state of Washington. (Good).

Then just in 2016, we had Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket with Senator Tim Kaine, narrowly losing to Trump. (Will we ever forget that in this lifetime? No).

P.S. On the Republican side there was John McCain in 2008 and his ‘maverick’ pick for VP, Sarah Palin.