Monday, November 27, 2017

November 2017 in a Nutshell - Elections to Electoral Winner's Tweetstorms

Hey!  Sorry for the silence on the blog front.  I've been busy getting the 25th anniversary issue ready and out to the public.  Add to that scheduling at my paying job, car issues, general obligations I have to deal with, and the specter of possible jury duty (lucked out and didn't have to go but still) updating this blog has been a bit far down on my list of things to deal with.  However, it has been on my mind.  Because of that we'll bring up some things that t went down over the past month. So here's November 2017 in a nutshell.

Let's start with the elections, in particular Virginia.  I have to admit I was actually expecting Ed Gillespie (R) to win; not because he was the best guy for the job but due to Repub dirty tricks and a campaign that did everything electoral vote winner Donny did except literally embrace him on camera.  The discovery that he was trounced by the Democratic challenger (Ed Northam) so soundly was a surprise.  Add to this a slate of Democratic victories in the state legislature and it appeared to be a rebuke to how things have gone down in the past year,  This is in addition to the Democrats winning the governor's seat in New Jersey and a number of other election victories after several special elections in blood red districts that saw the Repubs maintain their power as even further right candidates won seats vacated by those who took seats to be amongst Donny's minions.  Whether this recharged and angry electorate remains as we head towards the 2018 midterms is uncertain (and given plans by the Repubs to make it harder and harder for many to vote it looks even scarier out there) but it was a good break from the far right onslaught.

We will be looking at some of the slate of celebrity deaths in the upcoming print issue so all I have to say about this is, in some cases I'm as surprised as you are.  Seems to be bringing one of the sadder trends of 2016 back into the spotlight.

Then there's Roy Moore's scandals.  IN the past month nine women have claimed that the former Alabama chief justice now running for Jeffy Sessions' Senate seat either tried to hit on them when they were under 18 or outright tried to assault them.  Moore's supporters are claiming its a witch hunt, though it's strange that a man who refuses to even debate his opponent (Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted the two Klansmen who bombed a church in Birmingham, AL killing four girls in 1963) would be so smug about his chances.  Still, he's got the white conservative christian support so who knows how nauseating this will get next month at the polls.

Finally there's electoral vote winner Donny's overseas trip to Asia and his Thanksgiving break to Mar-A-Lago.  At a time when everything from the possible loss of Net Neutrality (which affects everyone, even hardcore supporters of Donny) to the possible fear of nuclear war as Donny gets into a twitter spat with North Korea that makes you wonder if he's possessed by a bullying 11 year old, he chooses to focus on appeasing the religious fanatics and white supremacists that make up his base rather than doing his job.  In his mind it may be a good idea to keep calling CNN 'fake news" or complain about athletes taking a knee to protest police brutality (ironically a compromise move Colin Kaepernick came to after a conversation with a former Green Beret) but there's shit that needs to be done.

This leaves us at the end of the year.  With one month to go, we're now in the holiday season so I expect Donny to boast how we'll as=ll say "merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays" (how the hell is he going to enforce that, much less think there won't be people who normally wouldn't care one way or another say "happy Holidays" as a middle finger to him seems to elude his base).  As 2018 and the midterm elections near this country continues to head down a scary turn it's up to us to keep fighting and make this better for everyone , not just one small group of people. 

And that's November 2017 in a nutshell.