I Cry for My Country

 These are names that should live in in infamy and disgrace.  They are the names of the 126 Republican members of Congress who should forever be remembered as cowards, men and women, who when it came to choosing between the oath that they swore, to defend the Constitution, and fear of some charlatan poser, they chose to disavow that oath and sign on to a court action that boarders on sedition.

Sedition is conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of the state.  The petition before the Supreme Court was asking that the votes of twenty million Americans be thrown out and the state legislature of four states then select the electorates to the Electoral College.  The four states all voted in support of Joe Biden and coincidently, all have Republican legislatures.  In Wisconsin one representative was asking that the people in his state be disenfranchised.  The petition was brought by the state of Texas and signed on to by 18 states that voted for Trump, and the aforementioned 126 members of Congress. 

Wiser heads prevailed and the Supreme Court unanimously decided that Texas had no standing to bring forth the petition.  The decision included the three jurists that Trump had nominated to the court, the last being; Amy Coney Barrett.  

If this doesn't send chills down your spine, I don't know what would.  Some Congressmen are poo-pooing this as just theatrics; it is not!  They say the law suit never stood a chance anyway and this was all for show.  Perhaps if I waved a gun around the Senate chamber and then said I didn't meaning anything by it, and it was all for show, do you think the Senators laugh and say, well met?  I heartedly doubt it.  Yet what they are doing is worse; I would be threatening perhaps 100 people at best, these fools are threatening the entire nation.

When citizens of a country lose faith in their government, it is not long before the country is torn asunder.  We have seen it too many times, so what would make these Congresspersons think that what they are doing is different.  The bedrock of our democracy is the election every four years for president and then the peaceful transition of power to the winner.  The loser offers a concession and congratulations to the winner, not necessary, but right thing to do.

No one likes eating cow, defeat is demoralizing, and difficult to accept.  It takes a big person to accept defeat graciously - outwardly anyway - and move on with life.  George H. W. Bush did it, Jimmy Carter did also, and both went on to be well respected and thought of as elder statesmen of their party.  Americans of both parties, and countries around the globe,  admired them and their service to the country.  But that is the one thing that Trump will never have, the one thing that all his supposed money cannot buy; Class.  He wants, craves, respect but all he gets is notoriety, it's not the same thing.  And he could not buy class for his children either.  There is an old saying; 'You don't get a thoroughbred when you cross two jackasses.'   

The comparison of the previous administration and the Trump administration are as different as porterhouse to hamburger.  Donald knows that, and as hard as he tries he cannot pull off that stature, that poise.  So, if he can't raise himself up, he tears down everything he can.  It galls him that the one thing he wanted to destroy was 'Obama Care' and he failed, he failed miserably.  Now he is salting the earth; if he can't have the power, he will do his best to make sure the new administration is impotent.

He is pardoning his cohorts and may extend pardons to anyone who does or doesn't ask.  And he has begun executing federal criminals on an accelerated schedule because he knows it will upset the liberals who don't support, or believe in Capitol punishment. What kind of person does that?

There are those who are comparing this election to the election of 1860, it was then that our country was divided also, and that division destroyed the Union and it led to the deaths of 618,000 Americans.  Is this what it is coming to?  There are elected officials asking if their constituents are ready to die for 'the cause', calling for open and armed rebellion.  If so. 600,000 deaths will look like a Sunday picnic.  With the weaponry available to anyone today, we could surpass that figure in six months.  And as the Proud Boys brag, they have all the guns.  

Someone must be the adult in the room, the president has abdicated that responsibility.  Cooler heads must prevail,  we must stop this march to oblivion.  I fear for my country, I never thought it could come to this.  We must stop the madness before it has gone too far, if it hasn't already.

                                                                   I'm just sayin'

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

I am afraid that America is becoming an authoritarian state.  I do not say this lightly, this is my country and I love it, but I am worried.  And I am not alone. So many outside the United States - opinion writers, political leaders, and just plain folks - are appalled by what they are witnessing.  They are comparing America to the likes of Hungary, Poland and Turkey, and yes, Hitler's rise in Germany and Mussolini in Italy.

They believed, as I did, that once the election was over and done, the braggadocio, would finally give way to resolute acceptance.  But several recent opinion polls show that a majority of Republican voters, egged on by Donald Trump, believe that he rightfully won the election and they support his decision not to concede.  All this after almost 30 days since the election, and where Joe Biden garnered 306 electoral votes and a national voter plurality of more than 6-million votes, a number that is still growing with the recounts.  And after state by state reported that there was no evidence of election fraud.  

This. Is. Not. Normal.

That the Republican leadership in Congress are going along with charade, is doubly disturbing.  They began the year by displaying their lack of principles when the voted, almost to a person, not to convict Trump or even hear evidence during the impeachment trial.  They emboldened him and they have supported him no matter what assaults on the precepts of democracy, what violations of the Constitution, what blatant disregard for the office of the presidency, what trashing of political norms he has shown. 

Author, Matthew Mac Williams, who wrote The Rise of Trump; America's Authoritarian Spring , among other books on authoritarianism, has said what has happened in the Trump era is not at all shocking. In a poll he had conducted prior to the 2016 election, he found that roughly 40% of Americans were highly or moderately predisposed to authoritarian government.  Trump played into these beliefs and he drew huge crowds with a cult-like following, and he continues a hold on these believers that is growing in size and strength.  These Americans appreciate Trump's so called strength and power in the executive office, they love his distain and mocking of the press, and his strong nationalistic stance of take no prisoners with other countries, friend or foe. 

Trump was able to rapidly rise to such heights because he is a charlatan, a snake oil salesman, a prevaricator of the highest degree. And his use of social media, such as Twitter, gave him a platform of unfiltered communication, a media where grievance politics, fear-mongering, and rumor and innuendo flourish.  The right-wing media continued the polarization, keeping those believers wrapped in a cocoon of 'alternate facts' presented to them as the truth.  These faithful followers have grabbed on to what Trump is selling because the American Dream has failed them all too often.  Yet they fail to see the disaster looming before them, the rise of authoritarianism - they welcome it instead.

There have been plenty of signs pointing to Trump's authoritarian stance:

         *the mollification of the Putin's take-over of the Ukraine                                                                             * the total disregard of the emolument clause in the Constitution                                                               * using the Justice Department to investigate his enemies                                                                           * calling the press 'the enemy of the people'                                                                                                 * packing the courts - making them a political branch of government                                                         * using fear to keep his party, the GOP, from defying him                                                                           *using federal forces against peaceful demonstrators                                                                                   *personally profiting from the presidency

Taking these individually they are egregious enough, collectively they represent a pattern that leads to destruction.  And the Republican leadership has refused to move against Trump in his bid to over-turn a free and fair election, Trump has gone so far as to attempt to strong-arm individual states against certifying their election results.  All the while the Congress is consenting to Trump's nomination of judges and approving his selections of department appointees, as if there is nothing awry.  This has never happened in any previous administration.  This lame duck has not lost his wings, Congress has lost its collective mind.  Is this where we want to go as a country?  Even if all the current Trump shenanigans fail to stop the transfer of power on January 20, 2021, his supporters will never accept the legitimacy of the Biden presidency.     And, it appears, neither will the Republicans in Congress, insuring four more years of stalemate and non-governance.

These are dangerous times we live in currently; the president cannot defend America with his hands tied.  Our enemies are already celebrating the divisiveness and chaos, and our allies don't understand it.  America has lost its place as leader and example of a democratic government.  Biden has promised to bring that back but he cannot do it alone.    

Trumpism has become the new political party, the party that espouses authoritarian power.  And if the true Republicans don't take their party back, I fear it will mark the end of the greatest experiment in democracy the world has known.  We are half way there already. 

                                                                          I'm just sayin'

Are We Really a Third World Country?

 It has now been two weeks since Biden was declared the winner and we are no closer to settling the Presidential election than we were on November 3rd.  The votes have been counted and recounted, the attorneys have plead their cases and have been summarily dismissed, charges of fraud have been levied, and it has all come to naught.  And everyday that passes, America loses more respect in the eyes of the world. 

At first I was angry, but sustaining that kind of anger began to eat away at my soul. Then I was depressed watching the comedy of errors play out; the lies and the personal attacks.  Now I am simply sad.  It is so sad to see what my country has come to.  We all knew the president was a vicious megalomaniac, he told us as much in words and actions.   And there were those who didn't care, those who would follow him to hell, and they have.  Their cult-like devotion to a man who has nothing but distain for them is difficult to comprehend.  

Even though I don't understand, nor do I care to understand such idiocy, I can look past those who lack the vision and intelligence to see beyond today.  I cannot forgive them their ignorance, for there is none so blind as those who will not see.  They choose to deny the truth and indulge in their fantasies, because it is easier than the lives that they have, lives of desperation with no future except the past.  So they look to the man who told them he would restore their jobs, the towns, their dignity.  But he lied, he used them, but to keep believing is better than facing the truth.

The most egregious of these sycophants are those who swore an oath to the United States Constitution to 'support and defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic and bear true faith and allegiance to the same'.  I know that oath, I took it more than once, as anyone who has worked for the federal government has.  It means something to those who swear to it.  My husband took it when he joined the Marine Corp and so did my brother when joined forty years later.  They knew they might be asked to lay down their life for that Constitution.

Yet the Republicans Congressmen are defiling that oath.  The are refusing to honor the results of an election for the president of the United States.  They are choosing to disavow the oath that took freely, and turn their backs in their country.  That I cannot countenance, it grieves me, it makes me furious.  I cannot imagine what the brave men and women who are serving the country in the armed forces feel about this.  They are putting their lives on the line everyday and their representatives have broken their oath, and for what?  Because they are afraid to face the ire of a toothless has-been. I am loath to say his name, but that man who has caused so much turmoil in the past four years, now is threatening to undermine our democracy.  And these lackeys are abetting him. 

In 1974, another Republican president was dishonoring the office of the presidency.  However, at that time his party rose up against him.  The Republican Senators and Representatives felt they must take action to save the party, the presidency and the country.  Three of the highest-ranking members of Congress; Barry Goldwater who had run for president himself, John Rhodes minority whip of the House, and Hugh Scott, minority leader of the Senate, went down from the Capitol to the White House.  They told Richard Nixon he needed to resign the presidency.  They told him he was facing impeachment and his party would vote to convict him.  Those three men were men of honor, there re none like them in Congress today. 

Today's president may not have taken up arms against the United States, but his actions are having the same effect.  He is seeking to destroy the framework of the Constitution, if this be so, I call it treason.  The intent is the same, the method is different, the effect is to undermine the belief in the presidency, to make  the incoming president impotent.  We saw it with the Obama presidency when Senator Mitch McConnel said he would thwart anything that Obama worked to get passed.  It has now gone far beyond that. 

Congress is watching as the president is meeting with individual state officials to try to get them to overturn the outcome of the election held in their state.  In doing so he is subverting the will of the electorate.  I cannot imagine anything more dangerous to the Constitution.  And the Republicans in Congress are his co-conspirators.  If one is guilty of treason, then so are they all.

Imagine if you will, what these pompous legislators would say if this was being done in a third -world country.  Why they would rise up and say the presidency was being stolen. Matter of fact, the United States has done so, numerous times; in Central America, South America, and in many small countries in Asia and Africa.  Funny how one cannot recognize their own failings, or maybe they can, they just don't give a damn.  They don't give a damn about the country and they don't give a damn about we the people.  They only care that they were re-elected and now they can do what they will.

I love my country, I fly her flag proudly, and I rise for the national anthem.  The Fourth of July festivities bring a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat, but my Senator, Ron Johnson, brings bile to my mouth.  I loath him and find him reprehensible.  I will remember always his choice to follow a traitor and forsake his country.  And you can bet when he is up for reelection, I will be working for his defeat. 

                                                                     I'm just sayin'

Its Time for the Obese Women's Aria - or my tip of the hat to PC

I have not written anything in quite awhile, I have been holed up in my home trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.  I fervently wished I could shut out the world and just return to normal, except I no longer know what normal is.  But no one can hide forever, even trump had to come out yesterday. So I take to my keyboard and offer this humble opinion.

  I was, like many of you, either glued to the television checking election returns, or monitoring my phone or computer from work on a regular basis.  It was an anxious time.  For those of us who were glad to see November 3rd finally arrive, it is now anticlimactic.  Nothing is settled, nothing is certain, nothing has changed.  It is as if the nation is caught in a time warp, some sort of worm hole in space, where we wake each day and face the same uncertainty.

One thing that is certain, the Covid-19 virus is winning.  Everyday there is news of record-breaking new cases, and new deaths.  The daily average of new cases is averaging over 100,000.  Donald Trump was wrong about so many things, but the biggest thing he was wrong about was that the pandemic was going away, it is not going away.  He said we wouldn't talk about it after November 3rd, but it seems that is all we do talk about, that and when will he give his concession speech. 

This election, Republicans turned out in record numbers to vote, many for the first time and they voted for Republican Senators, Republican House Members, and their GOP state ticket, but they voted against the President.  Republicans of all persuasions were tired of the lies and the constant drama,  They were exhausted by the turmoil in the White House, so they joined with Democrats and Independents, and they put an end to the Trump dynasty.

I was jubilant, like so many others, and tears of joy came to my eyes, and I could feel the weight of Trump's four years of lies, racism, and bigotry being lifted from my spirit.  I got out my American flag and displayed it on my patio.  I reveled in the joy that so many people were exhibiting in the streets all across our country.  The election was still close, but it grew more certain by the hour that Biden was going to win, and in the end he did win.  

He restored the 'blue wall' across the Great Lakes, he won Arizona, Nevada, and he won Pennsylvania. Sure it would have been nice to have taken control of the Senate, but the nation showed that they still believe in certain conservative values.  And I respect that.  It means that the two parties will have to work together to get the job done,  And Joe Biden is the man who can get that done.  

Well, so much for the euphoria of the election outcome.  It is more than a week hence and still the law suits and the accusations of fraud keep coming.  Now Trump is doing what he accused Biden of doing, that is hiding in his basement (does the White House have a basement?).  He is busy tweeting though, he is still proclaiming victory, and his loyal minions are encouraging him; the mad-dog Republican Senators, the bloviated right-wing broadcasters, and the wild-eyed militia.

And as all this carries forth, the nation is still gripped in the clutches of a silent killer that is stalking the countryside.  In many states in the mid-west there are no more ICU beds and Covid-19 cases are being stacked in operating rooms.  And where is our fearless leader, the president?  He is playing golf, and avoiding the public and the press.  Meanwhile president-elect Biden is drafting a virus taskforce, and putting together his transition team.  Even as Trump has instructed the White House and the Cabinet Departments not to give any information to the Biden team.

This is beyond reason, it is unconscionable, the trump administration is risking national security for petty vengeance.  There less than 10 weeks until January 20,2021, when the new administration will be sworn in to take up the reins of government.  They, unlike the Trump administration, must hit the ground running.  The have more to deal with than any administration in recent memory; the pandemic, the faltering economy, record unemployment, racial injustice, climate crisis, medical insurance, and rebuilding America's image around the world.

So what is the hold up?  Speculation is running rampant that Trump is planning a coup of sorts.  He is planning for his second term in office, unperturbed with the results of the election.  He is firing and hiring cabinet members, and staffing the presidential office and proceeding as normal, well normal for Trump.  Perhaps it is true that he is in full denial, but if that is true, someone close to him should break it to him, instead of placating him and playing along with his delusions and silly games.  It is time for an intervention.  Or are the people closest to him in on the plot?

Everyday that this goes on the knot in my stomach gets a little tighter, and the jubilation of last Saturday is losing its glow.  We are talking about the end of our country, and I am not the only one supposing this outcome.  The foreign press is fife with article purporting the downfall of democracy in America. Perhaps that is just petty jealousy, but there is something in the fact that the world's most despotic leaders have yet to accept a Biden win.

I am not a conspiracy nut, or a chicken little sure that the sky is falling.  I am just a poor writer who sees things that I have never seen before, and I venture to say that no one else in this country has either.  Not since 1860, then, for the first time since its founding, the country stood on the precipice and 775,000 Americans lost their lives.  Are we there again?  I pray to god we are not.   But... 

                                                         I'm just sayin

The Evil That Men Do Live After Them...

 I can't believe it is almost here, in less than a week the election will be history, and it will be historic.  I know myself, I have never experienced anything like this in my lifetime, and many journalists are comparing it to the election of 1864, when the fate of the United States hung in the balance

That election was held during the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln wasn't expected to win re-election.  His victory was due in large part to mail-in votes - from the Union soldiers.  Sound familiar?  The fate of our nation is hanging in the balance once again, figuratively if not literally.  We are looking at a country torn asunder by a president who has spent four years fomenting discord, distrust, and outright hatred between his supporters and the rest of the country.  He has taken over a once great political party, a party that produced the likes of Lincoln, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush and he has laid it low.  

This president has used the Justice Department like his private police force, directing them to investigate his rivals.  He has cast doubt on, and tried to destroy the free press by calling them 'the enemy of the people', he is shredding our belief in the greatest institution of our democracy - the ballot box. And now he and his compatriots have packed a the Supreme Court, a once independent and equal Branch of government, to call an election in his favor, if need be.  All this is reminiscent of Idi Amin, Victor Orban, and his much admired hero, Vladimir Putin.  

It boggles the mind, the craziness of the past four years.  The sheer level of financial corruption in the Trump Family is unimaginable  in any other presidency.  The hundreds of millions of dollars paid to them by foreign diplomats, and lobbyists and political PACs in this country, by way of monies paid to his hotels and golf club memberships, to gain the favor of the oval office. Secret foreign bank accounts, backdoor deals, payoffs to porn stars, and the total disregard to the office of the presidency, to the institutions Americans have held dear  for over 250 years.

I ask myself why was the Republican Party so eager to give up the values that have been it's cornerstone since its inception; fiscal responsibility, free and open trade, conservative religious beliefs, and small government.  For what in return; huge deficits, crushing tariffs, religious authoritarianism, and a government of cronies, crooks and felons.  I long for the return of conservative patriotism, as paradoxical as it is to my social-democratic ideology, at least as it was sanely argued by the likes of Mitt Romney, and John McCain.

As incomprehensible as it may seem, there are those for whom this carnage still holds sway, perhaps it is the magnetic nature of demonic energy.  Where the majority of us are controlled by the rules and regulations of a civilized world to curb our expressions of biases and prejudices, our president holds forth without such controls.  And even though there is nothing remotely likeable about such behavior, there is something that compels some people to it.  Evil is exciting, until you are the victim, and then it is too late.

On November 3rd we will be faced with a clear choice between evil and good, and as preposterous as that sounds I know of no other way to posit this election.  Donald J. Trump is a compulsive liar who has contempt for the truth, a megalomaniac who is self-absorbed to a pathological degree, to the point of being unable to feel empathy for anyone but himself.  He has no feeling of compassion or remorse for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died because of his ineptitude.  He is the very essence of evil.  There is nothing more ignominious than his smirk and his applauding for himself as he parades across the stage, tossing favors to the crowd of sycophants below.

By contrast, the president's opponent, Joe Biden, is boringly good - just an ordinary politician - plodding his course like a good democratic politician.  He revers the institutions of government which have held this country together since it's founding.  He has know great sorrow and abundant joy, and he can relate to those who are suffering and he can laugh with those who rejoice.  He may not be the most charismatic president, but he will be a steadfast leader.  I may not agree with all his policies, but I won't be ashamed to call him my president.

And so I have cast my vote already, I didn't want to take a chance of anything keeping me from that.  And I will wait next Tuesday, like the rest of America, to see who will emerge victorious.  I have faith in this country, yes, we stumbled four years ago but I have faith that we can right the wrong and once again be the beacon for the rest of the world.  The world is waiting anxiously also.  And won't it be nice to awake in the morning and not have to wonder what god-awful thing our president has said or done and tweeted about during the night.   

                                                            I'm just sayin'    

All the news That Fits...

 The New York Times slogan is, 'All the News That's Fit to Print', It is on the masthead of that great daily newspaper.  It was coined by the then owner, Adolph Ochs, in 1897.  And it was meant to imply that the New York Times was an impartial reporter of the news of the day.  Some years ago, someone, I don't recall who, changed the verbiage to, 'All the news that fits, we print', meaning to imply the Times was no longer the arbiter of good journalism but but was indeed printing trash.

This past Thursday, October 15th, the two candidates running for president in November, held simultaneous townhall meetings.  Donald Trump's meeting was on NBC and CNBC, and was one hour long, after which Trump immediately left the studio.  The meeting was confrontational and Trump was non-responsive.  He was badgered by the moderator, and was asked a few questions by the people gathered there.  For the most part it was just another stump speech.

Joe Biden's meeting was slow and easy going and he attempted to answer the questions put to him by those in the audience.  He was asked repeatedly by the moderator about his stance on 'court-packing' until he made the mistake of agreeing to release a statement on the subject before the election. This townhall meeting was on ABC and was to have lasted an hour and a half.  Mr. Biden remained in the studio for quite awhile after the time period to take questions from those who didn't get to ask them on camera.

You couldn't have asked for a more diverse hour of television.  And the ratings show that the Biden meeting was a rating success - if it were a prime-time pilot, it would have been canceled before the hour was up - but it was a success compared the the Trump show on the other two channels.  I don't think anyone learned anything new about the candidate's positions, but it did reinforce the difference in the demeanor of the two men.

The next morning I was anxious to read about those differences and a critique of the two meetings.  I was sadly disappointed.  Once again, Donald Trump sucked all the oxygen and news print out of the evening.  Oh, there was a line or two mentioning Mr. Biden's boring performance, and as he predicted, the biggest takeaway was the news about the 'court-packing promise.  The rest of the discussion was about Trump and his erratic, outlandish performance.  Nothing was said about his plans for the next four years, perhaps because he has no plans.  Once again it was more raw meat for his base.

It wasn't just the news stories about Trump, but the opinion writers also obsessed over him, and not just in the New York Times but every paper I checked, national and international.  And I checked several. It is the same as 2016, the vulgar showman gets the media coverage.  When will they learn? 

In 1947, there was a movie called The Huckster.  It starred Sidney Greenstreet and Clark Gable.  In it, Gable was a returning war veteran who was job hunting, and applied at a New York advertising firm.  He was naive, and trading on his good looks.   Greenstreet was the Chairman of the Board who was interviewing Gable at a board meeting.  Sitting at the head of a long table lined with other executives, Greenstreet gagged and spit an ugly wad onto the table.  Gable was horrified and looked away.  Greenstreet said, "What you saw was disgusting, but you will remember it!". 

He was right, I probably saw that movie in the early 50's and I remember the scene vividly.  There is no such thing as bad press! And the people who know that best are the news media.  It is estimated that Trump got two-billion dollars of free advertising in the 2016 campaign.  Trump played the media like a cheap violin.

The media hung on every outlandish stunt, every outright lie, every display of sexual predation, and rushed back to make the evening news.  They said that Trump exaggerated, prevaricated, mis-spoke.  They said he was pedantic, as though that would make it alright.  Trump told lie after lie and no one called him out. In the 1800s his behavior would have gotten him ridden out of town on a rail.  I guess back then they could tell a charlatan and a snake oil salesman for what he was.

I'm not saying that it was all the fault of the media that Trump rose to the heights that he did.  But maybe, just maybe, if he had been exposed for what he is, some of those people would have seen him as a fraud.  Perhaps they would have turned away before his siren call drove the onto the rocks.  Who knows?  Perhaps the would have selected one of the sterling candidates from the slate they were offered; Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rick Santorum. Anyone of them would have made a better president.

It is not like the people weren't warned, most every high-ranking Republican; John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Mitt Romney, they all called Trump out as dangerous, and bad for the country.  But the media kept him front and center, every time there was a rash of bad news, Trump brought out another preposterous antic and off the media went, chasing yet another squirrel. 

This is what it has come to.  I remember when the news was presented with gravitas, it was more important to get the story right then to get it first.  People had faith in their newspapers and media newsmen.  Now all of them are competing with the internet to see who can come up with the most disturbing story.  It is a race to the bottom, and we are the losers.

Donald Trump calls himself a 'breath of fresh air' in Washington, he says he is draining the swamp.  What I smell is the fetid odor of the cesspool that Trump has created.  I hope I am not the only one.

                                                           I'm just sayin'

 

 

  

'E' Day is Getting Closer - Are We Ready?

 The first presidential election I voted in was 1959, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. I had watched the debates on television, in black and white.  Does that make me old, you bet it does?  I considered my vote very carefully, in my father's house there was no question who to vote for, Kennedy of course.  All my friends were certainly for Kennedy.   But the more pressure they all put on me, the more I resisted.  When I stepped inside the voting booth, I hesitated, then I pulled down the lever of my choice.

Back then, in Chicago, voting was done by mechanical means.  You stepped inside a box-like booth, and pushed a large lever, the lever closed the curtain behind you and you faced a board with many small levers.  There was a lever for a straight party ticket on the left side, and a row of levers running from left to right for each of the candidates on the ballot.  There were several rows of these levers, one for each party which had qualified candidates.  The Democratic and Republican rows were the longest, but there candidates in the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the Libertarian Party, all of whom were eligible to be on the ballot in Illinois.

To register your vote, you pushed down on the lever next to your favorite candidate's name, when you had pushed all the levers for your selections, you pulled the large lever towards you and your votes were tabulated, the levers all popped up and the curtain was drawn back.  A seemingly foolproof method of counting votes.  When the voting was over for the day, two people plus two election judges, Republican and Democrat, opened the back of the machine and wrote down the totals that were mechanically recorded.  Simple right?

But never was there a machine that could not be finagled with, and these machines were ripe for tampering with.  At the beginning of the day, the same four officials who recorded the totals at the end of the day, certified that the machine totals were all set to zero before voting began.  But mechanics break down, remember the cars of the 1950s?  Levers jam, they refuse to stay down or refuse to pop up, curtains refuse to open or close, any number of things could go wrong.  

And then there was the tabulation of all the precincts at City Hall.  Joseph Stalin famously said; "It's not the people who vote that count.  It's the people who count the votes" Chicago's mayor at that time was Richard J. Daley, and nobody could count votes like he could.  Most cities wanted to be first to announce their tally for the candidate of choice, not Mr. Daley, he always held back the vote count until the bitter end.  It was said he waited to see how many votes were needed to seal the victory and that is how many votes Chicago announced.  It was also said that it was the case in November 1959, when Chicago put John Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, into the White House.  

That was not the worst decision, not when you consider Bush v Gore.  After Kennedy was assassinated, LBJ put through the greatest piece of civil rights legislation that ever was - Kennedy was too reticent to propose it - Johnson did escalate the Viet Nam war and by the end of his first term 14,000 Americans were killed in Nam.   The war eventually broke Johnson and he refused to run again.

There have been some shaky elections in the interim.  I mentioned the 2000 debacle where the Supreme Court selected the president against the wishes of the electorate.  But never have I seen an election like this one.  In just under three weeks those people who haven't already voted with an absentee ballot or voted early, will go to their polling place and cast a ballot in the most contested election in my lifetime.  And I will be there, as I work the polls.

I have seen elections where there have been mud-slinging, - on both side.  Accusations of everything from infidelity to perversion, maleficence to out and out bribery, but never have I seen such a concerted effort to manipulate the election to the advantage of only one party.  I make no secret that Donald Trump was not my choice for president.  But when I write these reflections, I try to do it in an unperturbed manner, no unproven allegations, no rants or name calling.  But the time has come to stop the equivocating.  I can no longer say that both sides are equally guilty of electioneering. 

The Republican Party has pulled out all the stops to win this election, and it is not just the usual gerrymandering and name calling:

*  The president has overtly called for physical altercations at polling places.

*  He has said he will not concede the election under any circumstances, calling upon groups to take up arms in his defense. 

*  The president has called upon his Justice Department to indict his opponent on false charges of treason.  

*  He has repeated lie after lie against his opponent, statements that he knows are not true.

* He has called for no deals on the stimulus funds the country desperately needs to avoid slipping further into a financial quagmire, promising voters a much larger stimulus after he is elected.

* He is forcing a vote on his judicial nominee to be seated on the Supreme Court before the election, in hopes that when he forces the election results into court, she will rule his way.  

And the Republican Party is complicit in this charade, it appears they will do anything to assure that they stay in power.  Beginning over twenty years ago the Republicans began ceasing power at the state level, and now it is paying off.  They have effectively gerrymandered voting districts and once in power have enacted stringent voter laws which are aimed at people of color and those with limited means.  Now they are tampering with the census to under-count those same people.  In addition:

* The Republican governor of Texas has limited the number of Ballot Boxes for absentee ballots, to one per county, even though some of those counties are over one hundred square miles.  

* The Republican legislatures have refused extending the date that a ballot can be considered valid past the election date, even though mail service has been deliberately slowed.  

* The GOP in California have placed 'so called' official Ballot Boxes in many areas to collect absentee ballots.  To what end?

* The Republican legislatures have refused in some states to allow the absentee ballots to even be opened before the start of voting on election day, meaning elections workers will be working well into the night.

All of this after the Supreme Court has said there is no longer a need for the Voters Rights Act to protect everyone's right to vote.  

Donald Trump said he was running to 'drain the swamp', what he didn't say was that he was replacing it with a cesspool.  VOTE, like your country depends on it, because it does!

                                                                      I'm just sayin'