Trump wins

I'm stunned. I knew it was possible but somehow still didn't believe it would happen.

Goodbye vaccines, goodbye environment, goodbye Ukraine.

Who to blame? People the Democratic party has depended on for decades ... racial minorities and young people.

Trump eroded Democrats’ traditional advantage among key groups

Trump picked up a small but significant share of younger voters, Black voters and Hispanic voters, many of whom were feeling down about the economy. Majorities of younger Black voters and Latino voters said the economy is not working well.

Yes, the economy. As I mentioned in many past blog posts, the Harris campaign seemed to only care about the middle and upper classes but seemed to ignore those who actually most needed help. Did they just not know we existed or is it that they didn't care?

The sad thing is, Trump will not help the poor and he has no idea how to fix the economy. The stupid selfish people have voted for a terrible candidate in order to get more for themselves. They will be disappointed, and the rest of us will have to suffer along with them.

Election eve

Worth watching for the end, in which Seth catalogues all the awful things Trump has done since he became president in2016. People really need to remember this stuff.

Trump in Michigan

- Dearborn, Michigan

Trump courts divided Arab-American voters in must-win Michigan

One might wonder why Trump would bother courting Arab American voters, he being the originator of the Muslim ban and constantly voicing his support of Israel.

But we know that Trump doesn't have any true religious convictions and has been on Israel's side in order to get conservative Christian approval. And we know that he has often been on the side of anti-Semitites, from Kanye West to the marchers at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. And we know that he is an opportunist, who is buddies with wealthy Arab leaders like MBS who can enrich him. And we know that the father of his son-in-law, a Lebanese American businessman, has been helping Trump with voters in Michigan ...

Trump’s In-Law Is Trying to Exploit Democrats’ Weakness With Arab American Voters

[...] Since early this year, a pair of unofficial Trump emissaries — Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman and an in-law of Mr. Trump, and Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Germany and acting intelligence chief — have been crisscrossing Michigan, trying to repackage and sell Mr. Trump to skeptical Arab American and Muslim voters there ...

As weird as it may sound, I thiink that Trump and the Republican party is actually a better fit with many Arab American voters ... the shared emphasis on a social and religious conservatism that restricts women's rights and condemns gay people is just one example of why.

Nooooo

Just watching the news, where Trump is in Michigan meeting with Arab Americans. And who is by his side? RFK Jr., crazy as a bedbug and the soon to be head of everything health and science in the government, if Trump wins. God help us all.

"Whether they like it or not"

Texas woman died after being denied miscarriage care due to abortion ban, report finds

Yep, thanks to Trump, women now will sometimes have to die "whether they like it or not".

The Rapist

The rapist running for president has vowed to "protect" the women of America from immigrants, "whether the women like it or not". After all, those women are his property, and he's the only one who should get to rape them.

The F word

I saw this tonight at General Barry McCaffrey's twitter. It's a short video by Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, who is probably most well known for his book On Tyranny. I've seen him on the news a lot, especially during the Trump presidency when the subject of authoritarianism often came up.

People are talking about fascism. I've heard from people who are baffled that we haven't been speaking of fascism more and earlier, and from people who want to know what it means – and from people who want me to explain why fascism is bad.
Please share! Please vote! pic.twitter.com/zxVnn38dyH

— Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) October 29, 2024

Bye bye UNRWA

In the news ...

Israel's potential ban on Palestinian aid agency UNRWA raises concerns in U.S., Europe

If you want to understand why this is happening, listen to today's Times of Israel's daily news briefing on UNRWA and the move to ban it ...



Here's some context - a relevant news story from a few days ago, which helps to explain why Israel wants to get rid of the UN agency ...

UNRWA confirms terrorist killed by IDF who led Re’im shelter massacre was a staffer

And we will recall that the UN fired a number of its UNRWA employees for being Hamas members who took part in the October 7 attack. This led to the US defunding UNRWA ...

In the Garden

I think what defines Trump's followers is their hatred of others. And there's nothing like a shared event with your own kind ... a mosh pit of racism, misogyny, and homophobia ... where you can fearlessly let it all hang out. But oops, the rest of us were watching.

The Pope and women

Catholic church reform process expected to disappoint hopes of more equity for women

A yearslong process to reform the Catholic Church closes Saturday with recommendations that are expected to fall far short of hopes that women would be given more equity but that reflect the pope’s aims for a church that at least listens more to its flock.

The Vatican’s top doctrinal officer, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, told the extraordinary assembly of bishops and laypeople this week that Pope Francis said the moment for allowing ordination of women as deacons in the church “is not ripe.”...

Women can't be deacons, much less priests? Gee, I'm shocked! I mean, isn't Francis the most liberal pope ever? Isn't he a big fan of women and fairness and everythig good? Wake up! He is and always has been a very conservative person, priest, pope, and sexist. That's just the truth, one that anyone would know if they had ever paid attention to his history, his own words over the years, and of course, his actions or lack thereof.

As long as he is pope, there will be no women deacons, no women priests, and women will be preached as little more than baby-makers.

And if you are thinking that maybe the pope who comes after him will be diferent, think again. The system is built for conservatism .... people are chosen as bishops because they please the conservative higher-ups, and it is from this pool of yes-men that the papal candidates are chosen.

Those guys don't want change - they are happy in their own little country, where pedophile priests are protected from presecution, where the incredible property wealth* the chirch owns around the world supports their lifestule, and where women will always be nuns, housekeepers, and the people who do the flowers at Mass. There won't be any change.

* Vatican owns over 5,000 properties globally

Democracy Dies in Darkness

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" is the motto of The Washington Post ...

[...] "Democracy Dies in Darkness" was the first slogan to be officially adopted by The Washington Post in its 140-year history. According to the newspaper, the phrase was popularized by investigative journalist Bob Woodward. Woodward used the phrase in a 2007 piece criticizing government secrecy, and referenced the phrase during a 2015 presentation at a conference when he talked about The Last of the President's Men, his book about the Watergate scandal. Woodward said he did not coin the phrase himself, instead attributing the phrase to a judge ruling on a First Amendment case, believed to be from Circuit Judge Damon Keith. The paper's owner Jeff Bezos, who attended Woodward's 2015 presentation, also used the phrase in a May 2016 interview. The newspaper said it decided to adopt an official slogan in early 2016 ...

Ironic, now that The Post (and The Los Angeles Times) has decided not to endorse a candidate for president in 2024 ...

Washington Post Says It Will Stop Endorsing Presidential Candidates

A debate inside The Washington Post continued for days among its top leaders: Should it make an endorsement in the presidential race, continuing a decades-long tradition? In the end, Jeff Bezos, the paper’s billionaire owner, decided that the answer was no ...

And ...

L.A. Times Editorial Chief Quits After Owner Blocks Harris Endorsement

The head of The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board resigned on Wednesday after the paper’s owner quashed a presidential endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris. In an interview with Columbia Journalism Review, Mariel Garza, who held the title editorials editor, said she had quit because “I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.” ...

So, at the end of the day, the rich businessmen who own these papers, afraid Trump will win, have decided not to incur his wrath by taking sides against him.

Cowards.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Yes, I liked him :) Yes, I had his albums :) Underappreciated. Glad he finally gets his due.

From 1975 ...



And here is Frampton playing guitar as David Bowie sings Let's Dance, 1987, Glass Spider tour ...

Hitler

Yep, Hitler. If you had been paying attention, this would come as no surprise: many reports of Trump liking Hitler over the years since he was in office. Jewish people, I hope this isn't your first clue that Trump doesn't care about you or Israel, despite his claims.

But the part that really bothers me is that Trump's supporters are all good with this, not just the brain-dead zombies that go to his campaign rallies, but the "normal and respectable" Republican politicians like Chris Sununu. I actually kind of liked him until this, and I realized he's just another scumbag.

BTW, did anyone tell Trump that Hitler's generals tried to whack him? ;)

Revenge voting

I voted yesterday. For Harris, of course, though she's not the Democrat I would have chosen.

In one of the swing states, Michigan, Arab American voters appear to be more willing to vote for Trump than Harris in order to punish her and the Biden administration for being on the side of Israel instead of being on the side of the terrorists (Hamas/Hezbollah) ...

‘Don’t blame us, blame yourself’: Furious at Harris, Arab Americans in Michigan face a hard choice

Kamala Harris’ campaign is facing deep skepticism from Arab American voters in Michigan, many of whom are appalled by President Joe Biden’s handling of the war in the Middle East and remain undecided about whether to back a candidate who supports his policies .....

“People are really right now in a dilemma. They really don’t know where to go. It’s like somebody hit them with a two by four, right on their head,” said Osama Siblani, the publisher of an Arab American newspaper based in Dearborn, Michigan. “So now they’re in total disarray. They may vote for Donald Trump, just to punish Biden and Harris, just to say, ‘Look what you’ve done.' ...

Great :(

Hezbollah: drug trafficking and money laundering

Eylon Levy discusses the recent attack by Israel on a bank in Lebanon used by Hezbollah.

If you want to learn more about how Hezbollah gets its money, see the Wikipedia article Funding of Hezbollah, which describes money laundering and also drug running. See the DEA project, Cassandra, in which the US tried to keep Hezbollah from profitting from illegal drug trafficking in South America ...

- CBS News, 2016: DEA targets Hezbollah's cash flow link to cartels

- Newsweek, 2017: Hezbollah Smuggled Tons of Cocaine Into the U.S. During Obama Administration, Report Reveals

There's more if you care to look.

The rich and the powerful

The rich and the powerful think they own the world, and actually they do. But what can they buy with all that money? Wealth does not buy life. It does not buy a good heart. And it cannot buy the kingdom of God. - Jesus, from the film Jesus (at 43:14).

But what can money buy you? Maybe the presidency of the United States ...

Musk promises a daily $1 million lottery in questionable pro-Trump effort

Billionaire Elon Musk has further escalated his direct intervention in the 2024 election in support of GOP nominee Donald Trump, announcing Saturday that he will hand out $1 million daily in a lottery for registered swing-state voters who sign a petition put out by his super PAC’s voter recruitment drive.

How is this not illegal?

Trump dicks around

Yep, this is the Republican offering for president of the United States and the most powerful person in the world. They must be so proud. I've not heard any of them, not Mike Johnson, not Lindsey Graham, actually explain why what Trump said about Palmer is ok or even normal. They just deflect. Cowards and toadies who have sold our country out.

More disturbing is the fact that half the people in the US want this demented gasbag to be the leader of the free world. Trump will eventually be gone but those people will persist.

Outside

Outside today with the camera. I haven't been out as much as usual lately because my knees have been bothering me. I'm trying to decide if I should/can get knee replacement surgery. Seems scary.

And meanwhile, the cats are having their own problems. Lately, Olive has been disappearing when it gets dark. He used to always be on his perch on the porch, like he is right now ...

But when it gets dark now, right after I feed them, he runs down the driveway and then down the street. I've tried to follow him, but by the time I get to the end of the driveway, he's disappeared. I'm so worried. Last night, he apparently got sprayed by a skink - PU!

And here is a kind of fuzzy photo of Snowy. She's really interested in something in the bushes under the pecan tree. She's saying 'don't bug me' ...

The election

I haven't written much about the upcoming election, probably because I'm both depressed and terrified about how it's going to go. John Oliver talks about some of the reasons to be concerned.