Not JUST the town, mind you, although that appears to have burned entirely.  California has now suffered through THREE of the worst fires in it’s history.  Tubbs (2017), Mendocino Complex (2018), and Camp (2018).  It’s good that the deniers have assured me Global Warming is all a conspiracy or I might be getting worried.  I DO feel, however, like the Chinese are going to an awful lot of extra trouble to convince people their hoax is real.  Couldn’t they just doctor a video or something?

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Speaking of fires, I see in the news that “President” Dumpster has fired Jeff Sessions and replaced him with a delusional loyalist dedicated to doing the so-called “President’s” bidding.  Nixon tried it but found that men of integrity stood up for the nation.  Sadly, “men of integrity” is an oxymoron in today’s GOP.

The upshot is, partisan AG Matthew Whitaker will likely try to squelch the Mueller investigation into the National Shame’s interactions with Russia in service to his master.  I suspect he’ll succeed, too.  He’ll take the report and refuse to release it.  Simple.  This is going to come down to the Democrats and their control of the House of Representatives.  I wonder if they’ll follow up…

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I’m glad Stacey Abrams is holding strong against Cheatin’ Brian Kemp.  I hope she’s able to force a run-off.  To me, there is currently no greater exemplar of the depths to which Republicans will stoop to cheat than the Georgia Governor’s race.  Kemp did every underhanded, dishonorable, dishonest dirty trick he could think of – and he STILL might not win.  The people of Georgia seem to know what a scumbag Kemp is.  The people of Georgia seem to have preferred Abrams.  They might get stuck with Kemp, anyway.  It’s a flaw in our country’s set-up that a person can cheat so nakedly, so completely, and “win” anyway.

Someone I know said to me, “That should be illegal.”
“It is”, I said. “Lawsuits will be filed and Kemp will lose…but he’ll still get to be Governor.  We don’t punish politicians who cheat so we can pretend we’re ‘protecting the integrity of the vote’.  But there’s no ‘integrity’ in a stolen election…”

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I believe the ‘integrity of the vote’ went out the window with the introduction of voting machines that don’t create a paper trail.  I note that EVERYONE in both parties was paying lip-service to the idea that the Russians might hack into the voting machines and affect the outcome.  I ALSO note that neither party suggested not using the suspect machines until they can be secured and PROVE the ‘integrity’ of their vote counts…

On the up side, we the people likely never “elected” the National Shame at all…

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Democrats turned out in FAR higher numbers than Republicans – which make sense.  There are FAR more lefties than righties out there.  Still, they didn’t win what the numbers would have dictated had the GOP not been cheating so effectively for so long.  In California, we did away with gerrymandering and the obstructionist Republicans went away with it.  I hope to see a concerted effort on the part of Democrats to eliminate gerrymandering everywhere they can.  I doubt I will, though.  The Dems will be loathe to eliminate a “tool” they might benefit from in the future, even if it does undermine democracy.

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Fun fact: the term ‘gerrymander’ was first coined by the ‘Boston Gazette’ in 1812 after a guy named Elbridge Gerry formed a district that was completely partisan and looked roughly like a salamander.  Because of the way he spelled his name, we pronounce the term with a soft ‘g’ – like a ‘j’ sound.  But Elbridge pronounced his name with a hard ‘g’ – like Gary.

Gerry was a conservative, of course, which means the conservatives have been cheating – fearful of leaving their unpopular positions in the hands of the people – since at least 1812…

206 year later?  Paradise burns…