The conservatives seem to have exited, stage…well, I don’t know where they went but they’re gone for now. Truthfully? It has been peaceful but rather boring. I guess Zuckerberg was on to something in promoting “debate” between fact and fiction.

I think they’ll be back though, frothing, amped up on alternative facts, and ready to fight. I’m ready, too. In the meantime, though, I’m enjoying the respite…

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The Loser’s lawyers keep walking into courts and saying the election was rigged. The “evidence” they present? ‘We don’t like the results.’ The remedy they seek? ‘Let’s just not count votes for Biden!’ Sure, it’s clever. Wily, even. Unfortunately (for them), it’s not democracy. We’re going to go ahead and count the votes.

One guy gave 2.5 MILLION dollars to help fight democracy. Too late, he realized he’s been duped and wants his money back. I’m guessing he’s not going to get it. I hope he doesn’t, a fool and his money being as they are. The fine print of these campaigns made clear that they were going to redirect money from the legal effort for various reasons.

It’s an expensive lesson but I guess he just got 2.5 million reasons to learn to pay more attention to actual facts and less attention to “alternative facts” (aka, “bullshit…”)

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The internet seems like it’s been infecting our lives forever, now, but that isn’t really true. I’m older than the internet and I remember the early, wild-and-woolly days when the world wide web went public. One of the most prominent features of the day? Easy, albeit slow, access to porn. No, that’s a different column. The prominent feature I’m interested in here is computer viruses. (Ah, porn and viruses. They just go together, don’t they?) Viruses were EVERYWHERE. Rampant, even.

It isn’t that people weren’t trying. Many people knew they should have virus protection. Most didn’t realize anti-virus software has to be maintained. Some would try freeware. Some would buy something but not maintain it. Many just took their chances. The result? A pandemic of computer viruses. At some point, viruses were SO ubiquitous, people started to become wary about hooking up the old modem. Internet service providers (ISP’s) came to the conclusion that they had to take charge in the anti-virus department or the web might just become too dangerous a place to risk for most people and it might never take off…

Every decent ISP began including anti-virus software as part of their service. Even at that, viruses kept coming – although the new practice managed to “flatten the curve,” as the saying goes. It became clear that ISP’s were going to be on the hook for this if they wanted to reduce computer viruses. I believe every decent ISP will continue to include antivirus software as part of their service for their own good, let alone the good of their customers.

But are you a Comcast internet customer? Have you been using the anti-virus software they provide – I’m sorry, “once provided” – from Norton as part of their service? Well, then you need to know, Comcast is going to eliminate that portion of their service on January 1, 2021. And no, there will NOT be a commensurate drop in cost just because there’s a measurable drop in service quality.

Let us assume that both Symantec (Norton’s parent company) and Comcast are just greedy corporations trying to squeeze out as much as possible while doing as little as possible. (EVERY corporation wishes it could have the ‘give-us-your-money-for-nothing’ model but religion sewed that up generations ago. Now, everyone else has to do something…)

Now, Symantec’s lifeblood is virus protection. If they don’t do a good job, they’re gone. Comcast? Not so much. Symantec is financially motivated to protect against viruses. Comcast? Why would they care? Between the two, who do you think will do the best job of virus protection, the company whose job it is or the company that just cut off your virus protection?

In fairness, Comcast is claiming they have some protections built into their system but then, they claim they offer Gigabyte speeds that never get anywhere NEAR a Gigabyte. You should expect their “protection” to be just as weaselly. Even their own description of their system protection makes clear how vulnerable the entire network is going to be.

IF you use their gateway ($15.00/mo, thank you very much) and IF you never connect your device to any non-Comcast system, you might be safe. (You won’t be.) Comcast is shedding responsibility in order to cut costs, yes? Do you think they’re going to take on the cost of maintaining virus definitions or staying current against malware? How are they going to protect your end-user equipment if their already inadequate protection stops at their gateway?

No, if you’re a Comcast victim…er…customer, you now have to buy and maintain your own antivirus software. Since past behavior is a solid predictor of future behavior, I’m guessing people won’t – for a wide variety of reasons.

The best answer is to find a different ISP, one that still provides anti-virus protection. Just dropping Comcast altogether would register appropriate disapproval. But Comcast is, effectively, a monopoly. They know not everybody can do that. For example, I have limited options where I live so I’ll have to stay with Comcast internet. But now Comcast has hit me with an unexpected cost. MY plan is to get the money to pay for robust virus protection from Comcast – by dropping everything else.

I’ve been in the process of cutting the cord for sometime now, anyway. As it happens, Comcast television is little more than a convenience. I can watch pretty much whatever I want to watch outside of the Comcast system. It just not quite as neatly organized. As it happens, I don’t WANT to pay nearly $300.00 a month for a bit of organization. So I’ve been cutting back. Now, I’ll cut back the rest – except for internet service.

The change will minimize what comes out of my pocket in response to Comcast’s choice. More importantly, it will minimize what goes INTO Comcast’s pocket – and reducing their revenues is really the only language they’ll understand…

I suppose it would be easy enough to, perhaps, admire Donald Trump’s life, if one takes a quick, superficial look. After all, he was handed hundreds of millions of dollars by the time he was four years old. He lived a pampered and entitled life. He never knew one day of adversity. And then? At the other end of his life, he gets to be President of the United States. Pretty sweet…

I wrote a song, once, that included the line, ‘I know, things aren’t always what they seem to be.’ (You sang it, didn’t you Jeff?) So let’s consider that same information a bit differently. Trump was handed hundreds of millions of dollars by the time he was four years old. He lived a pampered and entitled life. He never knew one day of adversity. But there’s an old saying: adversity builds character. A person who never knew one day of adversity would never have had the opportunity to develop as a human being, never have had the chance to build character.

Instead, Trump built a persona. In truth, I think many people liked the person he pretended to be. If nothing else, the viewing public was…intrigued. I suspect that if he and his crime family had stuck to the shadows he would have gotten away with the deception. But then? At the other end of his life, he got to be the President of the United States.

That’s not nothing. You are in the limelight as President. If I may quote Lin Manuel Miranda, “history has it’s eyes on you.” People pay attention to everything you do, everything you say. Everything. Very few were fooled by Trump anymore and those who were, mostly, were willfully ignorant. The persona had been ripped away. What was left is the wretched shell of a failed human – a person who literally embodies every one of the seven deadly sins. Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Avarice, Wrath, and Sloth – every one. Hell, he’s SUCH a failed human being, he even added one of his own: Mendacity. The guy lies for no reason at all! At this point, he seems absurd…

Benito Mussolini was once understood the be the most absurd authoritarian in history. I believe old Benito can sleep well tonight as the torch has been passed. Donald J Trump will, hereby, reign as the new champion absurd authoritarian going forward. (And you know it’s true because I included the word ‘hereby…’)

Oh, sure, a handful of conservatives, today, will make efforts to consecrate his name. Some hack, Heritage Foundation pseudo-historian will write a book that details the long list of alternate facts attributed as Trump “achievements” and the rank and file will sing his praises – for a while. The book will be mass ordered by conservative outlets and made a “best seller” but then the orders will be returned or “remaindered.” Eventually, the books will be ground up or just tossed out. History won’t remember them because they won’t be historically accurate.

The rank and file? These days, conservatives are having difficulty with basic science so their input doesn’t have much use or value anyway. After Trump leaves, the “base” will be moved on to other, new “positions du jour” and the specter of Trump will slowly fade as a day-to-day force. In the end, the harsh reality is that his supporters will eventually just…die off. All of today’s “alternative facts” will evaporate over time and efforts at character rehabilitation will become fewer and fewer. All that will be left, eventually, is history’s judgement.

I have no doubt that history will show that the money he was handed and that created such a comfortable life ALSO created a vacuous, gauche, rather vile human being. Being President stripped away his human persona and left behind the exposed, true person. It’s the failed, rude, vulgar, useless, and inept person, the one with no character, the TRUE Donald J. Trump, history will record as the 45th President of the United States. And THAT will be for all time…

I don’t know how I feel about Gavin’s Curfew but I’m pretty sure if I get caught violating, I’ll get away with an apology so long as I call it a lapse in judgement. You know, like Newsom did with his little birthday party stunt in which he undermined all of his credibility on the mask topic in one night.

What Gavin did was Trump-level stupid…

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I’m seeing more and more stories about judges issuing “stinging rebukes” to Trump “attorneys.” It turns out that, while everyone wants honest elections (scare stories from the right notwithstanding) the cases being brought to court boil down to “Well, your honor, we just really don’t like the results.” Generally speaking, courts are willing to hear your case but they REALLY don’t like to have their time wasted.

So Trump lost the election and now he’s losing in court – and losing, and losing, and losing. So far, he’s lost this election 28 times! (November 3rd and then 27 whiny lawsuits.) Hell, by the time he’s done, Trump will be the biggest loser – the losingist loser – in the history of losers. He’s lost so many times, now – you’d think he’d get tired of losing…

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We’ve all heard of the woman who realizes after some time that the guy she’s been seeing isn’t right for her so she ends the relationship. The guy decides the only thing to do is post intimate photos of her on the internet. You know – to get “even.”

There are, of course, huge ramifications to such abusive, adolescent, obnoxious, and offensive behavior as “revenge porn” but the one aspect I’d like to focus on, here, is that beyond all else, posting of the photos proves – without question – that she made the right call in dumping his ass. The guy sucks and she CAN do better – easily.

I see Trump’s White House temper tantrum meltdown the same way. Yeah, sure, he can – and will – do damage on his way out the door. He’s going to harm a LOT of people – and there will be NO regard for whether they voted for him or Biden. He’s going scorched earth. I’m not looking forward to the effects of his tantrum but I know – without question – we made the right call in dumping his ass. The guy sucks and America CAN do better – easily…

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It strikes me, though, that we’re watching, in real time, the behavior that explains why every business Trump touches fails. Something doesn’t go his way, he quits and then seeks to punish anyone and everyone who had anything to do with it (except himself, of course)…

The “run away” response seems to be a family trait. Remember, grandpa Drumpf SO disgraced the family name through cowardice, he ran away from it, changing it to ‘Trump.’ Now that Donald has SO disgraced and tarnished the latest family name, ‘Trump’, I wonder what they’ll go to next. I suggest ‘Harumph…’

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To my mind, the only real question remaining is if the dumbass is going to try to pardon himself. Theoretically, it’s an open question of the Constitution as to whether a sitting President can pardon himself. From a standpoint of practical application, though, it’s immediately apparent that if a President can pardon himself, he’s no longer a “president.” He would be a “king” or an “emperor” or a “strongman.” Whatever the title, if he can pardon himself, he’s a “tyrant” who can do anything he wants any time he wants…

I’m a proponent of Euthanasia. Death with dignity, assisted suicide – whatever you prefer to call it, I’m for it. I even take the possibly extreme view that it shouldn’t be reserved ONLY to people with terminal illnesses. As far as I’m concerned, if you want to go, it should be your right to go. (This is an option thing. If one DOESN’T want to go, they shouldn’t be forced to…)

What’s more, I’m fully aware that people risk their health and safety all over the world, all day, every day. Sometimes because they have no choice – we all have to get to work and the roads are dangerous. Sometimes because of a choice taken – nobody forced you to climb El Capitan. People throw caution to the wind every day and nobody tries to stop them. Have at it. Bungee jump or sky-dive out of a perfectly good airplane for “fun”. Try to set a land speed record. Jump the fountains at Caesar’s Palace. Whatever. Hell, we’ll even watch…

I only mention it because the anti-mask crowd keeps crowing about how someone is trying to infringe on their rights by forcing them to wear a mask to protect themselves. “My body, my choice!” they shout, having lifted the slogan from the pro-choice crowd. Sure, they acknowledge, they might get sick but then they’ll get better. Nobody dies from Covid. Every doctor always lies. In short, their focus is on how Covid affects them. To my mind my mind, they’re looking at it all wrong…

Think of it this way: there’s a guy walking down the street. No, not the street – YOUR street. He’s got an AK-47 slung over a shoulder and he’s wearing a knit cap of some kind. (Yes, he’s wearing other clothes, too. This isn’t that kind of story…) He takes five steps along the road. Then he stops and pulls the knit cap down, making a blindfold. He takes the AK from his shoulder and twirls around three times. He levels the weapon and squeezes off a three round burst. Then he raises his cap, slings the rifle back over his shoulder, regains his bearing, and takes five more steps down the road, where he repeats the ritual. Two of his bullets shatter your front window.

As he’s putting the rifle back on his shoulder, the police arrive. Apparently, some democrap libtard called the police just because the guy is randomly spraying bullets around the neighborhood. Fortunately, as an anti-masker, you have a unique understanding of the law and its applications and you’re not aBOUT to let anybody infringe on this guy’s Second Amendment rights.

So…you step in to help the shooter against the cops. (Verbally, it’s not THAT kind of story, either!) You ask why the cops are trying to interfere with the guy owning a gun. You remind them the shooter has rights. The cops, obviously in thrall to imposing their will on people, seem overly focused on the danger he represents to the neighborhood.
“He’s shot seven people,” a cop explains.
“Seven people?” you demand. “Is that all? Do you know how many people live in this neighborhood? Hundreds. Seven people is just a tiny fraction, like .02 percent!”
“Two are dead, three are likely to die. One’s a kid,” the cop says, clearly irritated and displaying a bad attitude.
“They didn’t die from bullets!” you insist as though you know. “They had pre-existing conditions.”
But the cops won’t listen so you pull out the big guns, the “Final Argument” argument. “The danger is overstated,” you insist. ” Mostly, he hasn’t shot anybody. Of the people he HAS shot, most will recover.”
“What if his next burst hits you?” the cop asks.
“Oh, I’ll survive for sure and without question,” you assert having never been shot. “It’s only old folks who die, anyway, and we all know their value is behind them. But what you’re doing is a slow drip. You’re threatening his rights.”
“What about other people’s right NOT to get shot?” the cop asks.

Is there an answer? What ABOUT people’s right NOT to get shot by your droplets? Because, for clarity anti-maskers, in the above scenario, YOU are the shooter. Wearing a mask isn’t about YOU. It’s about everybody who’s NOT you that you come into contact with. I’ll say it again; this is America. People don’t give a flying fig about what you do to yourself. (Go ahead, have another cigarette.) But they DO care what you do to them. (Just don’t blow it into MY face…)

So…which of your arguments gives you the right to risk other people’s health and, possibly, lives? I’m genuinely interested…

I don’t believe it, you know. I mean, I DO believe that the Biden/Harris ticket won. The part I don’t believe is that Trump was able to increase his base – especially that much. I mean, really? How? To whom did he appeal who wasn’t already on his team? We learned from Lincoln, you can fool some of the people all of the time. Those are the 35% – Trump’s base. (I base that number on the percentage of people who come out to defend him – no matter what – in between elections. That, to me, is the true measure of his base…)

You could convince me that Trump drew beyond his base in 2016 with people angry at the shenanigans of the DNC, people dissatisfied with the incremental baby steps crowd, people who had been conditioned to effing HATE Hillary – viscerally – since 1992, and other disaffected voters adding to the…well, the true believers. But that’s the thing; the “add-ons” were NOT true believers. Once Trump was revealed, the add-ons fell away, quietly but pretty quickly. (I see the evidence of that mostly in people switching their party affiliation from Republican to Independent…)

So if he already had a lock on the bigot crowd and he already had a lock on the fooled-all-the-time crowd (and the one encompasses the other), where did he find the gain? Truthfully, I think the ONLY place he could increase is with children of conservatives, raised in conservative households and reaching voting age before experiencing the real world. And you know what there are NOT? Millions of those…

THEN, his true feelings about our military come out and then Covid-19 hits and Trump just…falls apart. How many old folks do you suppose withdrew their support, what with Trump literally dismissing them as expendable in response to Covid? How many in the military when they heard he considered them “suckers” and “losers” or insulted Gold Star families or abandoned American soldiers and allies? I can see all kinds of places where Trump LOST voters AND I can see that the 35% isn’t going anywhere ever. So how did Trump turn out nearly 50% of the vote?

Right away, on November 4, I started hearing chatter about how the polls were wrong, consistently opining that Trump had “over-performed.” Pollsters knew the polling didn’t reflect the outcome in 2016, either. In fact, polling, it seems has been off-track since the 2000 “election.” After each round, pollsters “adjust” their tactics, assuring us all that THIS year, they’ve got it right. Then it isn’t. Or is it?

I submit that it’s not the polling that is incorrect – it’s the outcomes. I’ve long held that the various computerized voting machines in use allow for vote manipulation like the country has never known (or understood). I’ve long been a proponent of voting by paper ballots to ensure the accuracy of the vote. (I’ve long been ignored on the topic.)

Yes, I know the right is complaining that the process is rigged because we counted the votes. MY position is that the votes we CAN’T double-check are the “rigged” votes. THOSE come from computerized voting machines and I think the worst are known as Direct Recording Electronic systems or DRE’s.

DRE’s employ computers that record votes directly into the computers’ memory. These interfaces may incorporate touchscreens, dials, or mechanical buttons. The voter’s choices are stored by the computer on a cartridge or hard drive. In 12 states, DRE systems are also equipped with Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) printers, which produce paper records that can be preserved to be tabulated in case of an audit or recount. 7 states (In, Ky, La, NJ, Ok, Tn, Tx) do not use VVPAT. 2 states (Ks, Ms) use some DRE’s with and some without VVPAT. (This paragraph was lifted from BallotPedia.org and modified for detail by me…)

I’m told my concerns about those machines qualify as tin-foil hat stuff. In general, Americans believe that the United States would NOT have rolled out computerized voting machines without protections to keep people from manipulating the outcome. It turns out, that’s just a matter of faith. It’s an unsubstantiated belief that keeps them from even considering the possibility that the machines can be used to rig the outcomes.

So before I go too much further, you really should watch this video. Seven minutes. It’s a guy named Clint Curtis who actually wrote code that could be hidden in the operating software and used to secretly flip votes as desired. I offer it as evidence. If you won’t give up seven minutes to watch the Curtis video, you likely won’t surrender and hour and a half to watch HBO’s ‘Kill Chain: The Cyber War on American’s Elections‘ but you really, REALLY should. (Special shoutout to Mrs. Dean. I hope you made it here. I told you the wrong name. ‘Kill Switch’ is a Steven Seagall movie. MyBaconPress regrets the error… )

There are many videos on the web showing just how easy it is. I went to a middling search engine and typed in ‘hacking voting machines’ and came up with a long list. Sure, can’t happen here. Except that 11 year olds can do it in under 10 minutes. So, maybe it’s tin-foil hat stuff. Maybe it’s something we should be aware of and address. Now that we know how easy it is, perhaps we should consider whether anyone might try to use such a system to their own advantage…

You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Donald Trump really did turn out the vote. Sure, it was mostly hate voting to get rid of him but I truly doubt we would have had the response we had if the subject had been anything other than Trump so…props.

Because Trump chose to ignore Covid-19, states across this once-great nation were forced to use alternative methods for voting and the best practice was paper, mail-in ballots because every state already deals with them at one level or another and already had infrastructure in place. Trump worked as hard as he could against the mail-in ballots. He insisted people couldn’t trust mail-in ballots and encouraged his base to use the DRE’s. As it happens, the politics involved created a one-of-a-kind test run, red vs blue, computer vs paper.

The tallys are still coming in but I believe that when all is said and done, the states where only paper was used will be quite close to poll projections. The states that used machines will be…off. People will shrug and blame the polling techniques but we should at least consider the other possibility.

Perhaps the machines created an avalanche of red votes. I mean that the way it reads. Millions of people came out to get rid of Trump. Millions of people, blue and red, used the machines. The fact that a person can simply push a secret button and flip votes in individual machines (did you watch the Curtis video?) or do it with the dongle at the end of the day means the vote count would tally correctly but the outcome of the election would still be wrong. Such a tool explains how the vote flipping could be targeted so effectively as well. The Republicans don’t need to win everywhere. As we know, they only need to prevail in the Electoral College.

Since I started writing this, a statement was released in response to Republican claims of voter fraud in the machines attempting to assure Americans that the machines did their job properly. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” said a statement from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. If you’ve watched the videos I’ve recommended here, you know those are weasel words. “There is no evidence…” This is a true statement. The machines are built in such a way that they do NOT provide evidence nor keep records that can be reviewed. But that doesn’t mean the machines are honest.

So the only way to know if the election results were correct is to compare them against election day and exit polls. In most areas, it’s Trump who is said to have “over-performed” not Biden. If anything, the machines helped Trump, not Biden. I’m aware the claims from the right make my position, here, that much more Sisyphean but I maintain that we, the people MUST get rid of voting machines and return to paper ballots across this once-great nation if we’re ever to trust the process again.

We should just dump the machines. Every state, for every election, should use paper ballots. No matter how you slice it, paper ballots can’t be flipped. If a million people vote ‘yes’ on paper, a million ‘yes’ votes will be recorded – and can be recounted if necessary.

So, I guess we all owe Donald Trump a debt of gratitude for exposing the true corruption in the voting process: computerized voting machines. With those machines, Republicans don’t have a “finger on the scale” as the saying goes. They’re STANDING on the scale before anyone else steps up! (And NONE of this even begins to address GOP Gerrymandering…)

Now that Trump’s out, people are going to relax a little. Not so many will turn out next time. Only a small drop-off on the left and the extra weight the GOP brings disrupts an honest process again. I’ll tell you this: I REALLY hope we can get something done about eliminating the machines. I prefer elections to “elections.”

Well, that was…excruciating but ultimately satisfying…

Congratulations to Joe and Kamala. It will be nice to have decent people running the show for awhile. Of course, the dumbass isn’t going quietly. He’s beaten. He just doesn’t know it. People will explain it to him, though.

Biden won, fair and square. In fact, he had to do a seriously heavy lift against Republican cheating (more on that in a subsequent piece) but he managed to get it done.

To me, the most amazing single bit of theater from the whole thing came from Cult 45. I’ve long been aware that the conservative bubble has complete control over a segment of our society. Through the years, I’ve watched the bubble move the crowd from one position to it’s polar opposite in a matter of days. YEARS ago I realized that conservatives don’t have principles, they have positions which can (and often do) change with the wind.

But even I didn’t have a full understanding of the level of control the conservative bubble maintains. Not until I saw them. In Arizona, a gaggle of trumpsters stood outside the counting facility and shouted that the counting must continue because it’s the correct thing to do to count the votes. At the exact same moment conservatives were in Pennsylvania demonstrating outside the counting facility that the counting must cease because counting the votes was harming Trump’s position.

Yeah, I’m used to them taking one position, then switching to the opposite on a dime. Taking both positions at once? That’s new…

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The Senate is still up in the air. If the conservatives retain control – which seems likely in the face of so much Gerrymandering – Biden will be blocked from moving forward with some of his ideas (anything that needs Congressional approval). But he CAN put us back in the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. He can begin to heal some of our national institutions and he can restore (to some degree) our standing in the world. Frankly, I’m not sure how long it can last nor how deeply the world can/will trust us. After the Trump years, our system has proven far more fragile than many of us ever suspected and now the world knows that what a decent man like Biden might do today can be easily UNDONE by an indecent man like Trump…

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I’m looking forward to my conservative fellow Americans demonstrating their belief in all that talk they were on about when the topic was “support the President” and “respect the office.” I confess, I wasn’t able to do that when Donnie was “in charge.” I’ll be watching for their example. What was the line? “You support the President because if you wish for the President to fail, you wish for AMERICA to fail!” There’s also, “You respect the office even if you don’t respect the man.” I’ll be watching for examples from conservatives…

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One man I think everyone respected was Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy for 35 years. He wrestled with Pancreatic Cancer for the last year and a half and it finally got him. Alex apparently waited around long enough to find out who won. My deepest condolences to the Trebek family. I think we’ll all miss him very much…

I’m sure it’s just me but I think Republicans should try to come up with some decent ideas and convince people rather than just bully and cheat their way through “elections.”

If you scroll down a bit and click on the first clip in this video, you’ll see a gaggle of trumpsters harassing a Biden/Harris bus. There’s a woman narrating events and she thinks it’s funny as hell that they’re “running him out of town.” If you watch to the end (it’s a short loop) you’ll see one of the trumpsters ram another car. Apparently, the local police are trying to determine if it was intentional.

The dumbass, of course, supported the action, even re-tweeting video…

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But they can’t do that, of course – offer decent ideas. So, they cheat. Sure, I know, they jump up and down and scream and yell about all the cheating going on by Democrats. Pure projection. The Democrats aren’t cheating, the Republicans are and if they didn’t? They’d never win another election again. Even the orange moron said so.

That’s why the GOP is in court right this minute trying to get the Texas Supreme Court to throw out over 117,000 ballots. Okay, so, apparently, the court has already deflected several attempts by cheating Republicans to stop people from voting and it seems likely this one will fail, too. But, damn, people. Just offer up some decent ideas. Don’t just try to impress your stupid and racist base. Try to impress intelligent people, too. Maybe you’ll get somewhere…

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The reality, of course, is that Republicans don’t have any decent ideas to run on. There’s a simple reason. The Republican party has been infected and co-opted by so-called “objectivist” Libertarians. Objectivism is a boneheaded philosophical position first espoused by Ayn Rand. The weakest thinkers in our society (they would have to be for her “work” to make sense to them) glomed onto the concepts and eventually created the Libertarian Party.

Most people understood the Libertarian Party was made up of extremists and misfits and the Libertarians stayed, properly, outside the mainstream of American politics. But they didn’t stay there. Realizing the official party would likely never amount to much due to their radical positions, they began to infiltrate the Republican party. As Libertarian influence in the GOP grew, more and more traditional Republicans left the party.

Now the Republican Party is basically the same intellectual wasteland as the Libertarians. That doesn’t mean they’re not a threat. They’ve been cheating for decades and, as such, they’ve built themselves a very difficult to defeat advantage via gerrymandering and entrenched voter suppression techniques. They’re not going to be easy to overcome even though it looks, as of this writing, as though the left is fed up and coming out in force.

Remember, the reviled Hillary beat him by nearly 3 million votes but mismanaged the Electoral College. I guess we’re going to need significantly more than 3 million to win AND be allowed to serve. That’s not okay. The GOP is making it VERY difficult to have a peaceful revolution. Remember the words of JFK: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”