WHAT'S IN A QUARTER?

       According to the old refrain, a quarter held a promise of a shave and a haircut. Well, that has certainly not held to the fast and true, has it? Neither has, unfortunately, too much of what is going on in the world today. Primary proof of the pudding of the devaluation of the quarter? Well, it used to be that for the most part, at least in the beginning, that our best and brightest went into public service, became our political and national leaders. However, when that began to fade well, take a look around.

Today, we do not even have half wits running the show. It appears to be a fact that quarter brains are much more prevalent and there is even worse behind that. Seemingly the size of a politician's brain, the thinking and operational part, shrinks in direct relationship to ability to discern truths, distinguish that from lies, and proceed accordingly. 

Thus, what have we? We have Matt Goetz from my state of Florida who thinks that it is a marvelous idea to have Operation Warp Speed people count the votes in Georgia. Yup. I kid you not. Perhaps they have more fingers and toes to count on? And certainly, Pence, who is supposed to be Chairman though hardly ever bothering to show up for meetings, is thus in charge? Oh, yes, quarter brain is too high an estimate!

Need more examples of the quarter brains running the show? Graham, who made a 180 degree turn, from opponent to sickening lackey, of Trump, now is facing charges for interfering with officials of the recount in Georgia, his own GOP people. Could not happen to a more worthy fella! Then he is joined by the elder statesmen of the Senate and House as they face positive diagnoses of COVID and still they and their fellow quarter wits refuse to wear masks, as the governor of South Dakota fights restrictions even as her state of South Dakota is ravaged by the virus. Quarter brains? Nah! Think I was too generous here!

But these semi witless brains are allowing themselves to be used by people behind the curtain, people planning much more nefarious deeds. The question people keep asking today is if there is any legal way or path for Trump to remain in office. The very fact that they are asking this question is disturbing. Never before has this happened. Certainly not to the degree of bringing one flawed and frivolous lawsuit after another and being thrown out of the courtrooms by angry judges.

Personally, perhaps being paranoid, I believe there is far more to this than the rantings and ravings of a deranged man. There are too many extremists running around for my taste. There is too much interference from foreign countries, former enemies, remaining so, even as Trump buddied up to them. And here is where the danger is. Can there be a plan, or several plans, of illegal attempts, of plans to stage a coup, a military takeover of the country somewhere around Jan. 20, 2021? The chief people who could enable this are replacing people who would not sanction this. The replacements are all Fanatic Trump loyalists. So.......

I truly hope I am jumping the shark here, I really do, but all the insanity I wrote about has come  true. The situation is ripe for military use and we have seen an example of that already. It can be done. The question is, will it be done, will it be attempted and what would those soldiers do with those orders ?What would their officers do? And how would the people react. We already had blood in the streets, incipient strikes of the flint against stone, possibly sparking Civil War II. Are there any more sparks where that came from? You answer that. You know my answer.

There is even worse usage and representation of the term quarter. We have hit, surpassed, the awful record of over a quarter of a million deaths from COVID. We are now facing another quarter, or close to it, perhaps even more, prior to Inauguration, especially if Trump continues to care less re deaths of Americans, continues to praise that stupid woman who refuses to ascertain what is certified and true - Joseph Biden, Jr. is going to be the next President of the United States. All attempts to delay and deny, all attempts that cause more deaths, should result in charges against her and her boss, among the many charges for all the other wrongs already in his in basket!

While on the topic of quarter brains, we apparently have many residents in the UCO office, thinking they can pull the wool over the eyes of all the residents all the time. Now, two days after Nov. 17, David boasts of putting a Special Operations meeting on Live in Cyberspace! Whoopeee! That is called ZOOM. Yup. The man has discovered ZOOM albeit not in enough time to allow for participation and questions in real live time. So budget, spending, priorities, all else, ripped out of the residents' control and kept in his hot little hand, along with his lackeys. Sickening! Not even a quarter of the way on the path of right and correct. 

So, quarters indeed. I believe we need to upgrade all over this country, to at least the silver dollars of old, of people willing to put in the time to serve others, to work for country, for home, for the betterment of others. For life.

Quarters indeed. Silver dollars? Oh, yes. 

FULL CIRCLE

      The circle of life - or is it the circle of death? Whatever one wishes to call it, it is there. More and more residents of states that had escaped earlier pandemic surges, are now suffering, greatly, from increased numbers of infections and deaths. Their governors, who had previously kowtowed, much to their residents' misfortune, given in to Trump et al and their greatly flawed behavior and tantrums, are now instituting the same restrictions and mask laws that they had scorned before, all a Democratic hoax. How sad for all that the truth of it all, no hoax, and their false accusations, has returned full circle, biting them in their collective asses.

Forgive me if I take some joy in that, though I wish it had not come as a result of so many more casualties. Would that it had come about as a result of common sense, as a result of functioning brains, as a result of clear thinking and recognition of the true state of a greatly benighted and demented man they all followed slavishly.

But the numbers speak the truth and where these numbers will finally call a halt is in the air. Will the vaccines prove good for all? Will we have to experiment, have people die, until we do figure that out? How do we distribute? How do we establish priorities? How do we insure safe delivery what with the requirements for frigid temperatures, and short life spans of the doses? 

How do we do this all what with that man still blocking transitional talks and planning, too busy and/or uncaring to attend meetings re COVID, too busy with playing daily rounds of golf to tend to his much put upon flocks of remaining believers. I cannot understand how there remains any loyalty to this man who had only one goal in all this time - to improve his bottom line, playing golf and having the government pay for that at his clubs, to avoid prosecution, at least for a while, and show one and all who is the boss! How unfortunate for him that the truth prevails and consequences, however delayed, however much overlooked by Biden in the quest to reestablish national unity, however much of that, there are still bottom lines he must meet. I so cheerfully await that day! Mea culpa, but I am human and the damage he has done must be accounted for, paid for, a lesson taught and a lesson learned.

I believe, that given the chance, given a returned recognition and realization that so many have been under a dangerous delusion these past five years of campaign and ensuing madness, given the chance, Biden can be a great president. Not a noisy one, not a charismatic one, but a quietly efficient and thoughtful man who will not please all, particularly those with one major issue, but will smooth the troubled waters of the nation, clear the air, protect the land, attack COVID on all its fronts, reestablish connections to our allies, and just plain serve the people. Period. That is exactly what we need right now and hopefully, the people of the nation will follow, returning to sanity, ignoring the harsh and nasty calls of the extremists on all sides. We need calm now, so badly, so much.

And while we need calm, and constructive behavior, it is only as a result of determined efforts that we will reach that point. In the nation and here in CV. We must work together, demand together, see the right together, as we work to fix the ills of the Village, to remedy the crises waiting just offstage, and those present and active right now. We need to find that true leader, a president without an ego that demands all kowtow to him/her. 

We need someone who will recognize that the Village is the needy one right now and if we desert it, run away from our responsibilities, then we will be shooting ourselves and our heirs in their collective feet. David Israel is not the leader we need now. In fact, whatever good he might have done or might have meant, it is now all abrogated by the damage he has done and caused over the past few years and the damage he has caused us, by inappropriate actions and inaction, to suffer  in the future.

Time to roll with Biden. Time to learn the bitter lessons of the Trump years, how quickly people succumb to a Hitlerian personality, willing to lose touch with the truth. We need to move forward here in  the Village as well. We need to hear the truths spoken of by Ed Grossman. We need to vote Olga into office as VP, a willing and knowledgeable and devoted resident. We need to run for Executive Board in numbers that will ensure us a majority, a squelching of the dead from the neck up yesmen of David. We need new officers. We need to appoint a new editor to the Rag, once a proud piece of journalism known as the Reporter. We need it to speak out and truthfully, not be a shill for the David Israel faction. We need so much and must begin with running for office.

I have just read the book by John Connolly, The Dirty South, well written, a prequel to the Charlie Parker novels of Connolly. The lesson is there, the one we must learn. The past is with us. The past affects the future. There are no lines drawn under something and then forgotten about. The truth leaks, always, the consequences of misdeeds are there, always will show up and there is often little control as to when or how or where. The best thing to do? Do the right thing in the first place. So, too, must we.

 

NOT ANYMORE

      And there we have it - the sentence of the times. This is what Jake Tapper told Colbert, that he does not book those people anymore - the liars from the Trump campaign. And finally, we have the answer to much of the problem besieging us. Just do not give them airtime, any more than we would walk into an asylum and publicize the antics of the inmates as predictive and explainative of present and future situations.

 It is the simple rule that teachers and parents have known for generations: do not give bad behavior, silly antics, the attention grabbers, any attention and they will drop off. Then, one can proceed with sense and understanding to deal with the issues at hand. 

Simple, yet ever so hard for the media to understand these past four to five years. Understandably, it was difficult, as how does one ignore the antics of a toddler, a brat, living inside the hulking body of a supposed adult, a President of the United States at that, whose every action, every word, has consequences of enormous importance and influence. And so on went the mad antics and down went the country.

And then it got worse, for this same madman, the same crowd of shivering and whimpering sycophants surrounding him, went on a tear, rallying the worst of the nation and then, worse than that, drawing in desperate people looking for an answer, a scapegoat, for the horrors of a world turned upside down. So along with the racist groups of Proud Boys, QAnon, the OathKeepers, the Three Percenters, along with the chanting hatemongers, the deluded and encouraged people marched, praising the "fine people" who chanted "Jews will not replace us", whose behavior encouraged and allowed people to act on this chanted hatred and increased the hate crimes of 2019 to the highest level in a decade. Is it any wonder that the threats appeared to be echoing the rise of Hitlerian fascism, a most frightening thought and increasing reality.

Throughout his entire lifetime, Trump has used the accusations and shouts of rigging and fraud in every contest of his life, be it in bidding, or running for election. It mattered not, for the man, this demented man, could not, cannot, ever grasp the idea that he has lost, definitively so, and thus he creates his own maelstrom of temper tantrums worthy of the booby prize in life. But, this behavior is not funny as it drags along with it the confused and vulnerable people who follow him through fear, through desperation, through limited eyesight, through emphasis on one point to the exclusion of all others, and it just makes me see red - and not the red of those damned MAGA hats that are the newest forms of dunce caps!

Under this administration we have lost more Americans than ever before. We have thousands of cars lined up for Thanksgiving food, people who have never done this before, who used to contribute to this food distribution. We have a gloomy and despairing winter ahead, more deaths, more infections, more lockdowns, and yet another attack on the economy. Plans for distribution of vaccines, if found to be effective, are almost nonexistent, as nonexistent as cooperation on transition. Denying reality does not make Trump a winner nor does it negate the future - of millions more infected, hundreds of thousands more dead, a morbid economy, a devolving world, and governments which turn on their people.. And yet, the delusions that people allow themselves, persist, and we are the worse for it.

We are the worse for it on the national and local level. We have the same delusions, the same desperate power seekers hanging on to the inept, way past sell by date needing to be ousted local leaders. From David Israel here, to Goetz, to Rubio and Scott, to DeSantis, to Perdue and Loeffler, to Omar and Tlaib, all these leaders do is grow hate, grow ineptitude, grow uselessness, grow harm to the respective constituents. They need to be changed, to be retired, to be put out to pasture, where they can do no more harm.

The fight is not over, the struggle continues. It is a constant struggle and we must realize and behave accordingly. All it takes is inattention, growing, and growing, and the danger increases as the incompetents, the unqualified, the haters, take over the joint and then the swamp waters rise to cover us all with the sludge that these people create. Not a good life, not a good future. Anyone for new President for UCO? Enough of David. Enough of the weaklings who go along with him. Retain the best and chuck the rest. We can do it We must do it. Period.

DIGGING WELLS

     If you have never participated in the act of digging a well, seeking water, seeking a path to life, well, then, you need to reconsider your life and the efforts within it. You need to reconsider your goals. You need to reconsider your priorities and you need to reconsider the seriousness with which you approach life.

Last night, Tyler Perry accepted an award from People's Choice Award and during the acceptance speech he spoke of a conversation with an engineer re digging wells, the purpose of it, the efforts for it, the necessity of that digging all the time, every time. And he is so right.

Nothing good comes easy in life. Much never comes as the outcome of a first effort. But if it is important to us, if we have the stick to it trait so necessary for success in attaining goals, in climbing over and around obstacles, then, as Con Ed says, "Dig we must!" And dig we have done these past four years as we tried to dig a new well of democracy, a new well with the sustaining power of aiding in the cause - the pushback against growing threads and spools and skeins of fascism, racism, denial of democracy and reality that were growing apace in our country.

Some of those efforts, too many of them, were dry holes. It seemed we would never hit that water. It seemed as if democracy had run dry in this country and defeatism ran rampant through the anti Trumpian crowd. It seemed his dementia would never be apparent to the willfully blind and deaf,  accepted and even encouraged by those who benefited from it at a major cost to the country,  its its residents, and the future. 

However, there were enough well diggers around to keep the effort, the digging, ongoing, and on Election Day we won that hard fought dig at the difficult well site. The water began to appear, first as a slight glimmer and then, as it grew in depth and clarity we saw a new path to the future, a successful dig for a well indeed. But never doubt that we must keep our sleeves rolled up, our shovels at hand, our determination at a high point, if we are to defray the efforts of those troglodyte forces of a demented man and his enablers as they try to fill in that well and deny any other well sites.

The attempts to deny a reality as clear as day, the attempts to suborn treason from the hordes and yes, treason it is, as it is blatantly an attempt to overthrow the government, to foist a coup upon the nation and the world, upon the present and future, such as it would be. The digging is not yet over; there are attempts to cave it in, and we must be ever on our guard, on alert status, but then again, nothing good ever came through the easy paths, has it. The difficulty is well worth the positive results. And perhaps now we will have the ability to turn our attention to the criminally neglected fight against the virus by the Trump administration. Quite frankly, accessory both before and after the fact is the least of the crimes they are guilty of.

Nor is this digging of wells limited to the national level. Right here at the Village we must concentrate our efforts on new sites. Our wells have run dry. Our inspiration, our leads to new well sites, ready for digging, are limited and tamped down at every turn by our own Trumpian copy, David Israel and his henchmen, those who continue to allow him, to follow him, from well site to well site, drying out the life giving waters, all the better to keep the Village under his ruinous thumbs.

But we do have a chance. We have returning well diggers,  such as Ed Grossman , who has long maintained an ongoing dig and is now fighting to re-dig, reopen the wells, as he uncovers the wrongs of the David Israel administration, even as the spoilsports try to block him at every point.

We have returned veteran well digger, Olga Wolkenstein, running for VP, as she too does not give up and at great sacrifice to her life, is waving that shovel high in the air and then deep into the ground. The rotten earth of the present UCO officers must go, the good and hard working kept and the rest, trashed on the heap of the rest of the spoiled earth. Let the waters come through clear and blue. 

We need to add fresh shovel wielders, new faces, new residents, old veterans, all willing and able to improve our situation here. It is dire. Will we sell our souls again as we did in 2000? Will we allow WPRF to run rampant against us, the residents? Or will we demand and insist upon our rights, live a safe, financially feasible life? The choice is upon us. The well can either be uncovered or resealed. We know which is the better choice.

I call upon all here who recognize the truth to send in your biographies to the Reporter, that propaganda rag for the current administration. Do it now. Register to run for Executive Board. Register to run for office. Swamp them. Swamp the current inadequate UCO. Let us do right for ourselves and for the Village at large. It can be done. It must be done. Dig We Must!

 

MIDNIGHT IN GEORGIA AND ELSEWHERE

      Nice song, but not this time around. This time, the midnight hour will set the agenda for the next four years and so much more. In Georgia itself there is the runoff between two sets of contenders for 2 Senate seats. Both are written with the same faulty pen that wrote Trump and need to be defeated, especially as that will give the Democrats the Senate majority they so desperately need to undo the damage of Trump and all that he is planning in his "midnight" agenda. Then corrections can take place. Then, perhaps, we can move forward.

A reader has echoed the need for Trump to face the music, to be tried, convicted and imprisoned, where he can do no further harm. Trouble is, can he forgive himself, pardon himself, but then again, he cannot pardon state crimes, so there we go! But in the meanwhile there is a far more serious question, and that is - will America survive this period of time? Will we manage to "bind together " the wounds of the nation? Will we be able to tamp down the horrific use of violence, its encouragement and the existential threat it poses to the country. Grave doubt in this area.

Last night I watched videos of the demonstration in DC. I feared for the life of my country, for the lives of citizens who would be deemed undesirables - including me - and disappeared into the nacht und nebel of a new American Hitlerian era. The night and fog terror of dictatorial regimes continue to haunt the human race and its imposition here is not a difficult leap of imagination.

Watch the videos for yourself. See the uniformed groups marching in formation, clad in full battle gear. See their outstretched arms in imitation of Trump's always outstretched arm, and see the ugly faces twisted by hate. See them rapt, caught up in a nasty fairy tale, one where the ogre, the troll, wins the day and no fairy godmother around to spread some magic dust.

See the hypnotic state they fall into as they chant Stop the Steal", yet another rhyme meant to capture the attention and imprison the thought process of the chanters as they fall into a daze. Perfect Hitlerian tools of crowd controls and time for the deniers to admit this, to recognize it, to be afraid of what it means, and to oppose it, fight it with all our might. With all the passion we can generate, for this is the fight of our lives, the fight to keep the future for our kids, and frankly, to keep a somewhat safe place to call home for American Jewry.

And what future are we looking at? Well, the future that was seen at the demonstration, where the original people came loaded for bear, attitudes and equipment galore. We had a smaller contingent, about 300 or so, who spontaneously decided to come and protest, their right. And the sparks were lit and the future was clear. This is what will be and very soon - no, it is here already. It will be a conflagration to destroy this country. All positive values, all positive American traits, rights, history, will be consumed by the ugly flames, by the ugliness of the street fighting and worse, by the blood flowing in the streets. 

Will we once again be watching rivers flow red with the blood of Americans? Will we shatter the world with this outrageous consequence of Trumpism? Will it matter at all, as we all die off from the virus, the same one that Trump et al allowed to grow, develop and flourish - in perhaps their own little plot, if we are playing this vicious game - and thus allowed, no, begat the deaths of so many, the suffering of millions, the disaster to humanity that it is.

I have long warned, foretold, of this imminent fighting, this imminent Civil War II. I hoped I was over the top, but evidently I was not. The man lost. The man lost. Period. End of story. Instead we have the challenge, not to this election only, but to the entire concept and belief in democracy, even as all the experts refute these nonsensical and dangerous accusations. But once people get caught up in a trance, in something that is larger than themselves, they will raise those arms, salute the devil, and trash themselves and others. And it all rests on Trump. And it all rests with those who refuse to recognize his dementia or worse, see it clearly and knowingly take the country down this dangerous road, a highway to death and destruction, to a blackened future. To no future at all.

Possibly worse is that this tragic series of events is causing us to miss the local situations that besiege us. Here in CV we have a disaster well into its formation and life. We have a runaway administration which refuses to recognize its duty toward the residents, refuses to obey the bylaws of the Village, and drives us down at every turn. We have a Treasurer fighting against the tide, trying to straighten the mess out, denied and fought at every turn. We have an election coming up with no road in place for the announcement of candidates, the election process and all this is done on purpose.

For months already we have been denied the proper ability to participate in the running of the Village. Committee meetings, Board meetings, all have been canceled, restricted. No Assemblies wherein we are to vote on the budget, on proposals for the Village, and instead there is nothing. We live in a dangerous vacuum of knowledge, even as a life or death deadline is drawing ever closer, a new Agreement, and what is the news? Where are the solicitations from the people, who are the committee members and is there even a functioning one? So much, and yet so much more.

Yesterday, a wonderfully capable and devoted resident of CV announced a run for Vice President. Eminently qualified, a veteran of UCO and aware of its ugly games under the cracked stewardship of David Israel, Olga Wolkenstein can replace an outgoing VP and become the pin on the seat of that man, constantly goading, annoying, pushing, that dangerous David Israel who negates our promise, our continued existence in good shape, our very way of life.

As in the outside world, we here in our own little micro environment must choose. Either we take on responsibility, take on the truth, participate, establish truths, and reject dangerous chants and lies or we give up our future, our very lives even.

There is no easy way through life. It is not meant to be easy, for we are always responsible to prove ourselves worthy, to G-d or simply to a humanity depending upon decency. It does not matter why, only that we always strive to do the right thing, to point out the evil and condemn it, destroy it, negate it, as quickly as possible, here and at the nation at large.

People, we are at the midnight hour, all over this country and all over the world. It is a most frightening time. I still cannot sleep or beat back this anxiety as to what will be, will the unthinkable actually happen? You should be feeling the same, opening eyes one wishes to keep closed, but must not. Remember the warning - for evil to succeed all it takes is for good people to do nothing, to say nothing. The world has been there before. Must we repeat our errors and go there again? Midnight hour. Only YOU have the answer to the midnight hour.

"A LOT OF PEOPLE AREN'T HERE"

      And you can make book on that statement! In fact, it appears to be that many people have truly not been here oh, these last four years, shall we say? Okay, physically they might have been there, but mentally, equipped with functioning brain power, true eyesight and common sense, let alone with moral power, then uh uh, many people have not been here. What's more, there are people now leaving the drawing room, shall we say, as disaster approaches for their lord and master, the Demented ever so Intimidating One. Yes, verily, he will be gone, and very soon. And that will make even more people 'not be here' - such a lovely thought. Hang on to that.

Told that the 'wall' of insanity is breaking down, I continue to wonder if the greatest lack of action during this whole disgusting mess was the lack of purchase of thousands of steel poles, all the better to gain people's attention as they were smacked upside and downside their proverbial thick skulls. Perhaps that would have gained entry to totally blocked minds and allowed light and sense and truth in. Would that it had been so. Would that it will be so - right now, but optimism is in short supply around here lately.

Supposed adults are talking about a supposed adult, stating that he is depressed, needs coddling, needs to be humored. After all, it is only temporary, actually funny, one might say. Well, steel pole at the ready - no, it is not funny, it is not appropriate, and it is, in fact, shameful beyond all imagination. Coddle a grown man? A grown man who has not been presidential lo these many a year and now has openly displayed his dementia and people are coddling here, wasting court time, and worse, oh, so much worse, inducing otherwise sane and thinking people to believe in mythological misdeeds re a national election! 

But not only that, for  apparently the only fraud in the race was the presidential one, and only where Trump lost. Otherwise, particularly where Republicans triumphed, well, no fraud there. Amazing how so many people could take the time on jammed circuits of voters to be so very specific in misdeed. Apparently, insanity endows one with otherwise unknown powers of haste, of specificity and knowledge how all else is proceeding nationwide, hence, what must be done to insure that things break the 'right' way. What I would have given for that power instead of spending sleepless nights pacing the floor and chewing on fingernails while I waited, hoping that the American people would come to their senses. Even as I kept stealing peeks at my handy dandy steel pole.

So people laugh, people make excuses for a president who never was, who spends his days in insane tweets and spinning broken spider webs. But people do not, or refuse to, recognize that the danger this man has introduced into the very roots of democracy are toxic, explosive and dangerous beyond all conception. This farce has made us a laughing stock of the world and reduced our powers to convince other nations to do the right thing, well, whoosh! There they went, straight down the toilet. 

And there they found the remnants of the four year old pile of virtue and righteousness, of patriotism, of justice, of law and procedure - all that the GOP threw away and induced others to do the same. And for that, they substituted all the sludge of corruption, incompetence, greed, injustice, bribery, cronyism, nepotism and all else that smacks of evil. And the worst of it in my book, the growing power and presence of those toxic children, perhaps the descendants of children of the corn - Eric, Junior and Ivanka. Feh!! Ptui!! And that goes the same for Jared!

People, Biden won. All elections that Trump loses are not fraudulent, though he claims it to be so. America can be on the right track and should be right there if not for the blockade of Trump et al and the loss of sense and sanity among the many. The pandemic is worse than ever, and 300,000 dead will soon be reached at this rate and not stop there either. Over ten million infected and growing at over 67,000 a day. The economy unable to be resurrected as people are quarantined, or ill, or caring for loved ones down with it, or trying to recover from shattering grief in a world turned upside down, turned mad.

Imagine what an army of  newly knighted and sane citizens, armed with the steel poles of justice, patriotism, unity, humanity, and goodness, of welcome to new immigrants, of decency, of remembering the struggles of our forefathers, imagine what such an army can do. Grab yours and come along. We need all of us, no excuses and all returning to sanity will be welcomed right into the fold. No vengeful moronic plans and denial of reality here. Only a strong desire to right the world on its axis, save the globe from destruction, just do the right thing.

And a lot of people WILL be here. Steel poles and all. Sanity and all. Decency and all. Justice and all. As for his plans to return in 2024, by then his dementia will be apparent to the strongest of all the deniers, so let him prattle on, rattle on, tweet on. He is useless, meaningless and his powers must be controlled until Biden is sworn in. Perhaps then, maybe, we can hope, the legislatures will cease to be RED and BLUE, but will instead be RED, WHITE AND BLUE, together, as a nation, once more. Steel poles, Attention!  HUT! One, two, three, four. As simple as that.

THE LONG CON

      It has long been known and acknowledged that Trump is, and always has been, a conman. He is always looking for one way or another to put the kibosh on someone else, to play that long game so that he comes out as a "winner", at least in his own benighted and twisted mind. That is bad enough in business, but when this long con is being perpetrated upon an entire country, a former leader of the world, on an entire nation, then brother, have we trouble right here in American cities! And states! And the entire existence of the nation.

Bitter irony indeed from those who refuse to see the truth, who refuse to admit - or worse, do admit - what Trump has done and is doing to us, and continue to back him. They deny his efforts are suborning treason. They deny that his plans are anti Constitutional. They deny that he is attacking democracy at its very core - the trust the electorate must - MUST - have in the process and outcome.

But with his every damned tweet, with his every damned statement and action or lack of action, this man is endangering the very security of our nation. Our enemies, who have been coddled by Trump, are proceeding to outrageous actions in Hong Kong and in the former Russian neighborhoods of Europe. They fear nothing now, and why should they?

This man is packing the crowds with loyalists. Anyone hear the refrain of the Russian commissars and political officers? Anyone hear the refrain of Heil Hitler, adjusted to Heil Donald, as he takes steps compatible and favorable to authoritarian heads of state. The same behaviors that petty dictators, and now even former SSRs, have been seeing of late. Elections and their legal outcome appear to be passe. If one does not get what one wants, then one simply demands and takes. Simple. Easy. And totally undemocratic.

So why is it that so many are blind to the truth? Why is it that so many refuse to see that he is packing the apparatus of government with loyalists? Appointing not the qualified, but chasing those out, and appointing those who will do his bidding, illegal as it will be. The truth? The man is plotting a coup. Yes, he is trying to negate the Electors and the choices, seemingly thinking that is legal, though actually not, and certainly as far away from moral as one can get. But if that does not work, well then, COUP! Right here in America. The army called out, told, ordered, to shoot their neighbors, officers to order and command their men to shred the Constitution and law via their actions, to "obey orders".

The world has been there, done that already. Time and again and I am sure more is awaiting us in the future as it seems mankind never learns, is doomed to repeat their own actions, refusing to see the truth as is, but rather the truth as they make it up. Creating their own realities, their own justifications, their own rules. So what is next? Cages for all of us? Cages for those who speak out? Disappearances a la the dictatorial nations of the world? Black holding cells or prison sites, as they deem it? More moronic "science" to kill us, even as the CDC finally states openly what has long been known - wearing a mask protects YOU as well as others. Duh!! Rocket science that is not, but plain common sense. Is that why Republican and Trump supporters could not literally see past their noses on COVID? Not even as we go through a disastrous third wave worse than ever.

The long con. Begun way before 2016, seeded in the roots of his childhood and family dysfunction, bulwarked by his ugly business tactics, it has blossomed and bloomed today into the takeover of this country. Think I just jumped the shark? Some thought that before, but here we are, with a deranged man heading the government, hulking around in his obese body, tweeting insanely, yet very shrewdly managing to turn this country into a huge misshapen pretzel, all the better to institute his takeover. "Legally' or otherwise. Shredding the very democracy he has conned others into thinking he is protecting. How dictatorial!!! How special!

Joe Biden is President-elect. The facts are the facts and all the evil fairy tales made up do not overturn that fact. Wanting to win does not necessarily get transferred into the act of winning. Law and procedures, processes, are to be followed. Law is the name of the game, not the long con game, but the game of democracy. Twisting the law, subverting the law, is a part of the long con, with the major grifter, the man of no morals, surrounded by his intimidated and cowardly hordes of GOP members, of the insanely fueled and believing mobs, of people who think this bizarre man, this liar of riches he actually might not have, will actually better their situation!!! So contrary to the truth.

A lovely man asked me now that Biden won if I can sleep once more. The answer is actually no, I cannot, for we are not safe in our beds, are we? We are not safe in the outcome of the election, are we? We can envision a Civil War II breaking out, the WH on fire as it is the center of a battle between troops defending the ousted man and troops attacking, those willing to protect the nation as it should be, and those wishing to introduce dictatorship within this former great country.

We essentially are now in a leadership vacuum. Instead of ending his term on a high note, standing as a leader in our time of crisis, a time when a virus is killing us off at ever increasing rates, when way over ten million have been infected, when over a 1,000 people are dying each day, and that is expected to grow at exponential rates, when our first responders are once again overwhelmed, why is that supposed to be leader sitting there, silent, as usual, in this very great danger to us all? Why? Because he is simply unable and unwilling to pay attention to the needs of others and condemns them all to their fates as he plays the long game, the long con.

MAGA? Absolutely not. In fact, he has made America very small, a farce, a blip, a fart in the history of the world. Crude, but the truth, for we have become a bad smell in the nostrils of the world, a cyst in the lungs of the world.

Time to wake up, to see reality as it is and fight this man and his efforts, destroy those wiling to destroy us. The only alternatives are not great. One is to agree to succumb to this man's plans, to forgo all that America has been and needs to be to the world, to forsake the future of our children. The other is to engage in a resulting blood y war as Americans fight Americans. As the world watches, tsks, tsks away, returns to their own business, for we have become almost irrelevant, and the globe continues to spin its axis.

Who is playing the long game here? And why? People, wake up to the truth. Demand justice. Demand action. Demand that the elected representatives of this nation remember their oaths, grow spines ands balls, literally or figuratively, and do their job. Get rid of this man,. Make sure he is out of the WH on Jan. 2, 2021, in pajamas or suit, but out. Permanently. Be Americans, for G-d's sake!!

Up to us, folks. No other path left. Speak out. Speak up. Shout out. or worse will follow. Long cons are not good for the conned. that is a fact. Face it and act accordingly.

THREE SCORE AND TEN

 Three score and ten, the biblically allotted life span of a human. Anything over that was gravy. Lately, I have been thinking that we also now have threescore and ten to either get our very messy house in order or face death, the death of a country, of an idea, of spoilage of the gravy as all that was valued turns to rancid dust. 

What does one say to a governor who is pushing for the right - the right, mind you - to shoot and kill anyone believed to be 'looting'. Capital punishment for robbery - if it is even that, as it will all devolve into racial splits, he said/he said, and meanwhile the anger grows and all this sound and fury will grow into far more than the empty noise of Shakespeare's sound and fury signifying nothing. We will not be the better for it; indeed, we will be much worse. Just imagine the macho dudes and dudettes marching around, strapped to the nines, determining who is worthy of being killed and who not. Duel at high noon in real life once again.

Three score and ten for the presumed leaders of the GOP to come to their senses and apologize for their unbelievably incorrect stance these past four years and in particular, after this election. Carrying my theme of noise, the GOP members admit that this whole illogical, even criminal, false accusations of election fraud is just that - noise, no substance behind it. The suits are frivolous, an actual legal accusation. Where the hell are the minds of these people? Presumably in the sludge of DC swampland so overly cultivated by the Trump administration.

Three score and ten days to grow the "embarrassment" of a demented man refusing to recognize reality, to insist he has won what he has so clearly lost. Three score and ten days for these intimidated weaklings, spineless creatures one and all, to man up, to stand up for what is right and stop their sniveling behavior. Presumably all have not lost their minds and these stories of them coming over privately and saying Biden indeed won, well, screw them. That is a reality and their engagement in this deadly childish gambit is just that - childish and dangerous at the same time.

As one who worked for a number of years as a poll worker volunteer, I know for a fact that nothing like this could happen, let alone on such a grandiose plain claimed by the Demented One and his cowardly followers. There are so many safeguards in place. The simple honesty and training of the workers, the supervisors, the presence of poll watchers who have always been there, not only in this election. The sheer inability to do these things in such ridiculously claimed amounts. Simple ballot changes are witnessed by workers from BOTH parties. Overvote and undervote are standard happenings during every election - people make errors - especially elderly and new voters. 

Time is short, people are busy, no one can take the time to even think about these ridiculous accusations. Try to go behind the tables and get blanks in such numbers. Try to break the seals on the machines, reach all the way down and deep and get voted and recorded, numbered amounts of ballots, counted by the machine. The machine will go nuts and so would people . People, those ballots are so damned heavy and unwieldy that it is physically impossible, let alone by elderly workers, which most of them are.

Finally, try to match up the numbers of ballots in the machine, on the tapes, which are run by the machines, not by humans, all the spoiled ballots, the provisional votes, the standard voter numbers and believe me, there is simply no way to do this on any kind of evil masterplan. Impossible.

 But the very fact that we are talking about this, with threats of empty lawsuits, with corrupted officials going along with this and others resigning or being fired, with the security of the country undermined, all to please a demented toddler, well, this is what is so dangerous in the next three score and ten days. 

Democracy depends on process and procedure. It depends on trust and faith. It depends on following the fair and just laws, changing them if not. Democracy does not thrive nor remain in existence when the government itself challenges its viability, particularly when challenged by mentally deficient beings.

What the hell are we doing? Why are people buying into this? Do so many of purported Americans want to kill people, shut down democracy, live in an authoritarian country where freedom will be a faint echo from the past? What the hell is the matter with us? Take this man out and jail him, imprison him for attempts to overthrow and betray the government, the country and its people. Arrest him for conspiracy, for crimes he has committed for financial fraud, for all that he has done and encouraged and with him take those moral vacuums, those useless GOP people who cannot find it within themselves to do the right thing.

Today is Veteran's Day when we presumably honor those who have defended this country and all it stands for. At least it used to. Public figures lay wreaths and spout what they do not believe, mock with their every word and action. Time to stop the hypocrisy and get America back, which happened, actually, over a week ago!!

Little time, weak hearts. Greed and corruption. Good old American values. The will to do the right thing. Law versus treason, for that is what it is and we need to call it honestly. Three score and ten days to make up our collective mind as a nation. Think and act and speak carefully. The whole world is watching, yes, and it all comes down to this. US.

WHERE'S THAT FAT LADY?

     So it ain't over till the fat lady sings? Well, hell, I'll get out there and sing and gather around me any number one wishes for. We will sing out of joy and hope. We will sing out of fear as well, a fear that the existential danger to this country continues apace. We will sing to end the insanity that has consumed, and continues to consume this country without rhyme or reason. And heck, in the name of gender equality we will recruit fat men as well.

What the hell is going on in this country. Has every Republican legislator remaining in office lost their collective mind? Has Trump something on all of them so that it takes until they retire or quit for them to dredge up the remaining cinders of the flame of liberty, of justice, of America? What the hell is going on?

Elections are rife with surprises right down through the ages. Amendments passed or rejected, Truman over Dewey, the huge defeat of Goldwater. And people coming from behind as the votes are tallied, and yes, ALL the votes - mail in, military, late arriving - and these purposely delayed ballots by the crooked and corrupted postal system - one of the growing shames of our nation.

We have a demented man backed by the failing minds and spines and credos of too many others. We have a corrupted science segment that is continually being attacked by Trump, appointing ever weaker and less qualified people to departments and groups, demanding they echo his most unscientific statements. The King of Siam and Yul Brynner would grow hair on their heads at this outrage! What are we doing? What the hell is going on? I thought I heard all those fat ladies and men singing, but evidently too many crooked people are trying to drown them out.

America, the leader of the free world. Once. Not now. America, the ideal of free elections, role model to the world. Once. No more. America, where people from opposing parties could work together, where Presidents could and would appoint people from the opposing parties to offices. Once. No more. That is truly anathema to this dangerous and deadly killer clown of a man who claims he is the new Lincoln, even better, even as he takes on more and more of the persona and behaviorisms of Hitler. More and more.

Why, a week after the election, am I still writing about the dangers of this man and his evil cohort. Yes, evil, for I know of no other word that expresses what he is. I am told by some that he has done some good and so  search for that. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem. Big deal, for what has it changed? He has pushed some states never before engaged in war with Israel, in fact were engaged in trade all along, to openly acknowledge this. Big deal. Nothing has actually changed. Arab states continue with their rhetoric of hate. As for trusting this man - NEVER! Those wheels on the bus are coated several layers thick with the blood and guts of those who displeased the would be self styled monarch of America. NEVER!

Even the very top office of Justice in America, the one meant to serve the people, not the President and his personal matters, even that and its head, Barr, a traitor to his oath as a lawyer and to Congress, no less, has been destroyed, twisted and turned into the personal bureau and lawyers for Trump. Even as the private firms he has hired are finally reaching their endpoint, beginning to realize that there are some cases that need to be avoided for the danger it represents. There is no reason at all to defend the attempts to destroy this country, to shatter its democracy, to throw all that it was and meant to be into the future. None at all, and to do so means abandoning all of one's own morals. Too many have already done so. Way too many. And why? That is the great puzzle, how so many good people , bright people, kind people, at least once, have allowed themselves to be suborned by this man, by his evil, by his cruelty and hatred, by lack of care for the nation, for all that is so wrong.

Trump shouts he has won, even as he has lost. Pence, the Devil's Spawn - told ya' so - shouts "it ain't over!" McConnell, that miserable man, urges on Trump, all the better to maintain his own supposed power, even as he kowtows to the Demented One and how will historians write of this man and his speech and actions? His descendants will not be pleased.

Even the military has been compromised, used to shoot civilians, used to threaten and crush. And who will pull that man out of the WH on January 21, 2021, when he refuses to leave? Will the Joint Chiefs realize their position and do what is right or not? That question keeps me up at night and for sure drowns out the fat people choir.

Even as large donors are refusing to fund this insane campaign against reality, the truth of the matter, Trump and his enablers, his sycophants, continue on. Even as Biden begins his work to heal the nation in so many ways, the petty and corrupt person appointed by Trump to the GSA refuses to do her job-and receives kudos for that by the corrupted and rusted out GOP. Even as FOX News - FOX!! - cuts away from McEnany and her false statements, trying to disguise them as facts.

We have all forgotten where we all came from. We all came here from elsewhere, we or our parents and grandparents, it does not make a difference, for all came here to improve life, to provide a better one for their children, for a chance. Neil Diamond's song, "Coming to America" spoke of that urge, that rush of immigrants, whether others  welcomed them or not. Today there are more wishing to come, from every corner of the globe, by any means possible and risk it all for that chance. Nothing will change that and nothing will change the contributions of immigrants to this country.

And so, today, this morning and for too many more to come, I will have to write of the worries and concerns, that this battle is not yet over, even though we won, fair and square despite the nasty tactics of the opponents. Calling all fat people, in body and soul, come and sing, sing loud and strong, sing with hope, with desperation, with all that you have for so much is at stake. SING! Just as the Phantom of the Opera demanded. SING! Louder and louder. Higher and stronger than ever before. If we do not, if you do not, then we are lost and fat people will indeed be scarce upon the ground or dwelling in this once upon a time great country. 

I cannot believe this! I cannot believe I cannot switch my attention to other matters, other people, other musings. Sing!! Sing!!! Sing!!!! Or what we will hear instead will be the cries of the wounded, the screams of the bereaved, as we enter a new phase of a new Civil War. And the notes of the fat people will be lost within the noise.

THE POWER OF ...........

      From time immemorial the world has existed within conflicts. There always seemed to be two sides, from eating or not eating that blasted apple, to sibling rivalry from Cain and Abel through the children of the forefathers and all the way down through the ages. Even now, we never can seem to agree on any major issue, from the dangers of racism to the climate and its current state of affairs. Worse, rather than try to work out compromises, it appears that humans have a propensity to fight, to struggle, to prove who is the Alpha. Evidently, we have not moved much from the battles of animals as they, too, battle for Alpha position.

Words are powerful weapons in this battle and could serve as the glue to repair the breaks of humanity, but we appear to prefer to use words to singe, to char and sear the human race, to build up scar tissue that prevents the opening of minds and hearts to the positive words of others, words that would allow humanity to move on, to move ahead, to solve world level crises. And so, we stagnate and butt heads and think with our rears.

Charles Baudelaire had it right when he said, "I have felt the wind on the wings of madness." We, too, have felt that wind and that madness and it continues to remain strong. Would that the crazy winds roaring outside would blow away those continued threads of madness, but it does not. We must make a concentrated effort to seek out and tamp down on that madness even as we attempt to include the shattered shreds of once upon Americans into the fold. Hard and necessary work.

However, there are other, conflicting viewpoints. George Eliot asked, "After such knowledge what forgiveness?" A true and hard question. We have gained knowledge that we would have preferred not to have gained, for it is knowledge of the base parts of humanity, of the darkness within, the dregs of animalistic behavior that we have not overcome, and for some, wish never to abandon. It is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in real life. 

How do we forgive those who ripped this nation in two? How do we forget and forgive those who brought up images and memories of hate, of murder? How do we look away from people who dived deeply into the world of Trump Zombies, willingly giving up their own independence and morality, and continue to do so in hardball and unrealistic attempts to negate an election, to actually negate democracy.

We, today, have debts that can only be erased and/or paid for with truth. Voltaire told us that "To the dead we owe only truth" and he is so right. We owe these ancestors of ours the truth as to how we went along with seeds of darkness and destroyed all the progress of mankind, destroyed the fruits of their labors and struggles, spurned their contributions to mankind, reversing, instead, losing so much.

We owe this same burden or gift of truth to the present and the future. We were told yesterday that it was easier to be a parent the day Biden was pronounced winner, yet how does a parent explain the insane efforts of a man and his enablers, his children, evidently tainted by the same madness of their father, to ignore the facts, to insist on the fairy tale egocentric world of the toddler - if I say it ain't so, it ain't so! Covering one's face with hands as an adult, blocking the eyesight, is not the magic peek a boo of childhood, and we owe the truth, even to the benighted. Having one small person decide that she will not sign a piece of paper allowing the transition process to begin is not the way we pay our debs of truth. Not at all.

We must work with the truth, for falsehood and lies are temporary. There is no way of avoiding the truth. Lady Macbeth found that out and it drove her to madness. Trump people are beginning to realize, and must realize that "All was false and hollow; though his tongue dropped manna." (Milton, Paradise Lost). That manna was not the real deal and it corroded and rotted before our very eyes. The poison of that false manna has nearly broken us, irreparably, but onward we must go, strive, toil and succeed. There is no other way.

We must take heed and inspiration from the words of Charles Dickens. "I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape." That is the path and the guiding words that we, Americans all, must adopt, embrace and believe. If we take the word Alpha and change the p to an o, we have Aloha, a word of welcome, a word that joins us to a family, a word of peace. Let us do that. Let us clean up our act, let us remove the stains of the past four years, learn from what has happened, trust to the truth, and become Ohana, family, the family of Americans, open to all who wish for and believe in the principles of our country, who will strive to achieve them, to spread them to humanity - to become a piece of America.

DOES IT MATTER?

      Van Jones, the brilliant CNN commentator, had it right. 
It matters. Character matters. Truth matters.

It all matters, and those of us have been pushing those issues, pointing out the lack of character, or the evil character of Trump et al, stressing the importance of truth, warning the liars and the believers of the lies that truth will out. It always does, one way or another; it comes out. There is no hiding from it and the consequences. 

Yet even as the country and the world celebrated with impromptu cowbells, music, horns and singing, cheers for a victory long in the making, and still not complete, even then the lies continued. The cowardice continued, the moral vacuum continued, as GOP members robot responded and backed the ridiculous and dangerous to democracy statements of election fraud by the chief fraudster of the world, the never legitimate president, Trump. But culture, humanity, rights respecting, truth, trust, honor and science have won, despite all the efforts otherwise. Biden has announced immediately the formation of a pandemic group consisting of highly respected scientists and doctors, even as Trump continues to do nothing other than to watch, uncaring, as the numbers mount. Over 237,000 dead. More than 1,340 new cases announced, and the number of daily cases keeps growing. The odds are in as to what ridiculous figure we will reach by year's end, and the numbers are shocking.

On the other hand, there are words worthy of being repeated. "I'm speaking. I'm. Speaking." So Kamala Harris told Pence, and so she and the rest of us told the country, told the liar, the demented and deranged man who gathers the rest of the horde with him. We. Are. Speaking. Yes we are. And will continue to do so.

This is an administration where trust and respect will matter. Where character matters. Where good matters. Where children will not be ripped away from parents and lost as they are shipped around like useless and inanimate cargo. Where Americans will not be allowed to go hungry and homeless, with families huddled together as they look for shelter on a cold, rainy night. 

This is not an easy task, to fix the domestic errors and horrors of the past four years, to amend and improve our relationships with former allies and put our enemies back in their places, for no longer do they have a friend in the Oval Office who sees them as his allies in his grubbing for money, for his bottom line, for employment of his offspring, for the betrayal of  America.

 No longer. No more. WE are back. To stay.

The road will be long and hard as we need to fight back to reach the point where we were before we can begin to move forward. Deregulations and the harm they have done. Cynical destruction and disrespect for national monuments and parkland. Stopping the wasteful and hateful border wall. Defeating COVID-19. Restoring the economy to the right track, in the right direction.

 Most important and highly difficult, restoring this nation to its oneness, its unity, its vision and life as America, red, white and blue - and  brown, and black, and yellow and red, and green (always we have your back, Kermit) and any other shade in between. 

We are one. We are Americans all; we hear, feel, see, and wish for the same things. WE are America.

And now we can go out there and pledge allegiance with a clear heart, sing out the words of the national anthem, as we return to an America once more on track, ready to fight our way back through the sludge that has covered our nation these past four years, against those who wish to keep that sludge in place. 

We are America. WE are Americans. WE CAN DO THIS.

Congratulations to the victors - us and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. G-d bless us one and all.

AS THE COOKIES CRUMBLE

      Ah, those telltale crumbs. The smears of chocolate on the face. The sticky hands - and the documented propensity to repeat this crime time and time again. Nope, not talking about the little kiddies smuggling some verboten cookies before bedtime. Nope, talking about the people who are supposed to represent the best of us, yet have the audacity to be the worst, even as they claim loyalty to the people. But nope, the crumbs tell otherwise.

There is an ancient Jewish saying that when one looks at another and sees only evil and wrongdoing, it is often one's own crimes and misdeeds that one sees in that reflection. Nietzsche repeats that sentiment or warning with his abyss comment and we have often been warned that we have indeed met the enemy - and he is us. 

Every single thing that Trump, that dangerous, deranged man claims his opponents have done, every single 'crime' he has accused them of committing, every shenanigan, every lie - when investigated and traced, all follow the telltale path of crumbs back to Trump et al and their misdeeds. If Hansel and Gretel had so many crumbs they would have found their way back and never have been in danger of being eaten!

Unfortunately, we here in America are in deep and imminent trouble of remaining only as the crumbs of what was once the greatest nation, a nation which made errors, too many, had many faults, but always tried, always worked to correct those errors, always had the ideal of being the safe haven and the ideal nation to the world. That is all one can ask and yet, we have always had our own homegrown fascists who have fooled too many people. They have managed to hide - but now flaunt - their virulent xenophobia, anti Semitism, racism, and vile traits that pose an existential threat to this country and indeed the world at large.

When a chief officer of a huge police department is found to be a rancid compound of awfulness, when the President, who is supposed to be the symbol of unity, the representative of the nation to the world, goes berserk and rants about stolen elections and fraud, one wonders if that anger is more that his own nefarious plans to steal that election have failed. Never before has there been such grandiose plans to suppress voting rights, to deny that right to so many. 

From riots, to lies, to bigger lies, to court suits, to tirades and tantrums, including one on Election Night, or rather Wednesday morning, where he claimed both victory and took off after how his victory was stolen- well, make up your mind, buddy - chocolate chips or sandwich cookies. That is the threat, there is the threat we have refused to acknowledge, to be recognized and accepted as such by too many. Why does it take the breakdown of an earnest TV host to bring it home to some?

Why is it Stephen Colbert who had to point out those crumbs, that we have been buried under the toxic crumbs of the stolen cookies out of the American cookie jar. The crumbs were always there, obvious, glaring, even. The odor of rot that they emitted was clearly able to be smelled by all, yet some claimed colds and could not smell the evil of wrongdoing going on here. Here are a few of his points. Read them, think about them.

• "sad, frightened fraud."
• GOP needs to "get off the Trump train" because "it's not a passenger train, and he'll load you on it sometime, too."
• "Donald Trump tried really hard to kill something tonight."

• "So we all knew he would do this," he said before tearing up. "What I didn't know is that it would hurt so much. I didn't expect this to break my heart. For him to cast a dark shadow on our most sacred right from the briefing room in the White House — our house, not his — that is devastating."

  "He is the president of the United States," he added. "That office means something, and that office should have some shred of decency."

The election is not yet over as the counts go on, the same counts that Trump and his ilk are desperate to stop. From DeJoy's dangerous tampering with the mail system, one of so many corrupt officials under Trump, all the way to constant accusations about officials, whines about watching - and by the way - counting, after polls are closed, are generally done only by the workers and it is no easy task to match up numbers and ballots and many, many counts are done till satisfied or long explanations as to what might have gone wrong are inserted into the records. Fraud is not easy under the system, but the fraud that this man and his supporters and enablers have perpetrated upon this nation has been too easy and to deeply implanted. 

Even were he to lose, and that is not really known yet, too many ballots and deadlines to meet, too close are the totals, too many recounts to be made, but even if he were to lose - Please, G-d - the rotten crumbs he and his have left behind, the rot that has been growing apace, will remain and there is much to do. We must not forget that. Win or lose, our work is not done, our vigilance must be strong and never ending, not if we are going to keep America as America and we remain as true Americans.

AND THE LOSER IS............ (PLEASE INSERT NAME IN BLANK SPACE)

      I think rather than the winner in this race being seen as the chosen one, we are more likely to, and more realistically should, be acknowledging the loser. So who is that loser? Us. WE. The American people. Democracy. Trust. Ethics. The future.

Never before have we written off democracy and its processes as we have done this year. Never before have we had a demented man both insist on the results and deny the results according to the moment and the whims of his darkened and darkening mind. Never before have we had such a challenge and such an existential danger to the body politic.

You are perhaps thinking that I have forgotten Bush/Gore. Sorry to disappoint, but I have not. There was a final grace there in the elegant sacrificial moment of Gore when he conceded, though he was actually the winner. Why did he do that, abandoning an historical role? Because the man was an American before he was a Democrat. He was an American who knew that the country would be riven , shattered into pieces, were he to continue this fight. So, he conceded and saved America at that point.

Today we have the broken figure of a man insisting that he has won and as facts have shown otherwise, challenging that statement, made inappropriately by the way, he now screams and rants and raves on both sides of the coin -I won. The election results are dishonest. Fraud - but only in the states where he lost, apparently. And as the balance and the razor thin margins changed, so did his mouthing off.

See, I can shout and wonder what the hell was the matter with those voting for Trump, how they could look aside from his crudeness, his incapacity for governing , lack of diplomacy, involvement in so much corruption and fraud over the years, the constant lies, the insane behavior with Twitter, and on and on. I can wonder how they could be so dense. What I cannot do, is argue that they should be blocked from exercising their American right to vote, to have a say in the future -or lack of one- of the country. But that is precisely what their mesmerizing leader, their would be despot, wishes to do. He will take the Hitlerian path, stating a win and then the putsch! He and his would then take away the right to vote and other rights and perhaps lives -if we allow it to go that far.

Armed people at the polls, apparently "protecting" it. For the years I served as a poll worker, as a clerk in charge of precincts, never was there a need for that. Seemingly, a twisted logic says that peaceful protests that are ambushed by violence seekers are not okay, but armed caravans, protests and rowdiness and violence, with threats, well, they are okay, just as the Brown Shirts of Hitler were okay, but the violent cadres of workers and communists were not. Well, how about we turn away from all violence, turn to peaceful protest only, ban the pepper spray, the force used so quickly by police, the rowdy hanger- ons at the end of the protest which were peaceful?

There are so many constructive paths and possibilities. There is the urgent need of cooperation, of being American rather than partisan; Biden makes this plea all the time. And yes, I agree, the margins are so close that a recount can be called for logically, but if so, must be done impartially, with no armed forces, with no intimidation and ALL such elections are involved, not only one side or the other. But the more graceful way would be to honor the tradition, the rite, the grace of voting, and accept defeat. However, this man, this ranter, this deranged man, inserts doubt at every turn, and I, along with many others, wonder at his rage, wonder if the supposed interference was from his side and thus the insane level of his rage as he realizes his efforts were for naught. So close, but no cigar! Just a thought, and a reasonable one in this situation. But think of the damage this man has done to our country with voicing these 'facts' and the acceptance by too many of their veracity. 

Let us have done with the election. Count, wait for the ballots, stop playing political hide and seek with ballots still in the postal system. Stop the repression of voting rights. We will not return to Jim Crow times for all "others" - not ever. 

This country is the man lost in the desert, and like all men, refuses to ask for directions. Well, we do not have the sexy voiced, English accent, classy lady of the GPS to tell us, to guide us, to direct us to the 'freeway', but we do have the inner strength of an American and we can get through this if we put our minds to it, if we remember we are all Americans, if we reject hatred and insane and useless thoughts, if we remember that there are actually no free freeways.

Americans are tense, anxious. Many of us have not slept these past two nights and carry our phones permanently tuned to Apple+ or Daily News or some running news site. People overseas are worried too and I cannot begin to count how many calls I received from overseas, from family here, worried, concerned, happy with good news, every second attuned to the results and what this means to the country and to them personally.

Where is that lady? But until we find her, our own internal classy voiced lady who knows exactly where to go, we must cooperate, dig deep to find patience and trust once more. We must avoid filling in that blank with the name America. We must. Are both sides willing to do this? I hope so, I truly do, but in all honesty, I am not optimistic about this at all. So much open hatred and violence and threats and the proverbial water running under the bridge. But if we do not make this herculean gesture, then we are lost. That, my friends, should not be an option at all.

FIVE AM

Five in the morning and I have been up all night, taking little catnaps as I watched the returns come in. I heard a demented man pronounce himself a winner and then accuse one and all of cheating and called for counting of ballots to stop. Why was that? Was he afraid that HIS rigging of the results would be uncovered? Could that be it? And so I watched all night as I saw American democracy unravel.

How could it be that the real democracy has been so neglected here. Once again, there is a side which has the majority of votes, the popular vote, yet due to an arcane system, those majorities are to go unheard, unheeded. Democracy, we learned in school, from the very first class president election and all the way up, meant, we were told, the voice of the majority, giving all a voice, an equal voice. But nope, we were told and taught wrong and a huge hole in the system continues to negate the true democracy and voice of the people.

What has now happened, two times in a row, is we allowed a dangerous man, a dangerous philosophy, one totally inimical to that of democracy, to rise to the top, instead of falling to the bottom where scum goes. If once again we are to live under the destructive reign and yes, reign, of Trump et al, there will not be another election in four years and not even sure if there will be an America, a United States of America, in existence, certainly not as we know it now.

Already there are roving gangs. Already there are huge demonstrations of anti Semitism, with attacks and vandalism growing. Already there is great hostility among the population and how the two largest groups will ever be reconciled is beyond me. How will we even survive as a nation when we are dying from the virus, when we cannot even begin to trust the vaccine - if it even exists - that Trump and his quacks push. You want to be first? Go ahead. I will wait till my doctor says it is okay. And for that matter, how can we even trust anything anymore as the rollback of all regulations of protection of the citizenry of this country, of its environment will continue apace, and even faster.

 

So maybe we will not have to worry long, for the earth will heat up more, the air will be increasingly harder to inhale, food shortages and downright mass starvation will begin, water will be a precious and rare commodity, and the rules of civilization will simply wither away. Jumped the shark? Maybe, hope so, hope there is some decency left in that twisted group, but I doubt it, very doubtful, for certainly nothing so far has given me any hope of that. A bad case of life imitating art, of science fantasy of apocalyptic movies becoming science reality of life.

How did we come to this? I believe we allowed selfishness to gain too much power. We all wanted more - more money, more housing space of giant mansions, more 'stuff', more room for that stuff, a bigger car, a better vacation, and who we ran over in that search for 'more', well, never mind. That was their problem, right?

And yet the American dream persisted. Still the Golden Mountain, the Goldeneh Medinah, the place where dreams could come true, where children could be educated, fed, live better lives. But that dream began to perish under the onslaught of selfishness, of hatred, of ancient ills and evils, as we destroyed the nature of the globe, prayed to the Lord by whatever name, even as we destroyed His lifegiving Nature's bounty.

I cringe at the hatred of descendants of immigrants towards other potential immigrants, to people who come here not to rape and murder but to build lives. But people choose to reject the historical facts of the prejudice against their entries, of the acts by Congress and Presidents to keep "them" out. Truman, in his time, did the right thing at that point, but the hatred for the Irish, the Italian, the Russian Jews, the Mexicans , the Chinese and all Asians, all historical fact. These feelings continued to thrive and hide beneath the surface until in today's Trumpian world it is allowed out, even admired and espoused.

So now, at 5:37  in the morning, I will try to catch some sleep, gather strength to face a  changed world, a frightening world, unless with all in person votes and  mail ins are counted, there are enough to counter the oh so close totals of the remaining states. The totals that inevitably destroy the voice of the majority via the antiquated Electoral College system. But do I have confidence in that? Hell, no. At this point I have confidence in nothing. Sad.

RAINBOWS AND ROSES AND WHISKERS ON KITTENS

    And do not forget those warm woolen mittens. If only that were the best way to overcome this angst, this anxiety bone deep within the American nation. This is not just a contest of two Americans, but of two strictly opposing philosophies. One  stresses American ideals, a united nation, a path that will cut out the corruption and the stink of all that rises from the current DC. 

The other side is one that encourages hate and violence, that praises white power extremists, whose ostensible leader flashes the white power sign every damned time he talks and most people do not even realize that! It is a philosophy that now encourages "patriotic education" raising the reek, the taint, of communism and fascism, two sides of the same coin, where 're-education' is the name of the game. 

We have name calling from a man with the emotional level of a toddler, and I apologize to toddlers for this comparison, who calls out names, rhymes inanities,  spews hate with every syllable and he lies never end. He eschews every virtue, every idea of care and humanity, of climate change and its disastrous consequences. He refuses aid where it is needed, plays politics where life, where children, are concerned and if one is lucky, hey, you might even catch a roll of paper towels he tosses at you, all the better to mop up the ruins of your home and business. Or tears from your eyes as you seek your lost ones carried away by the flash flooding or the wind of the tornado, of the disease from the contaminated waters and lands.

So neither will this be cured or alleviated by bright copper kettles. No, this situation actually revolves around the ancient idea that he who has the power, is he who has the money. Vice versa works well there too. So does scapegoating, for hey, it is the globalists, the Jews, the FAKE media, the deluded who back democracy, the honest people who pay their taxes like fools even as he cheats to unheard of levels and that includes his fraudulent conduct with real estate and business. As for a pandemic - nah, around the corner it goes and just step over those bodies, as if they are not there.

So here we are, four horrid years later, soul and gut wrenching years. The pollsters are out in force as the results and percentages change in a matter of seconds. Gross attempts at suppression of voters and their right to be heard, to vote, of the validity of mail in ballots, as so many are presumed to be pro Biden, and it all stinks! Evidently that old motto - neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet and hail, etc. is passe. Today it is, well, the mail will come through if, IF, the President wishes it too and as his crooked enablers fall in line with his crooked practices.

Perhaps the better song for this campaign would be the Mamma Mia song, "Money, Money, Money" for so help me, I think that demented man cooked up a demented and impossible scheme to run for President and thus escape his overwhelming and looming problems fast approaching. Fringe benefits, like ruining the country, publicizing his golf clubs, taking money from taxpayers, injecting great disunity and existential fears into the nation's psyche, why that is just the toppings of whipped cream and cherries and for no charge either!

And once again, it does not stop there on the federal level. It trickles down to the local ones as well. Money, money, money. So where is the money, Mr. Israel? Where are the proper forms, the proper precautions, the proper rules and procedures. Or are we headed once again into just about bankruptcy with  miraculous saving at the last minute, first by Dorothy Tetro, may her soul rest in peace, and now by Ed Grossman, whom we all know will stick to an issue until he gets his answers, honest ones.

What is going on in UCO? What is going on with The Rag, known in some quarters as the Reporter. It cravenly follows the party line, hews to it, as it allows only one side, one opinion, allows oh so such 'subtle' campaigning by George Franklin in the most recent issue, plumping for the retention of all present officers in their current offices. So what, no voting now at all, never mind the fact that we were swindled out of term limits? Have they protested the secrecy, the lack of meetings? Yes, some have worked hard and kudos to them, but others, and Dreiss, the editor, oh, boy! Do we need a change of linen there!!

Get a hold of Ed's treatise, his uncovering of the mess we had, that he is slowly but surely unraveling without cooperation, with stalling, by the current UCO president. You know the one who is supposed to be watching out for us, the one who wants to be President for Life, uh huh! That one! The one who needs to go. The one who needs to vacate his seat and make room for fresh thinking, for honesty, for transparency, for safeguarding of the funds of the Village- which come from US - the residents! So, money, money, money, OUR money.

How do we do this? Same as the election out there in the big world. We vote. We run for office and we vote and we make demands and we insist on answers. We insist on competence. We insist on an end to the nastiness emanating from the presidential suite (sic), be it in DC or on West Street!

Our CV elections are in March and sign up is in January and February or even before, if we ever get UCO up and running again with assemblies and meetings!! Vote here and vote today. It is your duty, not just a right. It is a must in this ugly new world where use it or lose it is achingly real.

 

STRESS, YOU, ME, EDGES AND THREATS AND WHERE THE HELL ARE WE?

      Ever wake up as a kid from some horrible dream which had you placed as living in a  dream rather than dreaming it? Were you real? Were your parent and siblings? Did you really have to take that test today? Do you ever feel now that childhood nightmares - or perhaps dreams - are returning? Perhaps, hopefully, maybe, we are dreaming now and when we wake up all will be different. Trump? Feh! That idiot? That joke of a tax fraud and a failed developer? Nah! Could not be real. Ha! If only.

Well, sorry, folks, but we actually are living that nightmare and the dreams do not help. Warnings of reaching critical points in the pandemic, with close to 100,000 new cases a day and growing, with daily rates of 1,000 dying every day, how much worse can it get?! Much worse is the answer, unless you are living in the world of Trump where mysterious corners exist and are turned, where officials go on RUSSIAN TV to promote that theory, where Fauci, an honest individual in a corrupt administration, tells us that "we're in for a whole lot of hurt."

"I want to be seen. I want to be heard." This is the voice of America. This is the you and me who will fix this situation. This is the you and me who will persevere, cast that vote, insure that the mail-ins are counted, that the election is straight and true, hopefully impervious to the attempts made by Trump et al to suppress the voting, the threats made to call in the lawyers should things not go his way or original majorities turn into minorities in ballots and he, G-d and all the Fates willing, loses the election. Only then, only then perhaps, will the stress lessen, at least a tad. 

Remember, though, there are still two months remaining in his corrupt and filthy regime and the harm can continue, even as the harm he has done, with the consensus and enabling of his wimpy GOP, with appointments of inadequate - to say the least - judges to the Federal courts, to the placement of a shill, a puppet, three actually, on the Supreme Court as his final go to in his fight to the finish to win the election, The fight to the finish of this country. As an aside, please note that Kavanaugh has already written an incorrect, almost ignorant, opinion that had to be taken back for rewriting and proper statements. Lovely judges at the top we have now, thanks to that man!

So as we stand on the edge of that cliff, looking down into the abyss, we truly do see the monster looking back at us and the wonder is how many of those looking down have turned into that very monster, allowing the worst of themselves to surge forth in a nasty tsunami of hatred and violence, of intolerance and noncaring, of actual harm to others, harm approaching, no, actually, war crimes, were we in a declared war.

We are told that records are made to be broken and this year has certainly been such a year, though we could have done without the record breaking! Pandemic, economy, hate and violence, deaths on the street, nastiness in politics to a point never reached before, a true swamp in DC, bigger and deeper than ever before, and now we are told that November, usually a catch your breath month for those of us in the hurricane zone, are being told that there can be a few more in the offing this month! No no no no. Breaking point reached. Stress levels blinking red. Edge is crumbling. Need a break. Where is that root beer? If only it were that easy.

So tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday and however long it takes to count the ballots, to hear every voice, we need to be watchful, concerned, aware. We need to shore up that crumbling edge, build up the defenses for democracy. And when we are done for that brief moment and can savor a victory of sorts, for there is much to be done to repair our country, to heal our country, we can turn to local politics and fix that. If we were to lose this election.....well, I simply cannot go there today.

But David, oh, David, sitting there like a troll, trolling, in your office, hunched over the computer whose advances have long ago left you behind, guess what the new posting for the Clubhouse says? IT IS OPEN. BOARD MEETINGS CAN BE SCHEDULED. So why, my dear man, are you now inserting the phrase that meetings are subject to state and county rules. Trust me, Eva heeds them quite well and I trust her when she says it is open. OPEN, my dear friend - not so much. Time to leave the office, and either resign or call the meetings, hear the questions and  feel that frisson of fear go down your spine as you realize that people have had it up to here and beyond with petty dictators, with incompetence, with nastiness, with lies, with secrets, with potential disasters awaiting   us at the next few steps. Oh, David, Delegate Assembly? Executive Board meetings? Open committee meetings in larger rooms allowing for more spacing and people? Oh, David, do you hear us, the residents? Listen a tad harder if you do not.

    To borrow a phrase from a favorite show, Les Miz, "do you hear the people shouting" and that goes for all those who have tried to leave morality behind, strayed down the wrong and dangerous paths, who have played dangerous games of chicken with democracy, with the fate of our Village, the fate of our country and the fate of the world. VOTE if you have not. Stand there at the lines and distribute water. Call attention to harassment and attempts at suppression of voting. Be an American. Stand up for America.

A WHOLE LOT OF TROUBLE

      Just finished skimming through the news, something that I do at least several times a day, and I begin to wonder just why I do that. Comfort is scarce and fleeting. Biden is ahead. Nope, polls are narrowing. Ballots will/will not be counted. Courts will be rocked and jammed with political moves. The country is going under, for the third time(?) from COVID and I fear Fauci's words are prophetic. "We are in for a whole lot of trouble." We certainly are.

Day after day we are setting terrible records re infections. Thankfully, the newer victims are younger, hence stronger, healthier, and more likely to survive, but do not count on that and do not be careless. The deaths are still mounting, much too high. And do not listen to fakes who tell you that we are almost over it, "rounding" a corner. The only corner I see here is one that has no ends, no turns, only a straight path to more tragedy unless we change the rules, change the captains, and use common sense rather than wishful, faulty reasoning, thinking - or lack hereof - and dangerous actions and inaction.

More than COVID, I think, is the trouble we are in come Tuesday. The minute this is over is the exact minute that Trump et al will begin his barrage of dangerous and undemocratic statements, putting this country into peril such as we have not seen before. A modern Civil War is no longer predicted, for it is here already. When cops shout out pro Trump memes, or wear political clothing, fake their jobs and pepper spray people walking from a church to a voting site, quiet, with elderly, children, Americans - well, there is a whole lotta trouble coming down the pike, even as it begins already in state after state.

When a sitting President rants about failure of our political elections, when he encourages people to doubt, to claims of lost ballots, to interfere with voting, well, there is a whole lot of trouble going on. When he telegraphs his promise of challenges to the results - unless they break his way, well, batten down  the hatches. So what to look for on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or through Nov. 17? G-d help us for I am fearful, afraid of and anticipating the worst. America? Certainly, may G-d bless you, for your people certainly have not.

Can we ever get over this epidemic of false news, such as the "speech" that a Senator Donaldson gave to a standing ovation? Never was, never did, never happened, and no Senator either! And yet, Trump supporters will virally text and swear by this idiocy. When the Supreme Court is turned into yet another plaything for Trump, when Congress is populated by Democrats and Republicans, not Americans, there is a whole lot of trouble coming down that proverbial pike. When the entire GOP turns its back on the country, forsakes any values, any ethical standards, all in the name of retaining power, as little as it is what with their ceding more and more of it to a demented and dangerous man  - well, troubles here you are.

With all the guns around, and sales increasing by leaps and bounds, with self control shrinking by the second, with violence encouraged, with hatred on the rise and an open sore on the nation's soul, then blood will flow, and flow for quite some time. Will we become a banana republic, changing leaders every other day depending on the sayso of the army? Will we lose all that we have built? Will America ever rise again?

Sorry to say, folks, but I doubt it. Unfortunately, every single thing that I have written about has come true. All the worries and concerns I have written about are now stated by others, openly, not jumping any sharks. Please, G-d, that Biden has an overwhelming victory, that we shut down Trump and his ilk for good, throw out the man and his corrupt enablers, arrest him and all else who have committed crimes, and let us get our show back on the road - America again.

But - unless we all get there and vote, demand to vote even if you mailed your ballot in, for the poll workers will check. If it is not there, not so marked, and they check with the main office, you can vote, you can put America back on track. We can defeat incipient autocracy. We can defeat hatred. We can defeat those who ship children around, lose them, mistreat them, kidnap them, pepper spray them. We can defeat hopelessness. We can do all we wish and must do - if we vote, and vote for the right people all the way down the ballot.

If I was nervous last election, then multiply that by infinity. There is more at stake than the name of the next President. A whole lot more and a whole lot of trouble if we go wrong, if we are stupid once again, if we ignore the wishes of the majority and allow America to be stolen from right under our own noses.

We are the Americans who make up America. We are the Americans descended from immigrants who gave of their sweat and tears to this country, gave their all for the dreams and future of their families. We are Americans. Pray that we remember that as we check the boxes, pull the lever or punch that button. Do not allow any one being out there to intimidate you into forgetting that fact. Upon your shoulders, our shoulders, is the burden of the future of this country, of America, the idea and ideals of America. Please. Please.