Good News and Hope from November 5th

We’re a couple of weeks out from Election Day and many of us are still angry and sad and frustrated from the election of The Felon. Like many Americans, I am left wondering what people were thinking by putting this liar, convicted felon, and sexual assaulter in the Oval Office again. What’s going to happen to us, and to the most vulnerable, marginalized among us? And when are the MAGAts going to realize what they’ve done by voting for a criminal?

I imagine it will be January 20, 2025, but then it’ll be too late; no do-overs. Still, there is some light in the darkness; we have many victories to celebrate …

After it was clear The Felon would win the election, he and his supporters declared that he had won an “unprecedented and powerful mandate” but did he?

The final Electoral College victory was 312-226. Sounds impressive, I guess, if this were a sportsball game, but by historical standards, it’s actually a very close margin. In fact, The Felon did only slightly better Biden’s 306-232 victory in 2020,  which was a hair better than The Felon’s 304-227 win in  2016.

To contrast: Reagan won with 489 Electoral Votes in 1980 and with 525; George H W Bush got 426 Electoral Votes in 1988; Clinton, 370 in 1992 or 379 in 1996; Obama won 365 Electoral Votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012.

Nothing “unprecedented” about The Felon’s victory.

But what about the popular vote? Sure, The Felon broke Republicans’ long losing streak by actually winning the popular vote for the first time in 20 years but his margin is nothing to brag about. According to CNN, The Felon leads Harris by 3.2 million votes, or 50.2% to 48.1% with 95% of the votes counted but with millions of votes left to count, including in very blue parts of California, that margin will close and it appears The Felon could end up with under 50% of the vote, with a winning margin of under 1.5%.Compare this with four years ago, when Joe Biden won by 7 million votes and 4.4% of the vote.

Sure, The Felon won, but the margin of victory was no mandate.

And while The Felon won the Big Prize, November 5th was an outright loss for other MAGA candidates. Look at Mark Robinson in North Carolina and Kari Lake in Arizona; both lost decisively. In North Carolina, Robinson lost to Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein by almost 15% and North Carolina voters chose a new Democratic Lt. Governor, Rachel Hunt, a new Democratic Attorney General, Jeff Jackson, and Democrats even flipped a state House seat to break the GOP’s legislative supermajority, which means Governor Josh Stein will be able to veto the worst of what Republicans try to unilaterally shove down North Carolinians’ throats.

In Arizona, Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego defeated MAGA election denier Kari Lake for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat by 2.5%. That makes Gallego the first Latino U.S. Senator from Arizona and marks the fourth Democratic U.S. Senate win in the state in a row. That means that Arizona, whose voter rolls boast 300,000 more Republicans than Democrats, has Democrats serving as both U.S. Senators, Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State.

We’re not dead yet, y’all.

In addition to Gallego, Democrats did very well in swing state U.S. Senate races, including several Democratic female candidates,: Senator Jacky Rosen in Nevada, Senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Senator-elect Elissa Slotkin in Michigan. Now, with the loss of Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Democrats will be the Senate minority but imagine how much worse it would have been without those other wins.

The strong Democratic performance in North Carolina is going to be crucial in 2026 when Senator Thom Tillis is up for reelection and in 2028 when Sen. Ted Budd is up. Flipping those seats is the path back for Democrats to a Senate majority by 2028. And with North Carolina’s new state Representative-elect Dante Pittman, whose flip of a red seat kept the GOP from wielding an ongoing legislative supermajority, to Michigan where Democrats expanded their majority on the state Supreme Court, to Pennsylvania where Democrats held onto their state House majority, the work on the ground in swing states proved decisive in race after race.

That’s where we start to win and move that up the ticket.

And also look at the wins on progressive policies: out of the ten states that had abortion rights protection measures on the ballot, those initiatives passed in six of them, including in red states like Montana and Missouri where, thanks to these results, there will now be legal pathways to challenge the current restrictive GOP abortion bans. Abortion protection measures also passed in swing states Arizona and Nevada, as well as blue states such as New York, Maryland, and Colorado, where there will now be additional firewalls against future Republican attempts to restrict women’s freedom. 

And what about worker’s rights? In deep-red Alaska, Ballot Measure 1, which raises the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2027 and provides employees the ability to accrue paid sick leave, passed with around 57% of the vote. A similar measure in conservative Missouri, which would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2026 and allow employees to earn an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, passed with 58% of the vote. And in Nebraska voters passed their own paid sick leave measure, winning nearly 75% of the vote.

All this points to a clear opportunity for Democrats moving forward by championing progressive economic policy so that working-class voters understand who is truly fighting for them at all levels of government.

And since The Felon will once again enter the presidency with majorities in both houses of Congress, it’s more important than ever for Democratic leaders around the country to align against his worst policy instincts and do what they can to minimize the damage. In the last week, we’ve seen Democratic Governors come out strongly asserting their intention to block attempts to undermine the rule of law and their citizens’ rights in their states.

Such as Governor Pritzker of Illinois, who said:

“To anyone who intends to take away the freedom, opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior. You come for my people, you come through me.”

And Governor Newsom of California who convened special Legislative sessions of Congress to take on The Felon’s attacks on education, women and the LGBTQ+ community.

And let’s also remember the history-making Democrats voters chose to elevate last week, like Sarah McBride from Delaware, who will become our first openly transgender member of Congress; Senators-Elect Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, making history; the first ever Korean American U.S. Senator, Andy Kim of New Jersey; Julie Johnson, the first openly LGBTQ+ member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas.

At the local level, Democrat Monroe Nichols is the first Black Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a city where Black businesses were once burned to the ground and its residents terrorized and killed by white mobs. And now young LGBTQ+ leaders of color: Rashaun Kemp in Georgia and Amaad Rivera-Wagner in Wisconsin.

So, yeah, we are all still heartbroken and shell-shocked but let’s not forget the wins, especially those in Red states, and those progressive policy wins, and those down ballot victories. That’s where you can find the hope as we move through the next two-to-four years. We, as a party, are in a good position to make gains in the next two years as The Felon inevitably overreaches with unpopular initiatives and dubious Cabinet picks, and his so-called “mandate.” 

Don’t sit this one out because that’s what the Right wants us to do.

h/t The Big Picture

Bobservations

Y’all know I’m childish, right? I mean, you may say child-like, but it’s really childish.

Case in point: after taking a long hike along the river last weekend, as we were driving home I was tormenting Carlos as a childish person does, and he … well, I posted this on my phone to remind me:

“On Saturday August 31, 2024, and I am going to spot him a half hour starting at 11AM, Carlos Divid Harris said he was not going to speak to me for twenty-four hours. I laughed and said he wouldn’t last twenty-four seconds. He said he would not speak again until 11AM on September 1, 2024. We’ll see how that goes; I am writing this down so that when he fails, and he will, I will have proof.”

Carlos began speaking at 11:35 AM which means, with the half-hour I spotted him, he stopped speaking for about 9 minutes. And to be fair, that was longer than the twenty-four seconds I thought he’d last.

This Tuxedo Memory is from May 2019 and is entitled: Another Scorcher In Smallville ... Tuxedo Has The Right Idea

That cat always picked the most interesting positions in which to nap … he was just a chalk outline away from playing the role of roadkill on some animal show!

Well, roadkill or some totally adorable boy!

Here’s proof that just because you’re a relatively slender model, it doesn’t mean you can have the most delightful cakes.

Melanie has unveiled the cover for her upcoming memoir and despite its minimalist design, some critics claim it's a blatant act of plagiarism.

What? Melanie? Plagiarize? Like Michelle Obama’s DNC speech years back?

Melanie's book cover is an all-black with simple white text reading 'MELANIA' in all caps … and looks suspiciously like the iconic Chanel Catwalk book.

I haven’t read it, and won’t read it, but I’m told it’s the story of Melanie’s life on Chicago’s South Side and working hard to attend both Harvard and Princeton before marrying the love of her life and giving birth to Sasha and Malia.

Just sayin’.

In Camden, as it is in many small towns across the state, we have an opera house. Of course, it fell into disuse many years ago and when we moved here only the ground floor was being used as a secondhand store. Sad, really, for such a beautiful building. And for years there was talk about recreating the opera house interior but then a couple of years ago the talk turned toward making  the opera house a boutique hotel, and that’s apparently going to happen.

That photo up there is the opera house and its clock tower that chimes on the hour and the quarter- and half-hours. And down there are the renderings of what the hotel will be: four floors and 50 rooms, with a restaurant in the lobby and called The Haigler Hotel, so named for a noble Catawba Chief who befriended Camden’s pioneers. The clock tower, though not seen in the renderings will remain and still chime the hours each day.

Our little town is growing but it’s keeping its sense of history, and I am here for that!

You’ve heard of Weekend at Bernie’s but this true story is more Weekend at Wells Fargo.

There’s an investigation underway in Tempe, Arizona after a Wells Fargo employee—and I won’t post her name so as not to embarrass her family—died while on the job and no one noticed.

A timeline released by police suggests her body was there for four days before being discovered.

How does that happen?

The Venice Film Festival has been going on for a couple of weeks and here are some style icons, clockwise in no particular order … Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Eva Green and Nicole Kidman. Stunning, but there’s always room for a thirst-seeker and this year’s was Eva Herzigova wearing … God Only Knows™.

Last week I mentioned that one school district in Oklahoma was refusing to follow the order of State Superintendent Ryan Walters and his demand for Bible Study in all public schools.

Now, out of about 540 public districts and charter schools in the state, 54 superintendents responded to the survey and, when asked if their district was requiring educators to teach on or from the Bible, 46 said ‘No’ and just two said ‘Yes;’ others were unclear on the guidelines.

Taking a stand … even in Oklahoma.

This is Stefano Tomadini—sounds like a Delicious pasta dish—an Italian model. But this isn’t about food or models, it’s about a simple question: Would You Hit It?

South Carolina Is Progressive. That's Right, I Said It!

While we were away, the South Carolina Senate defeated one of those “Bathroom Bills.”

That’s right. South Carolina, for the moment, is one of the most progressive Southern states, and the defeat of this kind of anti-transgender Hate Bill is the latest bit of good news for us.

At the start of the year there were eleven anti-LGBT bills filed in the South Carolina Legislature but now, with a month left in the session, only one of those bills made it to full committee and none have advanced to the floor.

South Carolina. Progressive. Who knew?

State Senator, Joel Lourie, a Democrat who opposed the Bathroom Bill, seems to have seen it coming and points to a change in attitude and politics and feelings after the Confederate flag was removed from the statehouse grounds last year:

“I think you’ve seen South Carolina in the last year take two strong positions against intolerance. One, by removing the Confederate flag and two by the governor and business community and many members of the state Senate standing up against the bathroom bill. We are more open-minded and progressive perhaps than people have viewed us in the past.”

Now, does that mean hate won’t rear its ugly head again in South Carolina? Of course not; but we have seen how our politicians and our business community and our citizens have changed in the past year to become more open, and educated, more tolerant, and more accepting.

It’s a good day in the state, y’all. And made even better by the news that the Horry County School district has announced that it will adopt new policies on bathroom use after a transgender student was suspended for using the bathroom matching his gender identity.

The student, identified as R, had been using the boys’ bathroom since middle school but was suddenly told in his senior year of high school that he had to use the girls’ restroom or the nurse’s bathroom. He was later suspended after a teacher saw him using the boys’ bathroom.

R transferred to an online school to complete his senior year.

Horry County Schools is the first district to affirmatively change their policy following a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming that transgender students have the right to use facilities that match their gender identity.

The district superintendent said that should R return to school, “he, and all other transgender students, will be allowed to use facilities consistent with their gender identity.” In addition, the district will remove the suspension from R’s record, educate faculty and staff on the appropriate use of pronouns, and update classroom attendance rosters to reflect a student’s preferred name.

In South Carolina, y’all.

Towleroad

WCNC

I'm A Tree Hugger ... Sue Me

One thing I love about living in Smallville are all the trees. We must have over two hundred different trees on our property here, with every kind of tree from a Dogwood to a Pine, from Oaks to Crepe Myrtle and Magnolia. So, I'm a tree lover and a tree hugger, which is why this story bothers me.

After being flown into Los Angeles International Airport, the space shuttle, Endeavor, will find its permanent home at the California Science Center. And there's going to be a big to-do to celebrate Endeavor’s arrival, including a parade.

Nice, huh?

Except, in order for the shuttle to make its way through city streets on its way to the museum, several obstacles must be removed, including four-hundred trees.

Not, removed, and then replanted after the parade, but chopped down. And residents along the parade route aren't feeling happy about it.  Many of the trees are large, decades old, magnolias, firs and pines, and even though the California Science Center has promised to replant twice as many trees along the route, that is little comfort to residents.

See, they aren't transplanting full-grown trees to replace the ones removed; they're planting saplings that will take many years to grow into what will be cut down in a day for a parade.

Now, there were other options to avoid removing these grand trees, one of which would be dismantling the shuttle and rebuilding it on site. But some say that taking it apart to move it would permanently damage parts of the shuttle, and airlifting something that heavy from LAX to the museum is nearly impossible. In addition, the shuttle wouldn't fit under overpasses on freeways, so surfaces will have to do.

And the trees will have to go. Inglewood will lose 128 trees, and communities in South Los Angeles about 265 trees, though the exact number has not yet been determined. One route, originally set for the "parade" was scrapped because it would have meant the removal of trees that were planted in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When are we going to learn that we can't continue to rape the planet and hope that she'll get better? This isn't progress, this is ridiculous. I personally don't see what's wrong with taking the shuttle apart and then reassembling it. It’s not like one day, in the distant future, we're going to send Endeavor back into space.

Why not save some trees. They're the only things being harmed by this.

via Treehugger

Two Faiths .... Two Views

One of the problems I think we have as a country is that we tend to lump all people into categories. I mean, all gay men aren’t sex pigs; all Black men aren’t deadbeat dads, all Mexicans aren’t illegal, and all religions aren’t the same. And that’s what we have here: a tale of two faiths.

It seems that, last week, the General Assembly of the nation's largest Presbyterian denomination voted against a proposal that would have paved the way toward the church allowing same-sex weddings in their midst.

The proposal would have changed the church's Book of Order to define marriage as between "two people" but after the vote—and the narrow victory—it will keep the definition of marriage as between "a man and a woman."

"God, we are a divided church," said the Reverend Neal Presa, a New Jersey pastor and the General Assembly moderator, said while guiding church members in prayer after the vote.

And, in light of thatvote by the General Assembly—which is made up of pastors and lay people—pro-same sex marriage activists must wait another two years until the church's next national meeting to make marriage-related proposals.

On the other hand,

On the other hand, the United Methodist Church in the Northwest has set itself at with its parent denomination by endorsing Referendum 74 and asking voters to make Washington the nation’s seventh state to enact same-sex marriage.

The issue of marriage equality has divided much of Washington's faith community. While Episcopalians, Methodists and the ecumenical Faith Action Network have come out for same-sex marriage, the state’s Catholic bishops and many fundamentalist churches opposed it.  Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, apparently unaware of that whole Separation of Church and State thingy, even asked his parishes to serve as collection centers for signatures on the referendum petition. Still, many Seattle and Tacoma parishes refused the Archbishop’s request and even sent contingents from Catholics for Marriage Equality and Mormons for Marriage Equality to march in the Seattle Pride Day parade.

And while the United Methodist Church in the Northwest has come down on the side of equality, all is not the same among all Methodists. The parent church, at its convention, rejected a change in church doctrine, which asserts that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”  Gays and lesbians are officially not allowed to serve as clergy, and the celebration of holy unions is prohibited by church law.

But the Reverend Sandy Brown, at Seattle First United Methodist Church, will not be silent: “Our church will not be deterred by our denomination’s heartless stand on homosexuality. We are out and proud to stand with our LGBT families, friends and neighbors.”

So, while all gays are not alike, or all Black men, Mexicans, women, and people of faith, the simple fact remains that in this country all men are supposed to be created equal. And some churches, some people of faith, as well aware of that, and are doing something about it.

Presbyterians Vote Against Marriage Equality

Methodists Endorse Marriage Equality

Good News Friday: A New Bill To Extend Equality To All Military Families

What's this?

A bill, the Military Spouses Equal Treatment Act of 2012 [MSET], has been introduced in Congress and it would change the definition of "spouse" in four  areas of U.S. Code related to recognition, support, and benefits for married service members and veterans. These changes would ensure that spouses of the same gender are eligible for key military benefits.

Equality say what?

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network [SLDN] says: "Our nation's senior military leaders and commanders on the ground are increasingly uncomfortable with administering two classes of recognition, support and benefits for our nation's service members - one for straight service members and a different one for their gay and lesbian peers. There cannot be two classes of service members, and this legislation addresses that effectively."

And, in addition, the Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson also mentioned the disparity between same-sex and opposite-sex couples: "The repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' exposes certain inequalities between similarly situated couples in the military community. This troubles many of our leaders."

The bill was introduced by House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member, and Democrat...naturally...Adam Smith of Washington. His bill adds a favorable definition of "spouse" to Title 37 to provide greater uniformity of benefits for same-sex spouses. Together with MSET, this new bill would extend dozens of important spousal benefits and support programs to same-gender spouses, including coverage under TriCare insurance, an increased housing allowance, and survivor benefits.

As it should be, if all things were equal. So let's hope this bill passes, because a step for same-sex married couples anywhere is progress for same-sex couples everywhere.

via SLDN

♪♫ The Times, They Are a-Changing ♫♪

I still remember those old ads on TV and magazines from back in  the day.
White people in pretty houses, doing white people things; like eating and cooking and cleaning and driving and shopping.
And even as a young gayling I knew that wasn't quite right.
Then I saw an ad with a Black people doing Black people things; like eating and cooking and cleaning and driving and shopping.
And as a slightly older queerling, I knew that wasn't quite right.
But now, we're getting very close to quite right, with ads featuring gay people doing gay people things; like eating and cooking and cleaning and driving and shopping.

Kenneth Cole

Absolut

American Airlines

Avis

Chevrolet

IKEA

JCPenney

RayBan

Orbitz

Tylenol PM