All your strength is in your union; all your danger in discord; therefore be at peace henceforward...And as brothers live together.
-- Henry Longsworth Longfellow
as quoted in university yearbook
N. B. It is in the kind of union that you find strength, for not all unions are equal in virtue.
At the link below a noted neuroscientist states that in order for Americans to heal from the methods and practices of victimization, the American people will need to see punishment for the many crimes suffered at the hands of OML.
Accountability for OML Crimes Necessary
RED ALERT
Trump and his dead-enders -- as MSNBC is calling them -- are escalating efforts to try to overturn the election results. Most recently they pressured two counties to refuse to certify their election results. This, two weeks after the election. After the pressure, the counties gave in. This is wrong on so many levels, including probably legally.
New York Times writer, Michael Schmidt, has stated that the Trump style -- now so long apparent -- introduces an unknown variable into the process. I agree very much. As Americans look to Thanksgiving and Christmas, distraction and fatigue are leading to accidental apathy. This apathy is itself terribly dangerous. For as former Governor John Kasich of Ohio energetically urged on national television tonight, the people watching at home must themselves become leaders in ensuring that the election of 2020 is not, in fact, stolen.
From Saturday
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., has been elected the 46th President of the United States.
I will have more to say later.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer --
City elections officials said they were working to count ballots around the clock, as planned.
“We are doing the canvass, we are not stopping for nobody,” said Omar Sabir, one of three city commissioners, who run elections. “We’re here, we’re counting. The count has not stopped.”
If anything, another elections official said, Philadelphia is ahead of schedule when it comes to tallying mail ballots.
The confusion may stem from national news organizations' unfamiliarity with election results reporting in Pennsylvania. Counties do not always update the state system as often as they update their own websites, and at 11:40 p.m. the state’s website showed only 74,132 votes for Biden and 32,414 for Trump out of Philadelphia.
In these early hours after Election Day, there is already an opinion piece on the Philadelphia Inquirer website about hour wrong the pollsters supposedly were. I won't read the article until a bit later, but as one who has seen his share of vote suppression over the years beginning twenty years ago in Florida, I have more than a mild sense of curiosity about the lower-than-expected vote totals for Joe Biden. And the attempts at vote suppression continue at this hour with lawsuits already filed or being filed by Our Military Leader and his sycophants, as they are being called.
Yes, Mr. Biden was not the perfect candidate. Still, he has managed to come out well in the end, currently leading in both the popular and Electoral College tallies. We should give him credit. And no one should tolerate any attempts to interfere with the legitimate vote count in America today. With Covid concerns, we knew the results would probably be delayed, and they are. This, however, is no reason to lose confidence in the process or attempt to create an alternative reality which comes from some alternative universe.
Continuing the count
On the morning after the U.S. election, Joe Biden looks increasingly to have captured the White House. As numbers slowly pile up, the trend is reasonably clear that Mr. Biden has a path to win.
This is not the first time in American history when there was a close election. And considering the fact that it was conducted during a pandemic, Americans can be proud of the elections workers who have labored diligently and continue to do so to count every vote.
Mid-Night:
Allan Nairn on Democracy Now! is raising serious issues about the vote situation as it stands at this hour in America. It is beginning to seem possible, if not likely, that the announcement of a victor in this year's election will be delayed, perhaps by days, if not more. It is still too early at midnight Eastern time in the U.S. to say exactly what is going to happen. But as Nairn points out, if the United States were a true democracy both parties would have already admitted the obvious which is a majority of the voters have voted for the Democratic candidate, just as they did four years ago.
Admittedly, the announced numbers are not complete. But this may actually be part of the problem. For Nairn is alleging that Trump saw that Democrats were going to emphasize vote-by-mail and thus he could turn the U.S. Postal Service into a vote-suppression operation. We have already seen evidence of this. Even just on Tuesday, the Postal Service has defied a court order to sweep their offices in ten problem locations for undelivered ballots. And there is more.
He further asserts that it is not hard to see the Republicans readying their attorneys to flood into courts in various places to try to contest votes, especially those made via the mail.
Your Musical Patriot, while not privy to OML's thinking, knew that relying on the mail for his vote was not a good idea. Thus, he made his vote early, but in person.
Blogging the 2020 Vote
Early returns in Florida raise familiar questions about the integrity of the vote there. With lower vote totals than expected for Joseph Biden, especially in Miami-Dade County, suspicions about the quality of the vote information we are getting from there mount. This is the county with the famous "white shirt and tie" riot conducted by Republican staffers from Capitol Hill in 2000, with the goal of disrupting the legitimate vote count there.
And there are indeed reports in different parts of the country regarding broken vote machines, polling sites moved at the last moment, as well as acts of voter intimidation. All of these are familiar (sadly) problems.
However, at this very early point in the vote tabulation, one voting rights organizer I heard said that fortunately, the acts of threatening voter intimidation were not wide-spread in America this day in November 2020.
Tim Miller, strategist for the organization Republican Voters Against Trump, warned today of a crisis in democracy in the U.S. due to the influence of Our Military Leader (OML). He, along with Olivia Troye, spoke out forcefully on cable news about the lying and corruption at the root of this administration in Washington.
According to reports, numerous Republicans in the nation's Capitol -- even in the White House -- are secretly planning to vote Democratic this year. Olivia Troye, former assistant to Vice-President Pence has already done so.
Mr. Miller today excoriated Republicans in the White House who have looked the other way and enabled OML time and time again in his efforts to weaken the agencies of the government, including at the Centers for Disease Control. It is known other actions have been taken to corrupt agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department among many others.
Now Republicans at Republican Voters Against Trump are trying to right the ship of state which is listing so dramatically. Those who have already joined this organization are true patriots of our time and should be heralded and supported.
The Towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings.
So opens Sinclair Lewis' landmark novel Babbit. Published nearly 100 years ago, Babbit stunned and thrilled the reading public with its starkly beautiful depiction of life in small-town America circa 1920. As George F. Babbit navigates the vagaries of life and aspires to greatness at the expense of the truth, we see Everyman become revealed to the American and world public in a way gratifying to the public, if not to the American way of business itself.
Perhaps you would like to read it along with me, as that same way of American business once again is being questioned more and more.
A highly revealing look at the dark money version of the Federalist Society by a United States Senator. Gripping, breath-taking.
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/the-third-federalist-society
Quick Link
The title above, though terse, is true. My research based on several years of analysis indicates the national polls have the election right, as of now. And according to Princeton Election Consortium, the Biden lead is not likely to change.
Where the press comes in is their irresponsible neglect of voter suppression tactics. Thankfully, this is beginning to change, but barely. The problem of Republican voter suppression efforts has become too big to ignore.
Still, the press is not putting this issue front and center. In the cable news programs we find the Barret hearings more important than the on-going story of a Pandor's box of vote suppressing and stealing tacts by the G.O.P.
You, dear reader, can help by spreading the news about the work of Greg Palast already referenced here. Stacey Abrams' work is informed by Palast's investigations. Others are now picking up the trail of this story of often-criminal tampering with the voting process. America can do better. She must do better.
At the link below, internationally known journalist Greg Palast reveals what the various pretend-military groups are up to in the U.S. and it's a scary picture. While not all self-described militia groups are of the same variety, many are engaging in police actions and militaristic activities.
An article in today's New York Times shows how these militia groups are actually illegal in states all across the U.S. This aspect will be the focus of another post here soon.
The speed of recent news developments has created a log-jam in the in-box of your musical blogger. For in order to be a responsible blogger one must first filter the news and set priorities before writing. With a president who has been diagnosed with Covid-19 and wants to be his own (spin-) doctor at the same time, a writer's job is complicated.
Much of what remains clear has already been stated here, to wit: the craven dishonesty of this presider is deep and pervasive. There is no need to give further examples. The dishonesty has long since become a campaign of deceitful propaganda.
Yet, rays of hope are beginning to appear. Kamala Harris -- unlike Mr. Biden -- was at least given a sliver of space to deliver an enlightened message of hope in the debate earlier this week. And polling numbers continue to go up for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Even so, the threat of voter suppression continues, in Georgia, in Florida, and other places, even as court victories have popped up in other states such as Ohio.
In summary, it continues to be a time of swirling, muddy waters. But to reference a famous musician, perhaps the music of Muddy Mississippi Waters (the performer), and his name-sake River can poetically float a life-raft of optimism to the surface of this much-troubled current of events.
