The GOP Stirs a Witch’s Brew!

“Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

(Shakespeare–Macbeth)

In Macbeth, the witches warn that nothing good can come of the actions whereby Mac Beth killed to get the throne, even though they prophesied he would win the throne. In the end, several deaths were at his hands, even as he ascended to the throne. It was a hollow victory, and worries about these crimes drove him and his wife to despair. Of course, as tragedies do, it ended with both of them, and many others, dying.

As Halloween and Election Day are both upon us, I wonder just what other calamities are in store should the GOP take control of the House or horrible thought - the Senate as well. It is certainly more serious than trick or treats as the GOP has in store only tricks and no treats. I know that this area has seen some of the worst and most misleading ads by Republican candidates. In fact, I wished for used car ads again! The overkill with negative political ads needs to stop. Pundits say they air negative ads because they work. I know that they have never convinced me.

Their churlish responses to the wounding of Speaker Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband by an intruder were exercises in pettiness. The GOP has long used images of Nancy Pelosi in their attack ads-where she was the wicked witch, for sure. And, even after the attack on her husband, which caused a skull fracture, these ads continued. This petite, elegant woman, who is tough as nails, is often portrayed as a harridan by the Republicans who use her as a foil for all that they want to claim is wrong with Democratic decisions.

According to USA Today, Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia on the campaign trail said: “There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send her back to be with him in California,” Youngkin said at the event.

An exception was Governor Sununu of New Hampshire, who said as reported by the Hill:

“I don’t think there’s any need for the attack ads, and, again, you know, right now, all our thoughts and prayers and sympathy have to go out to Nancy Pelosi, her entire family, her husband, of course,” Put all the politics aside. Ignore the elections. She’s gonna get reelected fine. I mean, let’s just make sure that she and her family are safe, they’re taking the right steps to make sure that not just they’re safe but hopefully extend that safety out to the other members of Congress and the Senate,” Sununu said.

Minority leader Kevin McCarthy, a member of Pelosi’s state delegation, said he texted her about the incident but did not make a public statement until Sunday when he said:

‘I wanted to convey that our thoughts and prayers were with her and her family, with Paul, and we hope him- for him, a speedy recovery, and that we’re able to stop this crime across our country,’ McCarthy said.

‘Of course, this person seems deranged.’

He acts as if he is sending kind thoughts but links a possible deranged person to the so-called crime wave across the country, a big Republican talking point, that omits the facts that red states have more crime and more gun violence than blue states.

Are you ready for ‘attack dog’ Congressman Jim Jordan to be the head of the House Judiciary Committee? Or for Marjorie Taylor Greene to head any committee? She claims to be readying her Impeachment resolution against President Biden; she has had it ready since Inauguration Day, it seems. Or how about tying the hands of Merritt Garland by cutting the budget for the Department of Justice or the IRS? Of course, McCarthy has already threatened to impeach Garland. As for issues that would support these Impeachments–they claim they do not need any because they can use the phrase ‘other crimes and misdemeanors.’

Before we go any further, the Department of Justice seems to be getting even closer to an indictment over the refusal to turn over security documents from Mar-a-Largo. A new prosecutor, known for previous convictions in misuse of classified documents, has joined the DOJ team to review the documents retrieved. Who knows what this group might do should someone ever indict the former president for just a few of his crimes? 

Grandstander Senator Ted Cruz is already threatening impeachment as revenge. You impeached our guy; we will go after your guy, he intoned. Then, for good reason, he would throw in the HHS secretary because of immigration issues. Of course, this is regardless of the fact when they controlled both houses and the presidency, they could not and did not want to solve border control and immigration.

And then there is always the concern about the President’s son, who may have made a misstatement about a gun permit and carelessly left his laptop in a repair shop for too long. Republicans are promising to turn the investigation of Hunter Biden into a new Benghazi investigation. The FBI in Delaware has been said to be looking at charges regarding Biden, but time will tell if this goes anywhere. Do you remember that absurd series of hearings that were an attempt to smear expected candidate Hillary Clinton? And do you remember they said that it was not political when they kept Clinton testifying for eleven hours, during which she never failed to answer and did not lose her composure?

It took two years, cost over seven million dollars of taxpayer money, and found no wrongdoing in its final 800-page report according to PBS. Of course, it faulted the State Department and the Defense Department for not protecting Americans, but there was a volatile situation that deteriorated quickly. But it mostly faulted Ambassador Susan Rice, who bravely went on all the morning talk shows with the talking points she was given and that later had to be partially walked back. She did her job with the information that she had and was castigated for doing so.

So, these are just a few of the dire things that can happen if the GOP wins. So far, they have threatened to not approve the debt limit unless the president lets them do whatever with spending cuts. They are promising to roll back the taxes imposed to pay for the infrastructure bill improvements, refuse to renew Medicare and Social Security legislation, make the tax cuts for the rich permanent, and roll back the changes to Medicare drug costs.

There is just so much that is scary about the GOP- you have the MAGA folks, you have unqualified candidates; you have conspiracy theorists and election deniers, or what else could they find?

As former president Obama said recently, sorta like this: ‘You are sitting in the airport and someone says we need a pilot for this plane and Herschel Walker steps up to say, I can fly this plane’-would you get on that plane? So far, he has claimed to be an FBI agent, a police officer, a college graduate, and a real sheriff, and who knows what-but he has not been in any of those positions. He also claimed he did not pay for abortions for two different women. Does anyone think this man is qualified to be in the United States Senate?

And there is Kari Lake-a TV news broadcaster who found religion and the Donald about the same time and is now a genuine believer on both counts. Does anyone seriously think that this election denier is qualified to lead the state of Arizona?

According to 538’s midterm model, currently, Dems have a 55% chance of holding the Senate while the Republicans have an 81% chance of taking over the House.

Cook’s Political Report thinks that in the House 161 seats are leaning Democratic with 188 leaning toward Republicans with about 85 seats up for grabs. In MD, Democratic Congressman Trone is projected to win his seat, but they projected Republican Andy Harris to keep his. In Virginia, two of the three women congresswomen are in tight races, that is Spanberger and Luria, with Wexton expected to win in the redistricted districts. The RCDC is running tons of negative ads in these races. In the Senate, Cook considers PA and Wi to be tossups.

According to CNN, about 17.5 million votes have already been cast by those doing early voting. ABC reports if mail-in ballots are also counted, there have been over 20 million votes cast already. These numbers seem to be pointed to a larger than 2018 turnout and one closer to the 2020 tallies.

If, after these numbers, you feel down, here is a rip-roaring political speech by former president Barack Obama in Milwaukee, that should make you feel better-he speaks at minute 25: onward. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCu9AtQIASA

I miss his rhetoric. There is so much more that I could say, but I think I will let Obama close tonight.

Happy Halloween!

‘Til next week -Peace!

Crystal Balls & Soothsayers Needed

Right now, I assert that anyone who says that they can tell you the results of the election on November 8th is wrong. Early in the summer, the pundits convinced the Republicans that they had a red tide heading toward November. Then the Dobbs decision was announced, voters in Kansas spoke out in favor of abortion and a blue wave was predicted. Democrats sounded hopeful. Now polls are swinging toward Republicans in some areas.

Can we trust the polls? In 2020, President Biden won the election, the total popular vote count, and the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton won the total popular vote in 2016 but lost the Electoral College and the election. In both cases, the predicted vote counts for Democrats were less in certain states than the actual votes cast for the Democratic candidate. Trump voters were told to not speak with pollsters in some areas. The Washington Post tried to understand the disparity and termed the issue, as the shy Trump voter, who felt pressured to not note their vote, but eventually concluded that the huge turnout in 2020 was what skewed the polls, as these numbers were not expected.

Pollster Nate Cohn, writing recently in the New York Times noted that in 2020: “Looking back at our data from September and October 2020, white Democrats were 20 percent likelier to respond to Times/Siena polls than white Republicans. This disparity most likely betrayed a deeper problem: Trump voters, regardless of party, were less likely to respond to our polls.”

Pollsters also wondered if people who could work from home and were more likely to be at higher income levels might have been at home during COVID more often than service workers, so disproportionally could respond to the pollsters.

This year, Cohn believes the polls are reporting more accurately as white Democrats were only 5% more likely to complete the poll than Republicans. In September he reported Democrats were ahead of Republicans by two points on the generic ballot. Now, in October, the polls are moving toward the Republicans, motivated by swing voters who disapprove of President Biden. “Voters overwhelmingly believe American democracy is under threat, but seem remarkably apathetic about that danger, with few calling it the nation’s most pressing problem, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.:

Polls of Latino voters do not support the claims that Democrats are losing that group, as more numbers of Latino voters are staying with the Democrats. Fundamentalists and male voters are favoring Republican candidates, but the majority are staying with the Democratic candidates. Certain Hispanic areas of Florida and south Texas have turned more toward the right as these populations are more naturally conservative.

Recently, I have heard seniors speak about the overwhelming number of spam and sales calls that they are receiving on their cell phones. Many have given up their landlines and rely on their cell phones. With caller ID and carrier spam notifications, they rarely answer calls from unknown callers. This may mean that pollsters are missing an important demographic, that of the senior voter. Senior voters are reliable and consistent voters; many use mail-in ballots. States that are trying to restrict the use of these ballots may also restrain those voices.

Independent voters once thought to be swinging toward the Democrats, seemingly are turning back toward the Republicans. (Some say that many so-called Independents are Republicans who are too embarrassed to say they are in that party!) A poll conducted by Pew in 2018 found that most independents favor one party over the other. Although more independent voters lean Democratic, most Independent men lean Republican. In 2018, when the poll was conducted, 38% of voters described themselves as Independents, 31% as Democrats, and 26% as Republicans. Anecdotally, I have heard members from immigrant communities who come from undemocratic countries that others often advise them to register as Independents when they get their citizenship, so their registration does not tie them to a party that may come in and out of power.

Now, as election day draws closer, the economy is looming larger as a problematic issue, since gas prices are ticking up again; most likely because of the actions of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC-which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia as members). Neither nation seemed ready to do any favors for Americans. Since we are supporting Ukraine against Russia, its’ position is understandable. Saudi Arabia, however, is another story; the visit of President Biden recently was supposed to tighten relations between the two countries, even as the U.S. continues to press the government of Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud (MBS) on other issues such as the death of Washington Post reporter, Jamal Khashoggi, and rights for women.

Other causes for inflation included the reality that the cost of rent increased significantly once the government released COVID-imposed rent freezes. Global food costs rose because of the inability of farmers in both Ukraine and Russia to ship their agricultural products, drought in the U.S., and global supply chain delays. I know each week as I grocery shop, prices are escalating. Paper products, lumber costs, and repair costs are also rising, so the consumer feels the squeeze. Of course, the low unemployment rates also contributed to inflation as the labor shortages increased payroll amounts. When the Federal Reserve, worried about inflation, raised interest rates to slow down the economy, housing costs soared and the housing market slowed down.

President Biden, despite passing legendary bills for infrastructure and inflation improvement, reducing student loan costs, and adding broadband and chip bills, is still taking the hit for the economy and gas prices, even though these are not his doing. Will the students, who got debt relief, the African Americans who wanted a representative on the Supreme Court and in the Cabinet, and other minorities who are now seen as spokespersons for the administration make a difference for their advocates? Democrats still need to speak up for abortion access, rights for minorities, and preserving our democracy along with showing an understanding for those who are hurt by rising prices. Former President Obama has gotten out on the campaign trail for selected candidates and hopefully will make a difference in close races. Let’s face it, despite speaking out on important issues, Biden still comes across as older than his stated age and his continued insistence that he will run in 2024 prohibits others from creating a campaign committee. With any luck, the continued legal troubles for the former president will prohibit him from running again.

For me, not only is the balance of power under threat if Kevin McCarthy takes over in the House as Majority Leader but our democratic values are threatened. Republicans have vowed to call Medicare and Social Security for five-year renewals, threatened to hold the debt ceiling hostage to future legislation, and perhaps refuse to fund any more weapons for Ukraine. Yes, the Putin wing of the Republican Party is alive and well. The Orban conference contingency still has its advocates. The nascent fascism seen in this party is becoming more overt now, as are the white supremacy and anti-Semitic supporters. Even as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are indicted and under trial for their activities on January 6^th, others are carrying their banners in and out of Congress. Even here, in Maryland, a group of Unite the Right members recently held a rally. The right-wing Republican candidate for governor Dan Cox, called a QAnon nut job by the current governor, who was scheduled to attend the rally, pulled out at the last moment when the public learned of it. He was at the Stop the Steal Rally on January 6^th.

In Frederick County, the Republican candidate for County Executive is running a highly negative and misleading campaign against his opponent, Jessica Fitzwater. He has sponsored bills to ban and criminalize abortions, allow for no exceptions, and restrict contraceptives and intrauterine devices. He has called for defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides many healthcare services to women. He works for one of the most conservative members of congress and has proudly worked for and stood with the former president. I agree with those who claim that he is too extreme for Frederick County. He is trying to spread fear, claiming that Montgomery County crime and density (meaning people of color) might come north to Frederick County.

As a supporter of Jessica Fitzwater, I know she will be a firm voice for Frederick County, its’ families, businesses, and children. She has spoken in favor of the following issues:

As a teacher, she knows a county grows when its’ schools are strong. An educated populace supports local businesses by providing a skilled workforce. Leaving no one behind means that both our youngest and oldest residents will have their needs met. Concentrating most development in urban centers means she will be a good steward of our resources and protect our green spaces. I hope you will give Jessica your vote.

On the state level-please support all the Democratic candidates on the top of the ballot, Wes Moore and Aruna Miller for Governor and Lt. Governor, Anthony Brown for Attorney General, and Brooke Lierman for Comptroller. Each has had a career of public service with exceptional dedication to their duties.

Maryland Democrats outnumber Republicans, 55% to 31% according to Pew research. However, the distribution of party voters is skewed with the counties with the highest populations showing mostly Democratic strongholds, and the more rural counties at the far west and north, as well as the Eastern shore running more Republican. Therefore, the only Republican Congressman is from District 1, which includes the Eastern Shore. Congressman Trone in the redistricted area 6, now has more of Western MD in his district and less of Montgomery County than he had before, which makes his race tougher this year. His opponent is anti-abortion and has called for tattooing HIV-positive adults and children!

So if Democrats come out to vote in the numbers they did in 2020, we can win these state and county races and those across the country. Hopefully, the Democratic men and women who stood with the MAGA crowd will see the chaos that was created by the actions of the former president and come back to the side of those who wish to preserve this democracy. In my dreams, they will not give in to the fear-mongering, race-baiting and immigrant caravans that are again being promoted.

Election Day is November 8^th. Early voting starts Thursday of this week, so make a plan to vote.

‘Til next week-Peace!

October Surprises and…?

The Midterm Election Day is just over three weeks away. Early voting has already started in some states, so if election spoilers have any more tricks up their sleeves, they had best get them out and about pretty soon. Of course, there are always those who try to send their nefarious messages out so late that the other side does not have time to respond. War rooms at campaign headquarters are ready across the country, for just such situations.

But before I delve into this nitty gritty, I thought I would salute the beauty of October with a few lines from a poem by Robert Frost, a famous New England poet.

Frost lived a good, long life (1874-1963) and wrote many volumes of poetry. Some poems were long and epic, while others were thoughts he had while strolling through his beloved New England woods and fields. I heard him read his poetry when he presented a poem at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

Today, I present an excerpt from an early poem, written in 1912, called October, but only a few lines to perhaps soften our mood away from politics and strife so much and more into the enjoyment of the world we should take time to view.

October

By Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow,

Make the day seem to us less brief….

Frost continues, suggesting that the leaves pause and allow only one leaf to fall at a time, first from one tree, and then from a different tree, leisurely beguiling the viewer, and allowing the visitor to view it falling slowly through the mist. His words could be useful to us now as fall often brings the sounds of leaf blowers, so noisy that one could never hear a solitary leaf fall to the ground. Sometimes in this hectic world, it is important to not only stop to smell the flowers when they bloom but also pause to watch a twirling yellow leaf drop from the maple tree along your path.

The January 6^th Committee on the Insurrection held an open hearing this week and presented an overview of their findings, making little additional news, aside from information finally obtained from the Secret Service. They showed scenes of Senate and House leaders trying to find someone in Washington who could take control of the situation as the Capitol was being invaded since the President was derelict in his duties. Finally, Speaker Nancy Pelosi got VP Mike Pence to order the National Guard to come into the city and restore order. However, at the end of the hearing, the members announced that the person they believed to be responsible for the insurrection needed to provide testimony. The entire committee voted to require that the former president be subpoenaed to answer committee questions under oath. He has thirty days to respond, then they will determine the next steps. I guess that the British oddsmakers are already taking bets on will he or will he not appear. He lost a request to not appear for a deposition in the NY rape defamation case against a former editor.

Some pundits say that DJT would love the prime-time opportunity, but would probably try to set so many conditions that it will not happen. And, if he does not, would the committee ask for a contempt of Congress ruling? They need to wrap their findings up quickly as Kevin McCarthy has promised that if Republicans are in control after the midterms, he will shut this investigation down. (See, yet another reason to keep Democrats in charge!) The NY Attorney General has now tried to enjoin the former president from moving his businesses out of New York State; a process he started the day after the civil charges against his company were announced.

Investigations continue on multiple fronts. The Washington Post reported the president's valet informed the FBI that when a subpoena for more documents arrived in the late spring, he was told by DJT to move some papers out of the storage area and into the residence. This, according to many, is grounds for obstruction of justice. The FBI has obtained surveillance video that shows this happening. With the Special Master document reviews, the MAGA team appealed to the Supreme Court to circumvent the review due soon from the 11^th Circuit appeals court, but the Justices sent the issue back to the appeals court without comment. So, he has lost there again.

The DOJ is continuing to insist that the security of top secret and other documents cannot be compromised and that these documents must be secured. Although Judge Cannon tried to slow the review process, it appears that this will not happen and the reviews will continue. The Special Master has ruled that his defense team has to pay a document team to categorize and digitize the unclassified materials. DOJ has so far been unable to find a vendor who will do the job, perhaps because the former president has such a history of not paying his bills. The lead defense attorney demanded and received a three million dollar retainer before working on the Mar-a-Lago document case. In the meantime, we watch and wait and hope that our national security has not been imperiled. DJT as recently as last week, told a crowd in a speech that these documents were his to keep.

Now for the mid-terms. 538 is still predicting that the Republicans will win the House and that the Democrats are slight favorites to keep control of the Senate. Unknowns certainly involve the turnout; which side is more motivated? The abortion issue has motivated women of all political persuasions, but will they be enough? The election deniers comprise the base for the MAGA candidates, but is this group large enough to win general elections when the voting pool is more diverse? Social conservatives are turning out on issues such as banned books and against trans rights; hopefully, their numbers will be small.

Polls in Wisconsin and Georgia, for example, show close races. In Pennsylvania, the race for Senate between Fetterman and Oz is tightening, although the governor's race seems to favor Shapiro, the Democrat. Maybe he can pull more voters in for the Senate race. Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke, is being called unfit to serve by Oz who is a surgeon, a claim that is exaggerated, as Fetterman has been in interviews and performed well, considering his rehab issues with speech.

The Washington Post noted that racist appeals, such as those mentioned here last week by the Alabama Senator, are increasing, especially by Republicans. No one in party leadership seems willing to call out these speakers as being out of line. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is touting the immigrant replacement theory, so loved by Fox commentators, while other groups are running ads against crime in the Willie Horton model, and blame the Democrats for the crime in large cities. Of course, Republicans don’t want to restrict gun ownership but claim that they are blameless for gun crimes. In PA the governor candidate Mastriano, who is quite far-right and supports Christian Nationalism, recently attacked his opponent who is Jewish, and sends his children to Jewish schools. According to the New York Times, this attack and other remarks of anti-Semitism have alarmed Jewish voters in the state.

Former Washington Post ombudsman, Margaret Sullivan, monitored the people reporting the news during her years at the Post and has now written a book about journalism and how it has changed and subsequently changed her. She reports on the vitriol, threats, and foul language in letters that she received whenever she wrote something that the MAGA groupies thought was unfavorable to their guy. We used to have civil discourse and disagree without being disagreeable.

She faults the press for not taking a critical look at the recent president when he was still a candidate; too many became caught up in the circus feel and entertainment that he provided on the trail. Few took him to task for his racist remarks about immigrants, “Mexican judges”, misogynistic remarks toward women, or disparaging remarks about people with disabilities. Sullivan notes, “In every way, Trump was a deeply abnormal candidate, but the news media couldn’t seem to communicate that effectively or even grasp the problem.”

She discussed how the media was not used to calling out lies by a president, so it was caught off-guard when he refused to concede, stated he had won, and called Biden an illegitimate president. Journalists have traditionally tried to walk down the middle, with a view from this side and one from the other side, but this no longer works. It is truth on one side and blatant lies on the other side. She also said:

“Those who deny the outcome of the 2020 election certainly don’t deserve a media megaphone for that enduring lie, one that is likely to reemerge in the presidential campaign ahead. But the media should go one step further: When covering such a politician in other contexts — for example, about abortion rights or gun control — journalists should remind audiences that this public figure is an election denier.” 

And….

“Perhaps the most important thing journalists can do as they cover the campaign ahead is to provide thoughtful framing and context. They shouldn’t just repeat what’s being said but help explain what it means. This is especially important in headlines and news alerts, which are about as far as many news consumers get. When Trump rants about the supposed horrors of rigged elections and voting fraud, journalists have to constantly provide the counterweight of truth. We have gotten better at this since 2016. Now we have to stick to it.”

And, finally, I don’t have any surprises up my sleeve, but the Herschel Walker abortion surprise news continues to resonate with each new day. First, he said he didn’t know the woman, then he knew the woman, but never asked her for an abortion, but sent a check and a get-well card, then he is paying child support for the other child she had over his objections. (But he is still 100% pro-life, don’t cha know?) As Monica Hesse wrote recently in her column for the Post, the hypocrisy is not acceptable, especially here, with abortions:

“What’s not fine is the idea that morality — and who it binds and who it protects — is dependent on whether someone is wearing a MAGA hat.

It’s the hypocrisy, stupid. It’s the hypocrisy and the idea that to get what they want, some prominent Republicans are happy to either deny any chance that the story could be true, or to defend the idea of Herschel Walker making use of the reproductive freedom that they want to take away from you.”

 

Last week, Walker and Senator Warnock had a debate. Walker provided little substance and tried to tie Warnock to Biden. Walker pulled some stunt with a fake badge and was admonished for it. Warnock tried to get in some words about policies from Democrats but had trouble being heard above the din.

 

The two Governor’s candidates in Maryland also aired their differences in a testy debate where, according to Maryland Matters, each claimed the other was outside the mainstream. Moore continues to have a strong lead in the polls, but the state is littered with Cox signs.

 

That’s it, folks!

 

“Til next week-Peace!

Hypocrisy Without Shame

Republicans rallied behind embattled Georgia senatorial candidate Herschel Walker, after accusations that back in 2009, he paid for a girlfriend to have an abortion; later requesting a second one after a subsequent pregnancy, which she refused. He has been campaigning on the Republican line of abolishing the right to abortions in all situations, and now finds himself in a bit of a pickle. i.e. ‘do what I say, not what I do perhaps?’ Today worried Republicans showed no concerns about conflicting messaging and rushed to defend him. Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Tom Cotton of Arkansas both spoke out in favor of the ability of a person to change over time and defended Walker while denying their hypocrisy. The party started pouring money for ads into Georgia.

Just in case you might wonder-the Oxford dictionary defines hypocrisy as: “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.”

Herschel Walker was a famous Georgia state football player who also played pro football. He presents a formidable presence, as former athletes often do. As a player on the old Apprentice TV show, he became a favorite of the former president who encouraged him to run and endorsed his candidacy. However, once he got out on the campaign trail, many of his deficiencies in knowledge, background claims, and domestic issues became known more widely. He rarely provides coherent answers to reporters’ questions, and some of his theories about COVID are strange. Some say that the powers that be chose him because the party wanted to find another black man to contest the senate seat currently held by the Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock, a preacher at Dr. King’s former church in Atlanta.

Voters in Georgia elected the current Senator to fill a partial term after the previous senator left because of illness and the governor appointed Senator Perdue to fill the rest of the term on an interim basis. Perdue and Warnock met in a momentous showdown in a run-off election after the presidential election in 2020. Many thought that the rages of the defeated president about the stolen election kept some Georgian Republicans home from the run-off, which Warnock won in a close race right before the January 6^th insurrection. The election of the two senators from Georgia tripped the Senate control to the Democrats and the Republicans have been fighting to regain control ever since that election.

Walker has defended his actions from prior years as related to mental illness and loose living, from which he has now been saved and redeemed. I guess that is all that one can claim when one has a past that includes lying about his employment, stalking women, domestic violence, fathering, then not supporting many children, and threatening a former wife with a gun to her head. After turning down many debates, he and Dr. Warnock are supposed to meet in a debate later this week, where these topics are likely to be raised. Rev. Warnock has tried to stay above the fray and reinforce that he is running on issues important to Georgians and other Americans, so I guess we shall see how this all ends soon. The race is currently giving Warnock a slight lead, but that is not secure.

In other Senate races, such as n Ohio and Pennsylvania, Republican candidates have not been doing well possibly because of their extreme issue choices and anti-abortion support. However, as the mid-terms are getting closer, the races are tightening according to 538. In PA, Fetterman leads Oz by a range of 2-4 points down from double digits recently. Races in Ohio and Wisconsin still favor the Republicans, although the races are also close with Ryan closing in (and some polls say winning) and Barnes in Wisconsin, not far behind the flighty Senator Johnson. In Arizona, the polls favored incumbent Democrat Senator Kelly to beat Masters, and in Nevada, Laxalt is close to tying Democratic Senador Cortes-Masto, although she hopes that the votes of women will pull her through.

In Nevada, Covid and the economy have hit the hotel industry hard, which affected many in the mostly Hispanic workforce. Wages stagnated when the workers kept their jobs. Democrats have tried outreach to this ethnic group, but Republicans have been making inroads, often through the growing number of Hispanic evangelicals, where preachers, some say, do not see a need to separate church and state. So, over the last two national elections, more Hispanic men voted for conservatives and republicans than previously. A recent election in south Texas to fill a formerly democratic-held Congressional seat went to a Republican Latina woman who is an evangelical.

Still, according to Pew research, most Hispanics favor Democrats to solve issues they care about, such as the economy, climate change, healthcare, and education. Those who favor Democrats also support abortion. Hispanic Republicans have concerns about violent crime besides the economy, access to guns, and immigration.

Older women are concerned about protecting Social Security, according to a poll taken by AARP and reported by CNBC, and 94% of women over 50 plan to vote. So, Senator Scott’s ideas of sun-setting and reauthorizing Social Security and Medicare every five years might not find favor here. According to an article in a recent Brookings publication: “but more importantly, women vote more often than men—in the 2020 presidential election, women constituted 52% of the electorate compared to 48% for men. The article further states: “So, we now face an election where that (abortion)is exactly what is on the ballot. Everyone born with a uterus has an interest and a stake in the abortion issue that those without a uterus do not have—meaning, the abortion issue will be intense for a lot of people. In addition to the intensity of this issue is the sheer number of females in the population and the electorate. First, there are more women than men in America—167,500,000 women compared to 164,380,000 men.”

Here, the author states that the intensity of this issue is what she believes will drive women to the polls. If she is correct, that is good news for Democrats. Two recent sub-elections for vacant seats, one in NY and one in Alaska, elected Democrats, and abortion concerns were key. That is too little information to call it a trend. To my way of thinking, if this issue is driving women voters, why are the polls so close? This weekend many thousands of women marched in demonstrations across the country for abortion rights. Many carried signs saying “we won’t go back.” They held one of the larger rallies here in Washington, DC. It was reported as seen here on NBC news. The crowd was diverse and animated and included men and women. Interestingly, many wore the pink hats they wore from the earlier Women’s March; a protest that was held the day after the former president was inaugurated in 2017. Remember the statement, don’t get mad, get even? If these women all vote, they can certainly make a statement and maybe change history for some. I am unsure what to do about the states that have banished any access to care for abortion. Large corporations still say that they will pay for employees to leave their home states to get needed abortion services, but this is yet to be proven.

Even though black unemployment is down according to the latest economic news, black voters say they have had a tougher time recovering from the pandemic than white residents. The pandemic also more severely affected the black population, especially in areas where access to health care was difficult. Many owned small businesses that did not qualify for pandemic relief, while many others worked in industries such as hospitality that were hard hit by the downturn. They were also more likely to be renters and experience food and housing insecurity. In a survey by the Hill during the summer, many black respondents wanted President Biden to move the economy faster. Perhaps now that the Stimulus and the Recovery Acts have both passed, blacks may be more satisfied with the results as employment picks up.

However, one of the most important issues for black voters was white supremacy and terrorist killings of black residents. This survey was taken not long after black shoppers in a Buffalo supermarket had been gunned down in a racially motivated killing spree by a youth attracted to supremacist hatred. Asian voters are also concerned about hate crimes, crime in general and sterotypes, the state of the economy, choice, education, health care and climate change. They also wanted their history more represented in school texts. (Well, if the Florida and Texas governors will get their way, neither Blacks nor Asians will have adequate representation in the texts since the authorities do not wish to trouble students. So in their rewritten histories, slavery was all happy plantation life and Japaenese Americans enjoyed being uprooted and sent to camps?)

Recent remarks by Senator Tuberville of Alabama appearing at a MAGA rally in Nevada showed he believed black people committed most crimes and now the Democrats want to pay off these criminals with reparations. How preposterous! And this man was a university coach!

This, according to the Washington Post, is what he said: “They’re not soft on crime,” Tuberville said of Democrats. “They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”

However, according to the Post, “Tuberville is falsely suggesting that Democrats promote crime and that only Blacks are the perpetrators. In fact, crime has slowed in the last year and most crimes are committed by whites, according to FBI data.”

Remember the caravans that were coming in 2018? Now it is crime that the Republicans are claiming is running rampant in our streets. Funny, they do not seem to mention the scores of illegal guns on the streets being used by criminals. Their doom and gloom about crime would have those small-towners in the cornfields of the Midwest hiding under their beds, waiting for the mobs of criminals to come and steal their hard-earned property. Hey folks, it just isn’t true.

The mid-terms are now less than one month away and early voting will start soon in many states. I guess there could be more October surprises, but I hope there are not.

The American people seem to realize that their way of life and our democracy are on the ballot and we have to get out there and defend these values if we wish for democracy, not autocracy, to prevail. According to an article in Vanity Fair by Eric Lutz, there has been a shift in voters’ concerns away from the economy as gas prices came down, to the future of our democracy. The article states: “But more than that, the poll seems to speak to a growing recognition, by the American public, that the GOP’s sweeping assault on the country’s election system has put democracy itself on the ballot.” (More about this next time!)

Oh, the latest reports are that DJT is possibly holding on to more papers, perhaps hoping he can trade them for information in the Mueller reports or the investigations of his enemies. So, the criminal is trying to barter with stolen goods, it seems? My head aches.

“Til next week-Peace!

First Monday in October**

**New Supreme Court Term Opens

As is customary, the Supreme Court opens for the new term on the first Monday in October. Recently appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson takes her seat then, to hear the first arguments for the new term. The activist Court from last spring is still very much in play, as none of the majority in the Dobbs’ decision has moved on, much as I might wish they had.

Polls show that the court has lost the support of most voters in the country, yet Chief Justice Roberts claims to not understand why. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents, support for the court has dropped 40 points since 2020 with only 28% in favor now. Among Republicans and those who lean right, who generally favor the actions of the court, support is higher at 73%. This almost 45-point gap in the percentage between parties is the widest since Pew started measuring this spread over thirty-five years ago.

There are variations among men and women, older and younger voters, and college-educated vs non-college-educated groups, according to Pew. For example, they cite the gender gap using all parties: “Men are slightly more likely to view the Supreme Court favorably (52%) than unfavorably (46%), while women are slightly more likely to hold unfavorable views of the court (45% favorable vs. 51% unfavorable).”

They took these polls in August after the Dobbs’ decision. As a rule, conservatives, older, and non-college-educated voters are more supportive, while younger, more liberal, and college-educated voters are less so.

Recently, Chief Justice Roberts spoke about the courts’ loss of popularity and noted that the court's legitimacy should not be criticized just because people disagreed with the decisions it made. Frequently, he has been the moderate voice against the aggressive conservatives on the court, but with five votes already aligned in favor, he cannot prevail as he once did with a 5-4 court. However, even though he supported the dissent in Roe, he supported Dobbs; neither vote changed anything, however. His colleagues should have tempered the passionate overreach and lack of a constitutional rationale or compassion shown by Justice Alito in Dobbs, but they did not, because too many of them agreed with his ultimate conclusion. Basically, that was why the Republicans chose them for the court in the first place, according to many.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the court in her oral arguments on Dobbs in one of her strongest comments yet: “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?”

And further in their dissent, the three liberal justices stated: “Today the proclivities of individuals rule.” (And not the Rule of Law, nor the words of the Constitution, they might also have said.)

Justice Elena Kagan reacted to the remarks of Chief Justice Roberts quoted above by saying in a recent speech that the court must take unpopular decisions when sometimes laws or circumstances demand. And, when they are seen as fair and following established precedent, the public views them as even-handed. But when the court goes out of its way to decide a matter that was not even before the court, such as Roe and does not follow settled law, then its actions rightly make the public suspicious, she noted. (I have paraphrased Kagan’s and Roberts’ comments from a remarkable multi-page opinion piece in the Washington Post by Ruth Marcus for this discussion.)

The opinion, called Brace Yourself, previews the upcoming cases before the court as announced, and others that might appear. She believes that the Conservatives have tasted their power and want to run with it, disregarding precedent as they go. Last year, for them, was just the beginning. In this article, she quotes Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus describing Justices Thomas and Alito “They’ve spent a lot of time waiting for this majority to happen and they do not intend to waste it.”

Although I cannot review every bit of her article here, I think that one of the most dangerous theoretical cases involves the rights of a state legislature to overrule its courts on decisions concerning electors or election decisions they dislike; this was the theory proposed by John Eastman and the basis for the fake electors’ schemes in 2020. Already, courts have voided decisions made in some states to disregard vote counts or certain ballots. The MAGA folks have come up with schemes that could require all ballots to be received by election day, not merely be postmarked by then, as has long been the practice, even though courts have supported a mailed ballot waiting period.

Another concern is the “independent legislature clause” that some define as meaning that state legislatures are outside judicial review and do not have to adhere to judicial oversight, such as redistricting decisions, even though they might be contrary to law. Already some justices have spoken in favor of this theory, which could allow even more extreme gerrymandering. The case under consideration is coming from Republicans in North Carolina.

Now can everyone see why Congress should have passed the voting rights legislation demanded by so many earlier in the year? We are now almost at election day, in fact, for the mid-terms, voting has already started in some states with onerous regulations in place.

What we once thought to be a national red wave has turned into a close race. Polling results compiled by 538 still shows favorable results for Republicans in the House with Democrats slightly favored to keep control in the Senate. Kevin McCarthy is already measuring for new draperies n the Speaker’s office, so to speak! In many races, the extreme candidates chosen by the MAGA cultists are not finding favor with a wider electorate. The abortion access issue is the sleeper in the race as pollsters are not yet certain how this will ultimately play out. There have been higher numbers of women registering across the country according to some reports. In August, according to the Upshot in the NY Times, in the ten states for which data was available, 55% of new voters registering were women.

In Maryland, Trumpster candidate Dan Cox, who bused folks to the Insurrection, is trailing Democratic candidate Wes Moore by 32 points in the 538 poll. The Washington Post strongly endorsed Wes Moore today. Polls favored Senator Chris Van Hollen to win easily. In the newly redistricted-and consequently more conservative-6th District, Democratic Congressman David Trone, who had been trailing challenger and ultra-conservative, Neil Parrott, is now slightly favored to win by 538 and favored by the Cook Report. In the 8^th District, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin, who no longer has any districts in Frederick County, is favored to win by 99%.

The County Executive race in Frederick County features two quite different candidates. Republican State Senator Michael Hough is facing Democratic County Council member Jessica Fitzwater. Hough, a favorite of the conservatives, (and his boss Congressman Alex Mooney, another ultra-conservative) is suddenly trying to present himself as moderate. He is against access to abortion and has voted against expanding options for providers in Maryland. His campaign ads are highly negative and misleading against his opponent. To me, these ads come across as bullying. Fitzwater, in 2020, spoke about race issues and noted the existence of white privilege, which was much discussed after the death of George Floyd. During a county council meeting then, she discussed this in a manner that she now describes as in-artful, but which has been played hundreds of times in an ad by Hough. I interpret these remarks to say she is caring and wants to better understand these issues. The two debated before the Rotary Club recently. (Full disclosure Notice-I support and volunteer for Jessica.) Hough, who had no opponent in the primary, has more funds on hand than Fitzwater, who was challenged by two others in the Democratic primary. To my knowledge, they have published no polls for this race. I hope that Wes Moore will carry all the down-ballot candidates on his coattails, but note that Democrats should take nothing for granted and need to show up at the polls.

I cannot sign off without sending a few words of hope to those victims of Hurricane Ian in Florida and elsewhere. No one deserves to have that extreme level of destruction and personal devastation enter their lives. I cannot imagine how I would feel were I to find myself suddenly with no home, no car, and no belongings. MSNBC reported on some kitchen workers whose restaurants no longer existed, nor did their apartments. They were all due a paycheck but did not know how to get them; they wondered did they still owe rent. Far too many people in America live paycheck to paycheck and have little in savings. These are the people who get lost after such tragic events. Life can go on, but recovery will take a long time and my heart goes out to all.

Now, I ask, when will Congress wake up and deal with Global Climate Change?

Before I leave, I am sending Happy Birthday wishes to former President Jimmy Carter, now 98 years old! What an example he has given us all!

‘Til next week-Peace!