Or Perhaps Not Entirely Resolved?

I admit the unresolved issue regarding the Commission that will be seated in November was which of the three "new" Commissioners would get the two year term.  I hadn't actually given that much thought, and it's been such a long time since I had a copy of the Village Charter that I didn't have a convenient way to look it up.

Funny enough, one of my friends who has been a long time resident, and a long time Commissioner/Mayor, called me about this.  His impression was that one of the "new" Commissioners could simply offer to accept a two year term.  I wondered about drawing straws.  Both of us thought either method would be acceptable.

But apparently, the Village Clerk says we have to have an election anyway, simply to find out who comes in last (and gets the two year term).

It's a shame we didn't realize this a couple of weeks or so ago.  If we have to spend $12K on an election anyway, it would have been great if Jonathan Groth, Veronica Amsler, and Art Gonzalez had simply resigned, since none of them contributes a thing, and the election we now have to have would also have served to fill their seats.

If we have to spend $12K to accomplish essentially nothing, it would have been much better to spend $12K to accomplish possibly a lot. 

Although if Dan Samaria goes along with an adaptive majority, then at least the Commission is no longer dominated by maladaptive people.  I still wish it wouldn't have to cost us $12K to get that to happen, maybe, but a Commission that functions is much better than Commissions that don't, which is what we've had for the past eight years.

"Sextortion"

You might or might not be familiar with this new portmanteau.  You are most definitely familiar with "social" media.

A growing avalanche of criticism, or at least concern, has been written about "social" media.  Its come-on is that it's social, but it's really antisocial, and it has a number of problematic consequences.  We're talking here about facebook, Instagram, Twitter/nuTwitter/X, Tik Tok, and probably some others.  The "dating" apps are another kind of problem.  The conclusion is that all of them are stress-provoking, burdensome, cause problematic efforts to adapt to whatever is promoted as the preferred style and configuration of features, and at worst, lead to more or less diagnosable problems and even suicides.

"Sextortion" is an example of this problem.  It involves frankly seducing someone to provide compromising photographs of him- or herself, then blackmailing the person by threatening to make these photographs public, or else...

The easy answer is not to take and transmit compromising photographs of yourself, so you have no "exposure."  It's a good idea, and it ranks with other advice about never doing anything wrong or imperfect, and not making any mistakes.  Even if you're young.  The most recent petition I've seen was about a 17 year old boy who killed himself because of whatever shame he anticipated might result from the "sextortion."  Something tells me the person who "sextorted" this boy did not confirm that the victim was underage.  Something tells me the "sextortionist" didn't care, or preferred that the victim be young and easier to manipulate.

"Sextortion" is a focused problem, but there's a bigger problem.  It is increasingly acknowledged that "social" media is a problem, and it creates problems.  It consumes time and attention, suggests imagery, like physique, that the viewer is at pains to emulate, is highly corruptible, and encourages people to buy things that are either too expensive or faulty, and for which it's essentially impossible to get a refund.  There's an increasing suicide rate, mostly among minors, caused by the toxic wake of "social" media.  "Sextortion" is only one of the specific mechanisms leading minors to paint themselves into that corner.

And "social" media make money, for themselves.  Unless it's Elon Musk fucking up yet another enterprise, they make a lot of money.  If the public are the victims, or the stooges, the "social" media companies are most certainly not.

Years ago, the high school I attended planned a reunion.  I don't remember if it was the 40th or the 45th.  The organizers chose to communicate with everyone via Classmates.com.  I still receive Classmates e-mails, and there's no way to unsubscribe.  When I was more naive about it, I had a facebook page.  It was not at all easy to deactivate that account.  These companies make advertising money by claiming a circulation or membership.  They're not going to help you disengage.

So, as seemingly direct it is to try to prosecute whoever "sextorted" a given person (who might well now be dead from suicide, and whom his or her family can't have back), it's a lot more complicated to dismantle the "social" media companies.  But they're the bigger problem.  If you think they're your friends, I encourage you to stop kidding yourselves.

Question Resolved

Will Tudor did not declare a candidacy.

There are three candidates -- Kennedy, Huntington, and Samaria -- and those are our three Commissioners in November.

We have saved ourselves about $12K, which we would have had to pay to add Commissioners to the general election.

 

"An Unserious Man?"

That's what Kamala Harris called Donnie Trump.  And there are two problems with a characterization like that.

First, Donnie Trump is not a man at all.  Other people charitably refer to him as a "man child."  The "child" part is accurate.  Donnie is 78, of large stature, and he could chronologically be called a "man."  But he only gets that label because he's old, and because he didn't happen to die very young.  In terms of things like maturity, he's not in the orbit of a "man."

I suppose someone could say I was splitting rhetorical hairs, but I wouldn't call Donnie "unserious."  He certainly is unserious, but that's way too generous a term for him.  It was about four years ago, in a debate, that Joe Biden called him a "clown," twice.  That's much closer.  And frankly, Donnie is a caricature.  He's sort of a caricature of himself.  If you imagine someone who once had a nice appearance, and who people thought was some sort of success (which he never was), he has become an aged, rambling, nonsensical, grossly unworthy, totally and relentlessly self-involved, version of that.  His own supporters walk out of rallies he hosts, because at some point, they just can't bear to listen to his blather any more.  And watch his air accordion.  I don't know whether it's mostly the incoherence, the childish name-calling of other people, or what.  But clearly, it's unbearable.  I even saw some reports of Fox News anchors shutting him up, or shutting him down, or shutting him off.  Biden told him to shut up four years ago, too.  How prescient.

He clearly has no idea what he's talking about, which is why he lapses into his completely unrelated rambling, that always includes mention of who likes him (it's the common joke among leaders of other countries that if you compliment him, he'll give you whatever you want), how popular he is, how big his crowds are, how everything that happened during his term was the best, and nothing was bad, and other material that doesn't require him to know anything.  Which he doesn't.

But not only does he claim to know what he's talking about, but he also claims personal expertise in areas in which he wasn't trained, and about which he knows nothing.  That's why Project 2025 appeals to him: it allows him to be an expert in every area of function.  He can pretend to be an expert in politics, an expert in economics, an expert in medicine, and an expert in anything he wants.

And the other absurd, "unserious," thing he's been spouting lately, possibly another reflection of Project 2025 -- of course there's no connection between what he says and what he thinks, and no connection between what he says and what could possibly be real -- is that if he is elected this year, there will be no further need for any future American presidential elections.  It's unclear if he means he expects to live forever, and always get re-elected, or if he means we will discontinue the American "experiment," and just have him name his successor, who might then name his or her successor, and so on.  We went to a lot of trouble to end our status as a British colony, but Donnie seems to think we should replace our independence (we even had a "Declaration" of it) with being the colony of him and his and others' future designees.  All that trouble, and we go back to having kings and queens after all anyway.

"An unserious man?"  It hardly scratches the surface of the Donnie Trump catastrophe.

Has Push Come to Shove?

Someone sent me a text message this morning while I was still sleeping.  Ugh.  And I very much don't like text messages.  The message was to let me know that today is the last day to declare a candidacy for BP Commissioner, and to ask me to run.

So, because I don't like text messaging, I called the person who sent me the message.  I prefer in person, but telephone will do.

It turns out there were, at that moment, three candidates for the three seats, Dan Samaria was one of the people who declared a candidacy (incumbent Mac Kennedy, and appointed incumbent Ryan Huntington were the others), and the person who reached out to me did not want Dan to become a Commissioner.  Not terribly long thereafter, the same person told me that Will Tudor also declared a candidacy, because Will also did not want Dan to become a Commissioner.  I listened to the story -- I was awake at this point -- no part of this sounded other than very bad, so I decided to call Dan.

I asked Dan which Dan Samaria was running for Commissioner.  Was it the first Dan Samaria, who had relied on support from the Rosses and the Andersons, and been an unexpectedly good Commissioner, or was it the second Dan Samaria, who tended to vote in accordance with Tracy Truppman, and seemed to preoccupy himself with picking fights with then Commissioner Mac Kennedy.

Dan acknowledged that he had made mistakes -- lost his bearings and sense of which end was up -- that he had come to realize that he had gotten off course, and that it was the first Dan Samaria who was now running.  But the first Dan Samaria appears still to harbor some antipathy toward Mac Kennedy, or at least toward Mac's spouse, "Dan Snyder" (I corrected him a few times, and told him that Mac's spouse is Dan Schneiger, not Snyder, and he got it right once), and I told Dan (Samaria) that Mac's spouse, and whatever Dan thinks Mac's spouse says about him, are not relevant, and that the job of a BP Commissioner is to worry about the best welfare of the Village, not to get distracted with who reportedly says what.

I also told Dan that he was right to rely on the Rosses and the Andersons, although he kept coming up with complaints about Janey Anderson and Chuck Ross.  I must have told him 100 times to focus, and don't get distracted with what he thinks people say, or even what they think.

I told Dan that Roxy Ross, and Chuck Ross, were never wrong, and whenever I disagreed with them, I always had to try to figure out what I got wrong.  And that didn't mean we weren't entitled to differences of opinion, or even voting in opposing ways.  But they were 100% trustworthy to have the best interests of the Village most prominently at heart.  But so was I, and sometimes, there are choices to be made, or different, but equally good and right, approaches to adopt.

I asked Dan who, on the present Commission, or among the people running, is always right.  There is one person who is always right.  Different style, and you don't like it?  Sure.  No problem.  But, as I put it to someone else, who is the North Star?  There's one, and only one.  (It's Mac Kennedy.)

So why are we having this conversation?  There are two reasons.  One is that I do not consider myself electable (and I would be champing at the bit to get rid of the manager, who is a disaster), and the other is Will Tudor.  He's another kind of disaster.  His original reason for running was to be part of a majority that would protect him from following Village Codes (with neighbors like that...), and, as someone accurately described him, he is a "pussy."  He sat by his Mama Tracy, did whatever she said, mumbled incoherent nonsense when he was called upon for an opinion (which his Mama didn't actually want anyway), and has absolutely NOTHING to offer.  It's actually a joke that Will thinks Dan is a problem.

So that's why I called Dan.  I wanted to see if there was any possibility that he was salvageable, since I don't think I'm electable, and therefore of no value in this mess.  If I had to choose a somewhat workable Dan, who could more or less keep his eye on the ball, or Will, I'd take Dan in a heartbeat.

Dan offered to rein himself in, and either not respond to outreaches from his neighbors/constituents, or keep them very brief, but I told Dan he can't do that.  He's imagining sort of ignoring people he thinks will vote him into office, allow him decision-making authority, and pay him a small amount, and he owes them.  He can't assume they will agree with him, and he's not required to agree with them, but if they reach out, he has to reach back.  If he doesn't agree with them, which is fine, then he owes them his best explanation.  We have a Commission now, and a couple before, that can't be bothered for one instant with their neighbors/constituents.  Except one, who always responds.  It did not used to be like this.

So, if I do declare a candidacy, I doubt you'll vote for me.  If I don't declare, please vote for Dan.  I've made contact, and he even suggested, all by himself, that maybe he'd rely on me.  That's fine.  I won't tell him what positions he should take about anything.  I'll just keep him on track, decorum-wise and focus-wise.

My reflex was not to disagree with Will Tudor about his apprehensions about Dan.  But offering himself as a replacement is, as I say, a disaster.  FYI, not only did Will get on the Commission in the first place to protect himself from having to follow Village Code (install a driveway), but he still hasn't done it.  Helluva neighbor.

Donnie's Gonna Win. The Polls Are Clear. Well, As Clear As Polls Get.

Do you happen to remember the famous photograph of Harry Truman holding up a newspaper, at the end of election day, or maybe even the next morning, and the headline said "Dewey Defeats Truman?"  Are you aware of a president named Truman?  You are?  Does president Dewey ring a bell?  No?  Hmm.

It's impossible you don't know that everyone knew Hillary Clinton gave all available evidence that she was going to beat Donnie in 2016.   Did that happen?  No?  Hmm.

And now, there's this: Donald Trump Gets Polling Win Amid Kamala Harris Surge (msn.com)  Donnie WINS, according to a poll of 2700 "likely voters" out of 200M registered voters.  It's possible it's more than 200M now that the young'uns have reached voting age, and their goddess, Taylor Swift, has swelled the voting public with her encouragement to register.

And how badly did Donnie strike down Harris?  Well, according to this poll, he's one point ahead, and the margin of error is 1.9 points.  So they're statistically tied.  According to this poll.  Among someone's selection of 1) "likely voters," who 2) agreed to respond to a questionnaire.

We learned from polls, including some newspaper's EXIT (!) poll and whatever indicator Clinton relied on, that polls aren't worth much.  (We used to think that the only poll that counted was the one on election day, until Donnie started proposing that we could disqualify that one, too, and call them wrong and thefts, if he didn't win.)  And this one is worth even less, because it's a very small number of people, and the results were within the margin of error.

Yes, of course I know that Donnie will claim that his is bigger, and his "evidence" is some fantasy that no matter how increasingly small his crowds are getting, and how increasingly large Harris' are getting, everyone's lying, and they do it with mirrors or AI, despite the reports from people on site.  I would expect nothing else from Donnie, that bastion of reality and unwavering honesty.  He's also gone so far as to tell us in advance that if he doesn't win, he'll claim this loss will be a theft, too, and he's asked us to expect a "bloodbath."  (There's a real American for you.  He's not threatening to throw boxes of tea into Boston Harbor, He's threatening to urge his supporters to kill people, sort of like he did...last time.)

So, the fact is that we will all know on November 6, and not a day sooner (unless someone is so blindingly trounced that they concede -- no, Donnie never concedes: 65 federal judges can't get him to give it up), and no current poll of 800, or 1000, or 2700 "likely voters" means anything.  I guess if you're desperate enough, you'll tell yourself it must mean something.

In the meantime, if you're desperately worried about Donnie, as a proportion of Americans are, you can keep sending him your money.  Donnie is not capable of supporting himself (and he's infamous for hiring people, then stiffing them), and he, like Blanche Dubois, "depend[s] on the kindness of strangers."  Would he accept your last nickel?  In a heartbeat, sucka.

Yeah, I Know. It's Only Maura Healey. But Still...

I was listening to WBUR (one of the two NPR stations in Boston) today, and they were interviewing Gov Maura Healey.  She used to be the Attorney General until she became the governor.

They have some serious issues up in Massachusetts, with homelessness, a good-sized hospital chain that was destroyed by venture capitalists and private equity people (can you call that kind of vermin "people?"), and an influx of unexpected new residents compliments of garbage like little Ronnie DeSantis, whatever he thinks he's trying to prove.  But the Commonwealth, and Gov Healey, are doing the best they can.

At the end of the interview, Healey said what everyone knows, which is that Donnie Trump has one interest in life, and it's himself.

People were very concerned about Biden, and he finally did the right thing, and stepped aside.  Since then, there's been a torrent of support for Harris, and somehow even more after she chose Walz as a running mate.  And this is despite the absence of a primary, which is owed to the public, and continuing and increasing condemnation of Netanyahu's crusade against all Palestinians.  Even increasing numbers of Israelis are complaining about this genocide, and Harris hasn't even bothered to say she disagrees.

But just now, I saw an article discussing a "shock poll" that showed that an increasing proportion of the public now consider Democrats to be the best stewards of the economy.  Shock poll reveals who Americans trust more to handle the economy (msn.com) Although it's true that over time (at least since Reagan), no one has been more fiscally irresponsible than Republicans, they have somehow continued to ride this bucking bronco about how they're more trustworthy regarding the American economy.  Not any more.  People are finally awakening from their stupor, and realizing who actually cares about them, and the country, and its finances.

I have no illusions.  Donnie will get votes.  Some Americans/voters will never get it.  Or they just won't be able to bring themselves to admit it.  But if we succeed in electing Harris and Walz, which it seems increasingly likely we'll do, we can at least try to claw our way out of the mess that Reagan, and W, and Trump, made, and which, sadly, Obama and Biden didn't correct.  Here's hoping we elect that prosecutor, AG, Senator, and VP as our next president.  If we don't, we can kiss ourselves and our country goodbye.

This Is a Surprise?

Trump’s Anger Out of Control as Poll Numbers Keep Cratering (msn.com)

It appears that even Donnie's supporters are concerned, as if they didn't expect to see this kind of reaction and behavior.  I don't know anything about him, except what I read, and what I have seen of his rallies and his bizarre term in office, and I'm not in the least surprised that he calls Kamala Harris a bitch.  He has nasty nicknames for most people who aren't he, including other Republicans.

But Miriam Adelson never saw these kinds of reactions and output coming?  And she donates very large amounts of her own money?  I always say that in my experience, on the average, women are smarter than men.  Miriam Adelson is not an example, even if it could easily be argued that she's probably smarter than Donnie.  But it's also an example of how dumb people can become when they have too much money.  They can't make proper decisions.

At the very least, his so-called advisors "are...aware that they are unlikely to change a 78 year old man known for his stubbornness."  Although they somehow haven't given up entirely.  "He has to convince himself to leave the other garbage behind."  Good luck with that.  And this strategy -- that he can leave the other garbage behind -- is based on what?  His childlike total self-centeredness, stubbornness, and tendency to bully people don't suggest that kind of capacity.

I can't imagine why the advisors are hopeful, but at least they have brains enough to be "deeply rattled."

What seems shocking is the polling, that shows Harris not much ahead of Donnie.  But if I'm entirely honest and candid here, I have to confess that I do not respond to online questions regarding for whom I'm going to vote, because I want Harris to work hard, and not take the voters for granted, and I want Donnie to be his usual cocky and out to lunch self who assumes he has nothing to worry about.  Although I don't think people who answer online questions like that are the subjects of polls.  On the other hand, most polls are of a few or several hundred people or more, out of 200M, and the fact is that there's only one poll that counts.  It will happen on November 5.  So who knows how these people are chosen, or what the polls mean, apart from actually nothing?  (You might remember the very famous newspaper front page held up by Truman, that said "Dewey Beats Truman.")

The linked video is of an interview with a guy named Tim Miller.  Miller is always referred to as a conservative, but Brian Cohen, who is an arch progressive liberal, has him on a lot.  Miller is an example of a question I have that has never been answered: what, exactly, is the more normal Rep/con agenda?  What's their platform?  Miller, who is himself homosexual (and has a husband), must realize that the current Tea Party/MAGA movement doesn't approve of him, and it's always a puzzle why he still calls himself a Republican.  Unless he means an older style Republican, whatever that platform is.  It's hard work being a Republican.  You have to ignore reality, and you have to want to convince the public to want something that is averse to their best interests.  Yes, of course you have to cheat, and to rely on exorbitant amounts of private graft, but Miller always seems like a remarkably sensible, intelligent, and reasonable guy.  He's just a Republican, whatever that means to him, and he wants the Republicans to win, but he can discuss their problems, like Donnie.

So, yeah, between Donnie and JD, they're sinking like stones, and it's really hard to see how they don't get wiped out in November.  But they're trying.  They're accepting as much campaign money as they can lay their hands on, trying to keep who would likely vote against them from voting, trying to persuade Americans that they're being overrun by criminals (even though every statistic says we're definitely not), and whatever else they have to do.  It's what they always do.  It's really not a surprise.

It's Our Own Fault, One Way Or the Other.

I get e-mails all day, every day.  They request campaign donations for people running for office.  You get them, too.

Often enough, the hard sell is that the other candidate is ahead in building a campaign war chest, so it's really important to donate.  The other candidate, we're often told, is winning, as if they're winning the election, because they have more money.

A version of that has come true very recently.  Incumbents Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush both lost primaries, because (or we're told it's because) AIPAC unloaded tens of millions of dollars on their opponents.  In the primaries.  In favor people who represent the same party, but, for AIPAC's important purpose, are either not opposed to the genocide being perpetrated by Israel (Netanyahu), or didn't say they were opposed.  But Bowman and Bush were openly opposed.  So AIPAC's money floodgates opened wide.  And Bowman and Bush lost.

The issue, though, is why it's important who has how much money.  A side issue, of course, is that large donors are buying something, and they expect to receive what they've paid for.  That's between the donor and the candidate.  (If it occurs to you that you, the public, the voter, the taxpayer, the supposed constituent, are missing from this deceptively simple equation, you're absolutely right.  This has nothing to do with you.  You're a pawn.  You're a stooge.  But at the same time, you're in a weird, indirect way sort of the point, because electeds don't get elected unless you vote for them.  And "therein," the Bard tells us, "lies the rub."  How can you be completely irrelevant, and even often enough a victim, while at the same time being the point?)

American politics are amazingly corrupt, especially considering they were intended to be a democracy.  You might not have any wish to live in a dictatorship, and your initial impression might be that you don't like them, but you understand them.  Someone wishes to be in power, and often enough raid the public coffers, so they elbow everyone else out of the way in one way or another.  You understand the goal, and it's not hard to see how it gets achieved.  But you don't think you live in a dictatorship, because where you live, you get to choose who's in office.  That's what you tell yourself.  So what's with the very well-funded war chests?  What's with AIPAC?  Why don't candidates simply make their arguments, have some debates, and see who's more persuasive?

The problem is, what if the arguments, or platforms, are terrible, and almost no one would favor them?  But you still, somehow, want to win an election, on the "strength" of an argument with which few people would agree, and will imperil or disadvantage most people?  Well...you sort of have to cheat, in one way or another.  The easy way to cheat is not to tell the public/voters the truth.  And that certainly happens.  Or you convert your position (or the title of a Bill) into some sort of legalese so that it's not recognizable for what it is.  In fact, it's proposed as the opposite of what it really is.

Or you can stop the people who are most likely to disagree with you from voting.  That's also an industry.  If you think the people with the greatest disadvantages, who get themselves in legal trouble trying to cope with their disadvantages, would be more likely to vote for a candidate who offers advantages, or some sort of repair, you just invent a new law that says that anyone who was in legal trouble can't vote.  Ever.  Or, if you can identify large enough groups of people who wouldn't agree with you, and would vote for someone else, you invent a voting district, just for them, and lump them all into that district, so as many of them as possible get to vote for one candidate, and everyone else gets to vote for several candidates, or lots of them.  But still, that has nothing obvious to do with those very large donations.

I said something wrong many months ago, and someone corrected me privately.  I said that broadcast media were required to broadcast, for free, emergency alerts.  It did used to be that way, but Reagan ended the requirement.  I have no idea why Reagan would have wanted to keep the public unaware of emergency alerts, but it raises an issue.  It sort of raises two of them.  They might, in theory, have nothing to do with each other, except they both contribute to the money train and the corruption in American "democracy."

First, let's suppose that politicians, who were not themselves being bought off by, for example, the broadcast media -- I still don't know why they would object to donating a few seconds to emergency alerts -- realized that Reagan imperiled the public, and they reinstated the requirement for the free emergency alert broadcasts.  If they could take that step -- it sounds like a small step (but "a giant leap for mankind," so to speak) -- maybe it would occur to them that there are other things the broadcast media should be required to broadcast for free.  For the sake of discussion, I would propose that they give equal time to all political candidates, and broadcast whatever the candidates want to say.  Let them give us their best argument, for free, and they're not allowed to spend money on yard signs or anything else.  Mano a mano.  The problem is that someone would have to pass a law like that, and the people who would have to pass it are the incumbents, who would in no way agree to give challengers the same chance the incumbents have.  (It's a well-known farce how much time incumbents spend on the phone getting their besties to donate, instead of, you know, being in their house of Congress and doing the public's business.)  They have an advantage, and they want to keep it that way.

One reason, then, to have a lot of money is that it helps you cheat.  An indirect part of cheating is buying visibility, on TV, with yard signs, or any other method.  And that brings us to the other reason for the need for money.  I regret to say that the public is more or less tragically influenceable.  If candidates bombard them with exposure, the public have shown a willingness to take the easy route, and assume that whoever is most visible must be better.  The public do not evaluate the candidates and their arguments.  They can't be bothered, and besides, campaign seasons are very protracted, at least on a national level.  (That's the linchpin to the other problem.)  How much time and effort are most people going to spend evaluating candidates over the course of many months or more than a year, when they can just rely on some easy-to-remember-and-repeat soundbites that they hear frequently?

What we need, then, is much shorter campaigns, and no private money.  Candidates have limited time to make their best arguments, and all they get is that argument, for which they have the same opportunity as do their competition.  When I say limited time, the UK had an election in the very recent past.  From the time the dissolution of government was announced until the new election was less than a month.  Either you've been successful at making a compelling argument, or you already have a positive reputation, or maybe the voters just want someone new.  But it just doesn't take that long, or cost that much.

As for cost, my proposal is zero.  Coming back to Reagan, or before him, we know that our government can care about the public first, and demand that broadcast media provide emergency alerts, for example, for free.  Broadcast media would not like to provide political advertising for free, because they make a great deal of their income that way.  And we all know how marginal is their income.  But if we could get Americans to pay taxes, especially those Americans with way more money and income than they need, or for which they have any use anyway, then the government can pay the broadcast media a fair, not inflated, rate.

My own theory, which I might or might not have shared in the past, is that anyone who wants to run for office qualifies on day 1.  From then on, each candidate has to provide an increasing number of signatures of voters who want to see them stay in the race.  We're not talking about the candidate for whom they plan to vote, but just someone who inspires enough to lead voters to want them in the race.  As the number of required signatures, maybe every two weeks, for example, gets larger, and not enough voters see the value of a given candidate in the race any more, then that candidate is dropped.  At the end, we might have one candidate.  Or 15.  And whoever is left is who goes on the ballot.  No private money, and no mind-numbingly protracted campaigns.  Candidates no longer get paid for, bought, and owned (their constituency really is the public!), and the public can go to the trouble to think seriously about what's best for them and the country.  Just for a limited amount of time.

Dems Are Taking the Wrong Approach

I get e-mail after e-mail taunting little Donnie Trump, and challenging him to agree to a debate with Kamala Harris, without a net (his protectors who run interference for him at Fox "News.")

But what's to debate?  The fact that little Donnie's tail is farther between his legs than anyone imagined a tail could go, and the fact that little Donnie lies continually, and the fact that Harris is a former prosecutor who knows very well how to deal with riff-raff like little Donnie, and the fact that we already watched little Donnie screw up four years in the White House, really says everything that has to be said.

Where would little Donnie be without Mitchy McConnell, and the SCOTUS supermajority Mitchy confirmed for him?  He'd be watching very late night nonsense on television, masturbating into his social media, and trying hard not to drown in the bathtub.

If I were Harris, or the people running her campaign, I wouldn't say another word about it.  She already said she'd be there waiting at her podium on the originally scheduled day, and there's nothing more to say.  She should be there, as Jon Ossoff was there when David Perdue chickened out.  They can ask her questions, including hard questions, and she can answer them.  She's running for president, and she's a normal person.  She must have a platform, or a theory, or an approach to various issues, and she should reveal them.  Little Donnie doesn't count any more.  "No, but..."  "Only if..."  Who cares about little Donnie's dodges any more?

Sure, he'll get some votes.  The reason for dog whistles is the presence of instinct-driven dogs.

But it's all over now.  The polls show it, and everyone knows it.

Harris is excited and proud of herself, and in my opinion, she gives too many big smiles.  This is a serious job, it's hard, if you do it right, and every day that she doesn't cut off the Israelis, more innocent Palestinians, and aid workers, and journalists, get killed.  And DeJoy is still there fucking up everyone's mail.  Harris and Biden need to straighten that out, NOW!

But November?  It's taken care of.  Harris, her campaign team, and Dems can't get fixated on that any more.  Harris and her team can't bother about little Donnie and his ultra-generous backing that's not doing him any good.  He's shot himself in the foot so many times that he probably needs a leg amputated by now.  And if, in reality, he doesn't have any leg to stand on, then he can have them both amputated.

This party's over.  I know there have been many people, and an increasing number of them, who say this Party's over.  Maybe so.  It's a lot of self-inflicted injury.  Nobody told them to do that.  People keep telling them not to.