The Nature of Things

As you may have heard, the United States had a presidential election last Tuesday. One of the candidates, a uniquely qualified woman, received over 60 million votes, approximately 1.2 million votes more than her opponent.  So, naturally, her opponent, a misogynist, racist, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, anti-science, admitted sexual predator, who seems incapable of moving his lips without lying, will become our next president.  This travesty is imposed on us by our anachronistic, profoundly undemocratic way of selecting our president and vice-president. These officers are not elected by the direct vote of citizens; the majority does not rule. Instead, they are selected by an outdated mechanism called the Electoral College , a product of our slave-holding beginnings as a nation. We are still paying the price of that original sin.  And so, for the second time in sixteen years, the candidate who received fewer votes in the election will become president. The will of the...

So, the election in the U.K. is over and the votes are counted. Let's hear all the results as reported and analyzed by Monty Python. Actually, this could apply to just about any election.  ( Hat tip to my Anglophile, Pythonphile daughter, Sarah .)

Have you? Early voting in Texas and many other states runs through Friday, October 31, Halloween. How appropriate is that? Failing to vote this year is the really scary thing. So make sure you exercise your constitutional right to cast that ballot. My vote may not change the outcome of the election. In fact, in the congressional district that I live in, I can just about guarantee that it won't. But it does ensure one thing - I will have a right to complain when the bastards who DO get elected screw up! I plan to fully exercise that right.

We've had a few days now to absorb and reflect on the news of Tuesday's election, and thank God it's over! The sense of satisfaction that many of us feel about the results has only deepened. One of the most mendacious campaigns for president in the history of the country was rejected by voters. Candidates for the senate who appealed to misogyny, racism, and magical economic thinking were mostly defeated. In the races for the House of Representatives, some of the worst of the worst ( I'm talking 'bout you Joe Walsh and Alan West! ) were defeated and others ( Michele Bachmann, Steve King, etc. ) had close calls and suffered scares which may bode well for the future. Even in Texas, the Republicans lost their super-majority in the state legislature and will no longer be able to ride roughshod over the objections of their opponents. It is very likely that except for the gerrymandering and the voter suppression efforts by Tea Party Republican state governments, the reject...

Today was election day and around the country voters said a loud and ringing "No!" to a lot of pet Republican initiatives. The vote which gives me personally the most satisfaction is the one in my birthplace of Mississippi which rejected the Republican proposition that a fertilized egg is a person deserving of all the rights and protections of personhood.  They had previously tried to sneak this abomination of a law by the voters of Colorado - twice! - and been rejected.  Now the voters of Mississippi have rejected them, too, and if they can't get approval for this idea in the ultra-conservative state of Mississippi, it is unlikely that they can get it passed anywhere.  That won't stop them from trying though.  They are already trying to get the initiative on the ballots in several states for next year. In Ohio, the voters rejected the idea that public employees do not have any collective bargaining rights and they did so by a very unambiguous margin.  Good for...

It's an off-year election but there is a lot riding on the outcome at the polls tomorrow. In Ohio, voters will decide whether public workers have rights to band together to negotiate contracts with their employers, but, in the end, it is not just the rights of public employees that are being determined, it is the right of all workers. It's the whole concept of collective bargaining that is at stake here, for that is what the Republican governor and legislature of Ohio are seeking to curtail.  If they are successful in getting the voters to approve the law that they passed earlier this year - and millions and millions of dollars have poured into the state from the usual suspects to try to make sure it is passed - then even more draconian laws more punitive to labor unions can be expected in coming legislative sessions.  If, on the other hands, the opponents of the law can manage to stop this movement in its tracks, then it may prove to be a bellwether for the fate of other suc...

IT'S ELECTION DAY. VOTE LIKE YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE DEPENDED ON IT! (Because it does, you know.)

It was primary day in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and Oregon, and an interesting one it was, too. At this hour, it has been determined that the tea party candidate, Rand Paul, has won the Republican primary for senator of Kentucky. The Democratic race for that office has been much closer with two strong candidates, the current Attorney General and Lt. Governor of the state. At present the Attorney General has a slim lead. Interestingly, both the Attorney General and the Lt. Governor have received more votes than Rand Paul did! I wonder if the mainstream media will mention that. I would guess not. In Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter found that switching parties was not the golden ticket to continued incumbency that he had thought. Rep. Joe Sestak beat him rather decisively. It will be a tough battle for Sestak in the general election, but he might just pull it off. He's a pretty tough campaigner. The really interesting race in Pennsylvania was the special election for the...