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Puppy loves the rain!

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Allow me to be crystal clear: I love my new puppy, Sabol, beyond all that is reasonable.

However — and this is not a deal breaker — Sabol, it turns out, loves the rain. She loves it so much that when it pours, I can hardly get her to come into the house.

The sky opened up today in Princeton. It poured off and on for most of the day. What did Sabol do? She wanted to go outside into the deluge!

Understand this: Toby the Puppy hated water. He hated rainfall. He hated lawn sprinklers. The only time Toby tolerated rain occurred when he was taking a bath.

These days, I am left to struggle to keep my new puppy inside where it’s dry … and where she won’t stink to high heaven when her fur dries.

Doggie parenthood does have its challenges.

national news

Nation will survive

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Allow me this opportunity to speak well of the system of government that our nation’s founders created more than two centuries ago.

Friends of mine have said — and they are only half-joking — that they are going to leave the US of A in case the wrong candidate wins the next presidential election. Me? I am staying put. Why? Because my faith in the Constitution will remain strong.

I voted early for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. I declared my preference for this contest a long time ago. I am a “never Trumper.” I never would cast my ballot for this totally unfit human being. I said so even before he rode the escalator in June 2015 to declare his intention to run for president in 2016.

Despite all the threats this guy has made, the Constitution has built in safeguards that those of us who oppose this individual can deploy. It does provide for impeachment. The courts — even with the right-wingers sitting on the bench — also can be summoned to make key decisions that could block what this madman would want to do.

I am hoping for a Harris-Walz victory. I make no bones about who I want to take the oath of office next January. However, I happen to love living in the greatest nation on Earth. I intend to stay here … for the duration of the time God gives me to breathe freely.

I have sought to use this blog as a weapon to defeat Donald Trump. The Constitution gives me the protection I need to continue using in case the worst event comes to pass.

However, I remain increasingly hopeful that the correct candidate will take her oath next January.

political news

Waiting with bated breath

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Never in my entire — and admittedly lengthy — life can I remember waiting with such anticipation for the polls to close back east on Election Night.

That’s what I am doing today. It is mid-afternoon in North Texas. The polls close in New England and along the Atlantic Coast in about five hours. Once they do, we well might get an idea of whether the nation is returning to its old self of optimism and liberty … or whether we’re going to succumb to the dipshit notions pitched by a convicted felon, twice-impeached former POTUS.

You know what I want to happen. My gut and, yes, my trick knee are telling we might be going to sleep tonight with a hopeful smile. But it ain’t a lead-pipe cinch.

I heard enough of the campaign rhetoric. I have heard the sales pitches of both sides. I am now awaiting the results of what all those millions of campaign dollars have purchased for the candidates who spent them.

political news

Harris has the ‘big mo’

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Momentum well might be the great predictor of who finishes first in the 2024 presidential race.

From my North Texas vantage point, in a county that borders Democratic Party hotbed in Dallas County, it looks for all the world as if Vice President Kamala Harris has the “big mo” as she and Donald Trump gallop down the stretch.

Harris has declared she is going “all positive” in the final hours of this most bitter campaign. Trump’s strategy? He’s going in the other direction. Harris talks about her momentum. Trump refers to Democrats as members of a “demonic party.” Harris speaks of “joy in the morning.” Trump says an assailant would have to take out the “fake news” staffers to get to him, which he said “wouldn’t bother me.”

Who is sounding like a winner? Who’s the loser?

I dare not say out loud what I am hoping in my heart.

political news

Early vote smashes records!

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ABC News reported this morning that 47% of all Texas registered voters cast their ballots early in advance of Election Day.

Think for just a moment about that. Nearly half of all the state’s registered voters have spoken out. Does this mean that the early-vote strategy is going to produce a record overall turnout when all the ballots are counted?

Nationally, the early-vote turnout exceeds 78 million votes. That is slightly more than half of all the ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election.

This well could bode for a serious uptick in overall voter participation.

I have long been critical of early voting as a way to draw more people to the polls. Historically, early voting has enabled Americans to cast their ballots without having to wait in long lines on Election Day.  It hasn’t boosted total vote turnout.

This year might be different … to which I offer a huge hooray!

Sports news

Rarified air in grid polling

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Allow me this brief admission, which is that a long-suffering fan of the University of Oregon football program is finding it hard to breathe while the Ducks are perched at the tippy-top of a list of elite programs.

Yes, the Ducks have been good for some time now. They were ranked No. 1 briefly during the 2012 season. Then they ran into the Stanford Cardinal, which knocked the Ducks off their lofty perch.

I didn’t attend the U of O. I attended Portland State University. However, as a red-blooded American patriot who loves college football, I am enjoying the dickens out of watching the Ducks take care of business on the field.

A couple of points need to be made about Oregon’s rise to the top of the heap. One is that the Ducks now compete in the Big Ten, which for us Pacific Coast natives is akin to cheering for the enemy on the battlefield. In the old days, the Pac 12 competed for the right to play in the Rose Bowl, in which the other team was the Big Ten champion.

It’s all a mixed-up jumble now, with the Rose Bowl game tossed into the mix of bowl games designed to determine the national football champion.

The other thing is this “transfer portal” that seems to dominate college athletics. Student-athletes now are able transfer to schools just to compete in football or other top-drawer sports. The Ducks ‘ lineup now features a kid named Dillon Gabriel, who transferred to Oregon from Oklahoma.  Last year, the stud was QB Bo Nix, a transfer from Auburn. This transfer business makes it hard for fans like me to latch onto players who only are there for a season or two. They have zero loyalty to the school.

Marcus Mariota played QB for the Ducks and won the Heisman Trophy as the best college football player in the nation. He entered school as a freshman and stayed until he earned his degree … and then used up his football eligibility.

However, all this is just chatter. The college football know-it-alls think the Ducks are the top college team in the country and have them ranked No. 1. Those of us who remember all those lean years in Eugene will accept this new “elite” status happily … and with pride that the gridiron glory brings to the state of my birth.

media news

Trump can declare a form of victory

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Win or lose when they count the presidential election ballots on Tuesday, Donald J. Trump can declare an important victory in one of the side battles waged in this campaign.

I believe the Republican nominee has managed to bully major newspapers into forgoing a presidential endorsement in this most consequential election.

The Washington Post will be quiet on who it prefers to see elected. So will the New York Times. So will Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain. Major metropolitan daily news across the land have made the same decision.

Why is that? I believe that the GOP nominee’s insistence that the media are the “enemy of the people ” has managed to sink in. Publishers and senior editors have sought to explain themselves. No explanation is necessary.

They have been cowed into fearing how readers might react were they to recommend the election of Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. This election, though, cries out for some media leadership, particularly when we have a major-party presidential nominee who is so demonstrably unfit to serve in the office he seeks.

I take no joy in recognizing what I believe is a tactical victory for Trump. I’ll just have to swallow hard.

national news

Who’s up? Who’s down? Who can tell?

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Those damn political polls continue to confound me, as they tell conflicting stories all at the same time.

Vice President Kamala Harris is (a) on the verge of a blowout victory next week, (b) is locked in a dead heat with Donald Trump, or (c) might be facing a landslide loss to the former TV reality host turned POTUS.

I have quit trying to insert my own view into what I believe will happen. I am left with only offering what I hope will happen on Election Day.

My hope is that Harris is harvesting most of what is left of the undecided cache of voters who despite knowing all we need to know about the boorishness of Donald Trump remains on the fence.

He recently held that rally in Madison Square Garden that proved to be a hotbed of hate; he said former Congresswoman Liz Cheney should be executed by firing squad for opposing his election as president; he continues to defame Harris’s intelligence and the smarts of the senior military officers who have declared Trump to be a fascist.

I am going to go with what my heart wants to believe, that Harris is on the cusp of making history as the nation’s first female/first woman of color to be elected president of the United States.

I won’t venture into the guessing game of predicting the margin. Trump’s character has been revealed for all the world to see. My hope is that the world detests what it sees.

Uncategorized

Heading down the stretch

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The rhetoric I am hearing these days tells me that the 2024 presidential election just might end in the manner I and millions of other Americans hope will occur.

There’s chatter about polling errors that could be revealed that place Vice President Kamala Harris in the driver’s seat en route to the Oval Office. Puerto Ricans are expressing rage over the comments about the island being populated by “garbage.” Donald Trump then clambered aboard a trash truck to, um, demonstrate something; it reminded me and others of the1988 campaign moment when Michael Dukakis boarded the tank and produced the Mother of Fatal Photo Ops.

Trump is flailing. Harris is sailing.

Will this be a runaway? Probably not. Pollsters are continuing to prepare us for a photo finish. I am continuing to have my doubts that the race will be as close as the pundits are telling us. I won’t predict a runaway, given my terrible record as a political predictor.

However, it is beginning to a bit better for the good guys.

national news

Electoral College … explained

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A social media “friend” asked me to explain the Electoral College, so that is what I will try to do.

You ready? Here goes.

The Electoral College comprises 538 votes, the number of people elected to the US House and Senate. The electors aren’t the actual senators and reps, but they are chosen to cast votes for president.

Each state has electors equal to the number of senators and reps who represent that state in Congress. Texas has 40 electoral votes, which equals the state’s 38 House members and two senators.

We go to the polls on Election Day and whoever wins that state’s electoral votes is entitled to garnering the state’s electoral votes. Except that the electors aren’t bound to follow the will of the voters. Occasionally, we see electors casting their presidential vote for someone other than the candidate who fielded the most votes on Election Day.

Ideally, what is supposed to happen is that the candidate with the most votes wins the most Electoral College votes, which are tabulated and ratified every Jan. 6, two weeks before the president is inaugurated. So … the infamous assault on the Capitol in 2021 occurred during a “normal” transition of power.

Joe Biden won the 2020 election with 306 electoral votes compared to the 232 compiled by Donald Trump. The winner needs to earn 270 electoral votes to win the election.

I won’t venture too far into the weeds to explain why the founders set it up this way, other than to presume they intended to spread the power among all the states. It’s interesting, therefore, to realize that the “battleground states” where Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump are fighting for votes are not among largest states. Texas, New York, California and Florida are not considered battlegrounds; that title belongs to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina … and you can throw in Arizona and Nevada as well.

Hope that explains it. Now I’ll have to shake my noggin to clear out the fog I just developed trying to make a bit of sense of it all.

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