November 30, 1920. The Anglo Irish War heats up.

The way the IRA viewed it, Ireland had declared war, more or less, some time prior. The terrorist campaign and occasional military action launched by the IRA had been authorized by the self organized Irish Dail some time prior, which claimed to be the legitimate parliament for Ireland.

The British insertion of the Black & Tans, however, had caused the war against the IRA to take a new more violent swing, and the IRA struck back. That caused British fears that the IRA would strike in the United Kingdom itself.

The struggle was heating up.

In a location of other resolutions in this time period, Adolfo de la Huerta was in his last day as the President of Mexico.  Obregon had won the Presidential election in Mexico as the transfer of power, in this instance, would occur, and would be peaceful.

De la Huerta.

Which didn't mean that De la Huerta wouldn't attempt an overthrow of the government in the future.

For the time being, he became the secretary of finance in the new administration.

Page Updates for 2020

Page updates for January, 2020.

1.  They were lawyers.  Mike Pompeo.  January 12, 2020.

2. They were soldiers.  Mike Pompeo and DeForest Kelley.  January 12, 2020.

3.  The Dodge 3500 Project

4.  They were soldiers.  James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor, Oliver Stone.  January 18, 2020.

5.  Cast Iron.

6.  Tiny cast iron frying pans, February 16, 2020.

7.  They were soldiers.  Tony Randall.  February 26, 2020.

8.  They were soldiers, James Montgomery Doohan.  March 3, 2020.

9.  They were soldiers, Max Von Sydow.  March 11, 2020

10.  They were lawyers:  Andrew Yang.  March 20, 2020.

11.  They were soldiers:  Tulsi Gabbard.  March 20, 2020

12. They were soldiers:  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lee Van Cleef, Klaus Kinski.

13.  They were lawyers:  Huey Long, April 5, 2020.

14.  They were farmers, Alvaro Obregon., April 13, 2020.

15.  The Jeep TJ Project

16.  New category of Blog Links added, that being "Radio".

17.  Lots of new links added over the past year in blog links, fwiw.

18.  Cast Iron:  Waffle Iron.  April 28, 2020.

19.  They were soldiers:  William Pendley Perry and Hugh Beaumont, September 27, 2020.

20.  They were farmer:  Hugh Beaumont, September 27, 2020.

21.  They were Clerics:  Hugh Beaumont, September 27, 2020.

22.  Cast Iron, November 30, 2020.

Lex Anteinternet: What happens if you've seen 2001, A Space Odyssey ...

Lex Anteinternet: What happens if you've seen 2001, A Space Odyssey ...:   STRANGE NEWS Large Metal Monolith Mysteriously Appears In Remote Region Of Utah's Red Rock Country

And now its gone.

Since is recent discovery and disappeared, the object attracted a fair number of visitors, who in turn left quite a mess.

Nobody knows who put it there, or who took it away. Same folks?  Who knows.

Monday at the Bar: Justices lift New York’s COVID-related attendance limits on worship services

 

Justices lift New York’s COVID-related attendance limits on worship services

From Wind River to Carlisle: Indian Boarding Schools in Wyoming and the Nation

From Wind River to Carlisle: Indian Boarding Schools in Wyoming and the Nation

Blog Mirror: Geegaw Nation: revisited

 

Geegaw Nation: revisited

Pope Francis in the New York Times and the Fatigued Audience.

In the past here, up until this past year, when a Pope made a major statement I usually commented on it.  I've pretty much given up doing that with Pope Francis.  Indeed, I've come to the point where I dread his new proclamations as all too often they're followed by clarifications and explanations, and the like, and generate confusion.

Indeed, I find the Catholic Answers responses to this interesting.  I tend to find that the apologist who comments there that I like the most, Jimmy Akin, simply doesn't comment on them as they come up in general, an overall wise approach in my view.  Others take to trying to explain them which can be difficult not because they aren't explainable, but because the Holy Father simply isn't a good writer, at least in so far as the English translations of his works would have it, and he tends to speak without really internally vetting what he's saying.  Tim Staples, whom I normally don't listen to, was simply gushing in his praise of the Pope's most recent encyclical declaring it absolutely brilliant, for example, which probably was really only persuasive to those who were already convinced, and pretty much turned off by those who were.

The entire recent "Pope approves of civil unions" matter was such an example.  Put in context the Pope was in fact not declaring that the Church now approves of civil unions nor was it modifying its positions on marriage in general. But his remarks frankly were hard to explain and caused at least one really orthodox but not rad trad apologist, Matt Fradd, to react with despair.  Indeed, the Pope allowing his comments to end up in a public medium being misconstrued yet again, even if they predate his Papacy (which they seem to have) was pretty much the tipping point for a lot of orthodox Catholics who are not rad trads.  If he couldn't have prevented his comments from being used, which he very well might not have been able to do, and if they predated his Papacy, there should have been some quicker response than there ultimately was so that there wasn't a widespread press declaration confusing the rank and file in the pews and causing figures like Fr. James Martin to declare them to be "first steps", which they were not.  I.e., I think orthodox Catholics have sort of turned Pope Francis off, and "liberal" or "progressive" Catholics are an aging declining demographic whose views, frankly, really don't matter.  The support, therefore, by Fr. James Martin, SJ, really matters only to the Press, not so much the people in the pews.

Compounding this, while the Pope isn't a good writer, he's a proficient one, and its gotten so a person can hardly turn around without a new Papal writing appearing.  Just in the last couple of months he issued a new encyclical that was an extremely lengthy text which appeared to a be a summation of all of his prior encyclicals.  Indeed, this was so much the case I wondered if it was some sort of final compilation prior to a resignation.  It doesn't appear to be, but its hard to figure out why he issued an encyclical which is a lengthy summation of his prior encyclicals.

That wasn't his only writing, however, this year.  Just a few weeks ago the Pope issued Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, which I have not read and which I'm very unlikely to.  This book was apparently written during a Coronavirus lockdown and comments on a lot of contemporary social matters, including protests in the United States.  And now, over the past few days, he has an op ed in The New York Times.

I'll note here that I don't expect the Pope to really be familiar with the Times, and I'll give the Times credit for running it.  The Times does have one highly orthodox Catholic columnist on its staff who writers very Catholic themed articles.  Having said that, the Times isn't what it once was, so to a degree choosing the Times is an interesting choice by whomever made it.

Additionally, the Times has a "pay wall" and that means people who regularly read it will probably not be able to unless they're a subscriber, which there's no point in being.  Be that as it may, I did read it.

I was frankly prepared to dislike it as I'm frankly very tired of the Pope saying things that have to be explained as they creep up on falling outside of orthodoxy.  I'm like Matt Fradd and a lot of other loyal orthodox Catholics that way in which there's been so much, I'm just tired of it and probably have the volume on pretty low at this point.  A lot of us, rightly or wrongly, are at this point just marking time until the Boomer generation ages out of high Church offices and a new age of orthodoxy resumes, which it will.  It's not that we're not respectful or loyal to the Pope, but we're probably resuming the mental attitude of Catholics of the 18th Century or 19th Century who didn't really expect to hear from the Pope much and are accordingly sort of tuning out now.  Or maybe more accurately we may have the view of Eastern Rite Catholics who are fully Catholic in every sense but are more insular and traditional in ways that don't allow the outside world to impact them to the same degree.  Indeed, quite a few orthodox Catholics were headed in that direction anyhow. 

Well, at any rate, the Pope has published in the Times with an op ed entitled:

A Crisis Reveals What Is in Our Hearts

To come out of this pandemic better than we went in, we must let ourselves be touched by others’ pain.

We should note that headline writers, and not the authors, write headlines for papers like the times.  If that seems sort of an un Francis like headline and subheading, it probably is.  It was no doubt written by the Times.

Anyhow, I read the entire op ed and didn't find anything unorthodox or shocking, although it may be signaling an intended effort, which I'll address below. So as is frequently the case, I was a bit pleasantly surprised.  So far on Francis' encyclicals, I've found them that way.  I also find their views often uniquely foreign in a way, but then he isn't an American, after all.

A lot of the Pope's article is personal about the events leading up to his lung removal many years ago, and the experience of pain and illness.  A lot of it is, in fact, deeply personal and an homage to two sisters who were nurses when he was ill, noting as he ties it back in:

Whether or not they were conscious of it, their choice testified to a belief: that it is better to live a shorter life serving others than a longer one resisting that call. That’s why, in many countries, people stood at their windows or on their doorsteps to applaud them in gratitude and awe. They are the saints next door, who have awakened something important in our hearts, making credible once more what we desire to instill by our preaching.

My conservative friends, I'm afraid, aren't going to like it. There's pretty clearly a swipe at Americans, and perhaps the Trump Administration, and a common view in the United States, where he states:

With some exceptions, governments have made great efforts to put the well-being of their people first, acting decisively to protect health and to save lives. The exceptions have been some governments that shrugged off the painful evidence of mounting deaths, with inevitable, grievous consequences. But most governments acted responsibly, imposing strict measures to contain the outbreak.

Yet some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions — as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom! Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals. It means having a regard for all citizens and seeking to respond effectively to the needs of the least fortunate.

It is all too easy for some to take an idea — in this case, for example, personal freedom — and turn it into an ideology, creating a prism through which they judge everything.

This gets into an interesting Catholic belief which is that governments, all governments, derive their authority from God and therefore are charged, accordingly, with responsibilities.  That belief is the one that causes people to misconstrue the old "Devine right" of kings, which isn't what it means, so much as it means that all authority is ultimately God's and any legitimate exercise of authority, whatever it is, is only to the extent that God permits it, and therefore must be used accordingly.

Of course, this is also a lecture aimed at individualist who value personal freedom or collective safety in this context, which is something that has been seen all over the globe.  The Pope clearly disapproves.

And that's where the op ed then takes a big turn, returning to common Francis themes.

God asks us to dare to create something new. We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economies that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life: to land, lodging and labor. We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that affect their lives. We need to slow down, take stock and design better ways of living together on this earth.

The pandemic has exposed the paradox that while we are more connected, we are also more divided. Feverish consumerism breaks the bonds of belonging. It causes us to focus on our self-preservation and makes us anxious. Our fears are exacerbated and exploited by a certain kind of populist politics that seeks power over society. It is hard to build a culture of encounter, in which we meet as people with a shared dignity, within a throwaway culture that regards the well-being of the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and the unborn as peripheral to our own well-being.

To come out of this crisis better, we have to recover the knowledge that as a people we have a shared destination. The pandemic has reminded us that no one is saved alone. What ties us to one another is what we commonly call solidarity. Solidarity is more than acts of generosity, important as they are; it is the call to embrace the reality that we are bound by bonds of reciprocity. On this solid foundation we can build a better, different, human future.

In doing this its interesting to see the references to the Catholic Social Teaching of Solidarity.  Solidarity and Subsidiarity are old Catholic themes, prominent in the writings of Pope Leo XVIII and best recalled from Rarem Novarum.  A really well schooled Catholic will recognize the references to Solidarity right away, but Protestants, and frankly most Catholics for that matter, won't.

The editorial also recalls themes that Pope Francis has had throughout his papacy in regard to economics, and which seemingly have evolved towards a certain type of internationalism in a way more recently, but it's not specific on them.  Criticism of capitalism, however are nothing new in Catholic circles and indeed Rarem Novarum criticized both capitalism and socialism, giving rise to the development of distributism.  Interestingly, that latter fact is hardly noticed anywhere, and hasn't been by Pope Francis himself, perhaps because capitalism has come to so dominate free market economies that the free market concept of distributism is hardly known to even exist outside of the small population of (somewhat gadfly) distributists.

At any rate, it's not a bad editorial.  I doubt it'll be very impactful, however.  Pope Francis has spoken too much, and too vaguely, and written too much, and too vaguely, to really be noticed very much now outside of Catholic circles, and the orthodox, who would be most likely to normally listen and try to heed what he says, have assumed a sort of fatigued state of indifference.  There's some sort of lesson in all of that. 

And part of that lesson has to deal with his intent.  If you read all of his works that touch upon the economy, and there's a bunch, what you are left with is a pretty clear impression that Pope Francis is arguing for a overhauling of the entire global economy in a way that reflects his writings.  This would emphasize a certain sort of international Solidarity (in Catholic social teaching terms) acknowledging everyone as our brothers and sisters, with a certain sort of regionalism reflecting, vaguely, Subsidiarity, while also stress the need to aid the poor and not fall into the vices of consumerism.  Here too, however, the problem is that those themes have been intertwined with numerous other ones and never clarified, so they're lost, irrespective of whether we agree with them or not.

Popes, contrary to what some Rad Trads tend to believe, have never decreed anyone system of anything, including economics, to be "the" Catholic ideal.  And they're not going to.  So Pope Francis isn't straying off the well paved road in that respect.  But Pope's have been a lot more direct and succinct.  As Pope Francis hasn't been, it'd take a clear, limited and precise encyclical or writing to do that.  If that's coming, it's coming late in the day and after so much has already been written that getting everyone to turn the volume back up to listen will be difficult.

More on Societal Scurvy

We linked this in earlier this week, but perhaps we should have saved it for today:

Lex Anteinternet: SOCIETAL SCURVY:   SOCIETAL SCURVY

A series of related items appeared in the news today, and we'd pondered linking this in here.

The them of this entry from Catholic Stuff You Should Know has to deal with the impact of Sunday services in unknown and unseen ways.  It's excellently done, and deals with community, or lack of it, in this Pandemic Era.

We run a series here every Sunday, as the few folks who routinely stop in know, called Sunday Morning Scenes. These are, of course, just pictures from our companion blogs in which we've photographed churches, for the most part, although occasionally they include commentary.

There's no doubt that the pandemic has been hard on community, and that very much includes churches.  In my own region the Bishop of Cheyenne has suspended the obligation to attend Mass that Catholics normally have.  That is, church attendance isn't optional for Catholics, normally.  Right now it is here.

For a time the churches opened back up and when they did, I resumed going to Mass.  I missed it in more ways than one and felt an obligation to do so.  Indeed, I also was critical of the Bishops in the US stopping public Masses in general and felt they should not have.

Now, however, that we are in the thick of the pandemic I've not gone the last few weeks.  I may be in a category that's distinctly different from some others around here, but having watched Coronavirus rip through the legal community, killing at least one local lawyer and disabling, at least temporarily, some others, I'm taking this seriously.  Indeed, I'm in the "avoidance" category of people who isn't going to stores, and isn't going to restaurants, and the like right now.  I'm stilling going into my office as I have to, but for the next few weeks I'm riding this out by minimalizing my contact with people as much as I can.

There's no doubt, however, that this has crossed  over to a point that's having a negative personal impact on the psyche of a lot of people.  In today's news there are reports that alcohol and marihuana abuse are at an all time high.  Pornography use is as well. Both of these are addressed in the Societal Scurvy episode mentioned above.  In Japan suicide deaths for last month exceeded the the number of COVID deaths in that country and are back up at rates last scene in 2015, which of course is not all that long ago.

At some point, something has to be done, but what?  Will we break through this and be back out in January?  

On being cautious, while I rarely mention it I had a childhood asthma condition and after having talked to several people who have had it, and survived it, I'm pretty sure that the common views in some quarters that its not as bad as people claim don't hold up, at least for some people.  So, yes, I'm now worried.  Not panicked, but worried.

And I'm worried about society too.  People holed up and not getting out at all, some people naively fleeting to rural areas in the belief that it can't get to them there.  Things are not good right now.

I wonder if people dealt with this better in 1917-18?  I'm not convinced we are dealing with this well right now.  Indeed, in a lot of ways, I think we're less well situated to deal with it now, than we were then.

November 29, 1920. Monday Events.

The U.S. Post Office held a Christmas themed parade in Washington D. C. on this day in 1920.

On the same day, the Red Army invaded Armenia.

Soviet troops in Armenia.

Lenin famously declared the right of self determination of nations, none of which stopped the infant Soviet Union from invading those areas which had declared their independence and which had been part of Imperial Russia. The Baltic States had to fight for their independence, and by this point Poland and the Soviet Union had fought a war in which, had the Soviets won, and they nearly did, would have imposed Communism on Poland in 1920 and probably would have reincorporated the country into the Soviet Union.  Trotsky at the time, moreover, envisioned the Red Army continuing on to Berlin.

Armenia would regain her independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the oldest officially Christian nation in the world has continued to be beset by its neighbors to the present day.

Also on this day a newspaper photographer photographed the eclectic Adelaide Johnson.

Piece of marble being moved by oxen using a stone boat.

Johnson was a feminist sculptor who was able to launch her career following a settlement she received in a tragic accident.  She sculpted female centric themes and in later years would fall into poverty as she wouldn't sell her works for the prices she was offered, figuring they commanded more. She destroyed some publicly in later years in protests over this.  Her "bridesmaids" at her wedding were three sculpted figures of feminist and suffrage heroes, which might, or might not, be the work depicted below.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Redemption Church, was Kaycee United Methodist Church, Kaycee Wyoming

Churches of the West: Redemption Church, was Kaycee United Methodist Chu...: 

Redemption Church, was Kaycee United Methodist Church, Kaycee Wyoming

We rarely feature a church twice here, although occasionally we do if there's a reason.  This is one such example.

We posted on the Kaycee United Methodist Church quite some time ago in this post:

Churches of the West: Kaycee United Methodist Church, Kaycee Wyoming: 

Kaycee Wyoming is a small ranching community in southern Johnson County. This Methodist Church is located there.

Here's the same church today:

The church is still there, but it's no longer a Methodist Church.  It's name indicates that it is the "Redemption" church which causes me to suppose its likely some type of non denominational protestant church.  That doesn't surprise me much because, in modern times, having a sufficient population of Methodists in a small town such as this would be a bit of a surprise for Wyoming.  I'd have expected the Baptist church, which is often the default protestant church in this part of the country, but a Methodist church is quite specific.  This is not to say, of course, that this pattern always holds.  For example, Shoshoni has a prominent Presbyterian church.

For much of modern small town Wyoming today, however, what we'd expect to see is probably a non denominational protestant church, maybe a Baptist church, a Catholic church, and a Mormon church.  We might omit any one of those, or perhaps half of those, depending upon how small and isolated the town is.  This contrast notably from a century ago, or half century ago, when an Episcopal Church would almost be a default for any small Wyoming town and we'd see more active small, but denominational, churches.

In all of this Wyoming follows a bit of the modern trend, although that trend isn't really properly analyzed as a rule.   There are very distinct doctrinal differences between the various protestant churches but a lot of rank and file protestants don't really acknowledge them very much which has given a boost to "non denominational" Christian churches which are not quite as non denominational as it might seem in real terms.

Anyhow, this church appears to have changed roles a bit.  I wonder what denomination originally built it?

Best Posts of the Week of November 22, 2020

 The best posts of the week of November 22, 2020/

2020 Election Post Mortem VII. Joe Biden and the "Catholic vote".

2020 Election Post Mortem VIII. What in the world is Donald Trump doing?

2020 Election Post Mortem IX. Monday At The Bar. The public gets a look at the American legal system. . .

Mid Week At Work. Large Animal Veterinarian

2020 Thanksgiving Reflections.

November 27.

2020 General Election, Part II

Blog Mirror: Bird’s Eye View of Sioux Camp at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 11/28/1890

 A remarkable and tragic image:

Bird’s Eye View of Sioux Camp at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 11/28/1890

November 28, 1920. Reprisal

On this day in 1920, a flying column of the Irish Republican Army ambushed trucks carrying officers of the Auxiliary police in Kilmichael, County Cork.

IRA Flying Column.

The 36 IRA volunteers assaulted the trucks carrying 18 Auxiliaries, killing 17 of them and wounding one.  Three IRA volunteers were killed.

While well executed from a military prospective, the real significance of the action was psychological in that it showed the IRA as capable of undertaking a military action and pulling it off, which hadn't always been the case.  It also demonstrated to the British that the war was escalating.

November 27.

 

Blog Mirror: Grow your Graditude

 

Grow your Gratitude

2020 Thanksgiving Reflections.

One of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms paintings used as wartime posters, first coming out in 1943.  They were based on his prewar January 1941 speech advocating for these freedoms. At the time of the speech, and certainly at the time of the war, a lot of people didn't have a freedom from want.

In some prior years I've put up a Thanksgiving Day post. Some years, I don't.

There's a lot of hubris in writing a blog, a principal part of that being the thoughts that 1) you have anything meaningful to say; and 2) anyone cares to read it.  In large part, probably neither of those are true, so no blogger should feel compelled to write an entry.  Still, some years. . . 

For a lot of people, this will be a Thanksgiving like no other. Well, rather, like no other one that that we recall. There are certainly plenty of North American Thanksgivings that more strongly resemble this one than we might imagine. * 

After all, the holiday was already fully established as a European religious observation long before the passengers of the Mayflower put in early as they were out of beer (which is in fact why they put in when they did).  We might imagine those early Thanksgiving celebrants looking like they were out of a Rockwell or Leyendecker illustration, but they likely rarely did.

Clean parents, chubby child. . . probably not very accurate for the early colonial period.  Carrying a matchlock on the way to church might be however, and not because they were going to hunt turkeys on the way home.  Illustration by J. C. Leyendecker from November 1917.

Indeed, a lot of the giving of thanks on days like this from prior eras was probably of a much more to the bone nature. The crop didn't fail, when it looked like it might.  The milk cow didn't bloat up and die.  The Algonquian's simply walked by the village a couple of months ago when it looked like they might attack.  That ship on the horizon wasn't a French one and no Troupes de Marne landed to raise the district.  The Spanish didn't arrive from the south.

Freedom from Fear.  For much of human history, most people lived in fear for at least some of the time.

Part of all of that, on top of it, was dealing with political and physical turmoil.

Smallpox arrived and went leaving people, if they were lucky, scarred for live.  The flu came and when it did people died nearly every time.  Horses kicked people in the ribs and they died in agony a few days later.  Dog and cat bites turned septic.  Tooth infections were caught too late causing fevers that went right to the brain and then on to death.

Storms came with only hours, or minutes, warning.  Hurricanes arrived with no notice.  Tornadoes ripped through villages at random.  Hail destroyed crops.  Early winters froze the crops in the ground. Spring thaws came suddenly and swept animals, houses, and people away.  Snow blocked travel and locked people who still had to work outdoors during the winter indoors.  People got lost, and then were lost forever.  Seafarers disappeared in winter storms and were never heard of again, or if they were they were, their washed up bodies were identified by the patterns in their wool sweaters, unique to individual villages, like dog tags of their day.

And added to that, there was the additional turmoil of vast struggles beyond people's control.  Catholics lived in fear of oppression from Protestants.  Protestant dissenters lived in fear of the Established Church.  Jews lived in fear of everyone.  Forces in England struggled against the Crown and each other and their fights spilled out to their colonies.  Native Americans lived in fear of a European population of an expansive nature that seemed to defy the laws of nature.  Africans lived in fear of slavers and if that fate befell them they thereafter lived in lifelong despair.

Freedom of Worship. Even this American value didn't come about until the scriveners of the Constitution prevented the United States from creating a state religion.  At the time of the Revolution the Congress had declared the Crown's tolerance of Catholicism in Quebec one of the "Intolerable Acts". As late as the Civil War Gen. Grant's General Order No. 11 targeted Jews.

The point is, I guess, that our ancestors endured all of this and made it.

Of course, they endured it better sometimes than in others.  When they lost the ability to at least get along, things got very bad indeed.  The most notable example, probably, came in 1860 to 1865 when Americans had reached the point where their differences could only be solved violently.

When those things got that way, one notable thing was the fragility of civility, order and even common sense.  In bad times Americans have done well if their leaders had a vision, even if disagreed with, and were clear about it, even if the opposition was distinct in that opposition.  A key to it was an overall sense that we were all in this together in spite of those differences.  The US did well as a society in the Great War, even with lots of failings, as it generally agreed with Wilson that something needed to be done in Europe and we had to do it, and even if we disagreed with that, we were all Americans and weren't going to send just our neighbor off to fight.  We did very well in World War Two uniting behind Franklin  Roosevelt and Harry Truman on the concept that we were a democratic nation, united by that, and we were going to bring those values to a world that had forgotten them, even if some wished the war hadn't ever come.  We did pretty well in the Cold War, with the exception of some real distress in the late 40s and early 50s, and again in the late 60s and early 70s, with the idea that we were freedom's sentinel, even if we didn't always like what that meant.

Right now, we're a mess.

We are not united on anything, and we've politicized everything.  And our polarization is massive.

We've been polarized of course before, but it's been sometime since we were this split, or so it would seem. Some would argue that we're really not, and that most are in the middle.

If we aren't mostly in the middle, the problem then becomes the point at which we arrive at a point at which we not only aren't, but we've reached the state where the polarized sides only see forcing their view at all costs upon the other as the solution.

Advanced nations have had that happen before.  Weimar Germany lived in a state of being that started off that way in 1918 and dissolved due to that in 1932.  It wasn't that there were not right wingers who valued democracy over force, or that there were not left wingers who valued democracy over force, but rather that people quit listening to them and opted for the parties that promised to force their views with dominating finality.

That is, of course, sort of what happened in 1860 to us, when one side decided that it had to have its way so much that it would leave to get it, and kill to maintain it.

Surely we're not there yet. But one thing we are is fatigued.  And that's not a good thing.  A lot of people have just had enough. They're worn down by the Pandemic. They're tired of politicians.  They don't want to hear anymore.  It's not that they're disinterested. 

They're tired.

So perhaps we can look back on those early North American Thanksgivings here a bit.  The crops didn't fail.  The North Koreans didn't attack South Korea. The Chinese didn't invade Taiwan.  The Russians didn't suddenly decide they wanted Poland back.

And yes, a lot of us fell ill, some will never fully recover, and some have died. That will continue on.  But as tragic as that is, we've had their better times and our prior health, and as grim as it is, it serves as a reminder that our path through here is temporary, and if, in the words of the old country song, we "don't have a home in this world anymore", well we never had a perfect one.

Freedom of speech, something which most people have not had except on a local level since at least the point at which society became advanced, but which is an American hallmark.

Related threads:

Thanksgiving Reflections

A Thanksgiving Passing

Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

*Thanksgiving isn't really a North American holiday any more than its just an American one, in the larger sense, and this confusing entry here reflects that.  I'm mostly referring to the United States in this entry, and the predecessor English colonies, but not exclusively, as can be seen by text above that's more applicable to other areas.

Blog Mirror: A Hundred Years Ago; A Thanksgiving Tale

A Thanksgiving Tale

Boston 1775: Abigail Adams’s Quiet Thanksgiving in 1798

Boston 1775: Abigail Adams’s Quiet Thanksgiving in 1798: On 29 Nov 1798, Abigail Adams sat down to an unusually small Thanksgiving dinner . An autumn Thanksgiving feast was an important tradit...

November 26, 1920. Distant scenes.

San Francisco Harbor.  November 26, 1920.  This would be right about the time my grandfather lived and worked in San Francisco as a teenager.

On this day Simon Karetnik was executed by the Bolsheviks in an example, one of many, of the Communists destroying other radicals.  Karetnik was a Ukrainian anarchist leader (yes, that's a ironic situation to be in) of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, and a quite successful one. The RIAU itself was fairly successful for some period of time in fighting the Russian Whites, but it was naïve in the extreme in deluding itself that there was a place for it in competition with the Reds, whom they resisted union with.

RIAU commanders, Karetnik third from left.

On this day in 1920 Karetnik and fellow RIAU officers went, with some reluctance, to a meeting with Red Army commander Mikhail Frunze who had ordered them place under a command of his army.  On the way they were arrested and executed.  Frunze was a successful Red Army commander who died in surgery in 1925.

RIAU commanders.

The entire event also helps demonstrate the absolute mess that Russia had become in its late imperial stage.  Anarchy was a theory that was never going to succeed because of its nature.  Revolutionary socialist other than the Communist were never going to prevail in a struggle as they were insufficiently organized and single minded.  The Whites couldn't succeed as they had no really strong central unity in fact or in theory. That doomed Russia to years of an alien whacky political theory that didn't match its nature or culture and which set Russia back so far in development that it is nowhere near overcoming it today.

The central feature of this rise of extremism had been a pre World War One governmental and economic system that was frozen in the distant past. With no outlet of any kind for a developing society, absurd economic and political theories festered underground.  It's no accident that many of these theories were the same as ones that were then also circulating in Germany and Austria, which likewise had old order monarchical systems going into World War One.

Be careful out there.

Okay, this is going to be an uncheery, pre Thanksgiving Day post.  But I'm going to note it anyhow.

This is about Coronavirus nonobservance and a modicum of self protection.  

Now, what I don't mean is the topic of people who dispute wearing masks entirely or things of that type.  No, what I mean is the interesting behavior of people who acknowledge all the public warnings and the instructions, and really feel they should be observed. . . except when it comes themselves.

I've noted it a lot.

This includes nearly every kind of recommendation regarding the disease, but most particularly the "don't pack up" and "wear a mask" in groups recommendations, warnings or orders.  People who will wear masks for their daily activities and wipe stuff down, but if they regularly go to the bars simply suspend every precaution.  It's as if they feel that COVID 19 lurks office hallways and grocery stores during the day, but it takes the night off if people go to the bar.  

Or people who wring their hands in angst when a family member gets the disease, as perhaps they should, but don't see any of the precautions that they felt should be taken regarding the afflicted one anywhere else.  "Wear a mask. . .stay inside. . .don't get near Cousin Luigi. . . let's go down to Walmart and I forgot my mask. . . "

We're gong to see a lot of that over the next several days, probably the next couple of months.

There are those who wouldn't dare go out in a crowd right now who will go into crowded kitchens on Thanksgiving Day, as you can only get the disease from coworkers or strangers at the supermarket, not Cousin Harry whose day job is taking complaints at the Denver International Airport "I lost my luggage from Wuhan" department and who at night is the accordion player for Sparky Spark and the Spunky Bunch.  Some people are going to linger maskless for holiday drinks with a coworker even though the spouse of the coworker has been sick in bed with "something" for the last few days, as you can't get it from somebody you are in close association with, only strangers.  People who will spray down an work surface with every known anti viral or anti bacterial substance right up to and including DDT, Agent Orange and Zyklon B will at the same time go about their regular day even though Junior was sent home from 7th Grade "not feeling well".  Some people are going go, as they do every day, for the Massive Flapjack, Waffle and Lox Bruch Hootenanny at Gigantic Twenty Four Hour Eatery as their pals are there and you can't get it from them, only those strangers that lurk at the mall.

And as the holidays are commencing some are going to hit the mall as its the holidays on the joyless Black Friday that always follows Thanksgiving, that day after which we honor the old Christian holiday giving thanks to God for the food on our tables by going out and buying a bunch of stuff in anticipation of missing the point of Christmas.

Okay, so what am I saying.

Well, I guess I'm in part saying the same thing the old desk sergeant did n the old series Hill Street Blues; "be careful out there".  

And I'm also saying folks need to think just a bit.  I don't want all the eateries and taverns out of business by any means, and I sure want small businesses to make it, but the lesson of the Spanish Flu is one to keep in mind.  It's called that as the King of Spain got it in 1918.

You aren't the King of Spain.

King Alfonso XIII.  If a pandemic could reach him. . . it can get to you.

Be careful out there.

November 25, 1920. Thanksgiving Day

It was Thanksgiving Day for 1920. 

Thanksgiving's date has moved over the years but this one was nearly on the exact same day as it will be this year, 2020.  Also the same as a century later, normally, there was a full slate of football games, including a local high school game, to entertain people on their Thursday off.

And it was the start of broadcasting those games as well, which you can read about here:

November 25, 1920: The First Broadcast of Play by Play College Football By Radio Station

Commercial radio, as we've discussed before, was brand new.  1920 was turning out to be quite a year for radio firsts.

My father used to listen to football and baseball both on the radio, and I've listed to baseball occasionally that way. Football is a sport I lost interest in when I was a kid, although my wife likes it.  I haven't listed to a football game on the radio for years, and probably haven't ever listened to one that way of my own volition.  Indeed, the last time I did that I think I was going hunting with a friend during football season and he wanted to listen to a game that was being played.

The day wasn't limited to team sports.  On the same day the Pulitzer Prize Trophy Race was held, which is mentioned in the newspaper above, and which you can read about on this blog here:

This Day In Aviation:  25 November 1920

Aviation was a new thing as well, as we have been tracking, and things associated were still so novel as to make the front page in newspapers.

Also on this day the last big event of the automobile racing season occurred with a 250 mile race in which the youngest of the Chevrolet brothers, Gaston, was killed.

Gaston Chevrolet.

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

Catherinettes parading in 1932 in Paris.  By this time the tradition must have been changing as a photograph from 1920 (copyright protected, apparently, and therefore unable to be posted here) shows a huge crowed of young women on the streets generally dressed in the fashions of the day, save for odd hats. The weather must have been colder on that 1920 day as well, as  they're all wearing coats.  This photo makes less sense, but the references to sailors probably is a bit more salacious.

Then, as now, magazines offered advice on how to cook the perfect Thanksgiving Dinner:

How to Serve a Great Thanksgiving Dinner, 1920 Style

Blog Mirror: A Haiku On Why You Should Give Up On Your Dreams And Pursue A Sensible, If Ultimately Unfulfilling, Career Instead

 

A Haiku On Why You Should Give Up On Your Dreams And Pursue A Sensible, If Ultimately Unfulfilling, Career Instead

What happens if you've seen 2001, A Space Odyssey one too many times.

 STRANGE NEWS

Large Metal Monolith Mysteriously Appears In Remote Region Of Utah's Red Rock Country

Mid Week At Work. Large Animal Veterinarian

It's one of those jobs I've always admired.  They work with animals, which I like anyhow, and with the big ones.  They're vital for the agricultural industry. And they go to all the farms and ranches and even have, at least around here, neat equipment like specialized 4x4 trucks.

 

I'm sure, like most occupations, it isn't anywhere near as glamourous, if that's the right word, or fun as it looks.  They're also out in all weather and on crappy roads a lot.  And they work a lot of weekends, including Sundays.

But then I work a lot of weekends, including Sundays, and I'm out on crappy roads sometimes myself.  Sometimes as a member of the bar, and sometimes as a stockman.  And in the latter instance, I've never minded working weekends, and in the former I've long accepted it.  I still don't like driving on crappy roads much, however.

When I was a kid, I was highly allergic to animals.  At least theoretically, I still am.  At some point in my youth we could no longer have a pet, and nearly every animal going was one I was allergic to.  Even when I first was practicing law, I couldn't really ride for long periods of time in a car with a dog without feeling the effects pretty severely.  Going to an indoor rodeo was the same way.  But then it seemed to go away for some reason, a gift from God really.  We have a dog, a double doodle (a breed which is kind to those with allergies, and for many years we had a Manx cat as well.

Anyhow, knowing that I was pretty allergic to animals would have kept me from pursuing being a veterinarian, if I'd ever thought of it.  But I still really admire their occupation.

SOCIETAL SCURVY

 

SOCIETAL SCURVY

Monday Morning Repeat for the Week of November 8, 2009.

 Again, the only post that week, and posted a bit late this week.

The Telephone

Blog Mirror: Change is Challenging (but normal)

 

Change is Challenging (but normal)

The 2020 General Election

November 3, 2020

Well, the day is finally here.  As results come in, we'll post them here. . . with commentary of course.

Cont:

Reports on the national news this morning indicate that stores are boarding up in Denver and other cities in anticipation of riots and violence.

I've already noted my concern on how this election will be handled in some quarters here:

A sense of dread.

Apparently I'm not the only one fearing what the reaction is going to be.  It's likely safe to say that if Trump is reelected, there will be violence in some left wing quarters.  Trump getting reelected, however, is extraordinarily unlikely.  Indeed, Colorado has one of the Senate seats that is most likely going to switch from Republican to Democrat.

The fear is there as well that strong Trump supporters are also going to react really badly, and running up to the election there's been several wild plots arising from right wing camps.  Beyond that, however, there are those who are aggressively Trump and don't seem to grasp that he's almost certain to lose.  While not directly connected, yesterday's disruption of a joint Natrona County/City of Casper meeting shows how badly things can go in the current climate.

Biden has campaigned on uniting the country, and that is going to have to be his first priority.  His general character is conciliatory as a rule, although not always so, so he may be suited for that.  His Vice President will be among the highly divisive, however, and therefore this will emphasize all the more that Biden will need to accomplish this rapidly, while he's there to do so, given the uncertainty that accompanies old age.

All this is written, of course, assuming a Biden victory, which the polls indicate to be a near certainty. Running up to the election the polls have also predicted a Democratic take over of the Senate, which we've discounted, but which late polls again show to be probable.

Would that we'd know all of this tonight, but that seems somewhat unlikely.

November 4, 2020

As of 0518 Wednesday morning, Joe Biden has secured 238 electoral votes and Donald Trump 218.  270 are needed to win.  This according to NPR whose election night tallies were quicker than the commercial networks'.  NPR has six states yet to come in.  

Nevada is one of those states and very helpfully started to knock of further counting until Friday morning.

Nevada Elections

@NVElect

· 1h

That’s it for election results updates until 9:00 am on Nov. 5. Here’s what has been counted so far: All in person early votes All in person Election Day votes All mail ballots through Nov. 2 1/2

Thanks Nevada, you're a real model of efficiency there.

Therefore, anyhow, the winner is not yet known.  Knowing the winner on the Wednesday following the Tuesday election is historically common.  

Election officials taking a big two day break is something else.

Trump prematurely claimed victory last night, which he really cannot claim at this point.  And Biden is in the lead.  It remains my prediction that he'll win.

As my loyal readers (reader?) may recall, my last prediction before the election, and before Nevada's post election day nap, was as follows:

The principal national questions are several fold. The big one is whether or not Donald Trump shall secure four more years in office.  Lately, he's been gaining in the polls, but his chances look doubtful.  

As part of that, the second question is whether we'll know the results tomorrow night, and if not, when.  A long process threatens to throw the country into chaos, and while I'll not entertain the most dire predictions that some have made, that won't be a good thing.

Finally, on the national scene, the question is also whether the GOP retains the Senate.  I feel that they will at this point, but pollsters give them less than a 50% chance of that.

I think I'll declare victory in my predictions, although that may too be premature.  Biden doesn't have far to go.

And the Senate race isn't known yet either. So far the Democrats have picked up a single seat.  Two independents caucus with the Democrats which means, right now, the Senate is 47 to 47.  Two Republican seats, Colorado's and Arizona's, flipped to the Democrats.   Alabama, however, flipped to the Republicans, and in a landslide for their Republican candidate.

Any takeaways so far on the Presidential Race?

Well, one best summed up by a Washington Post headline. Trump "flabbergasted the elites".

He has.

That would include pollerstrs once again. All the numerous predictions that edged up on a Biden landslide, which we'll note we also basically predicted, were wrong.  Trump has a lot more support in the country than anyone imagined, save for Trump diehards, who have to be both gloating and on the edge of their seats right now.

Locally, Cynthia Lummis one with 73% of the vote.  Marev Ben David took 27%, taking the majority of the votes in Teton County, something that points out how Teton County, in lots of ways, is atypical from Wyoming. Some would say not even part of Wyoming.  I thought that Ben David had a good chance of taking Fremont County, home of the Wind River Reservation, and Albany County, the home of the University of Wyoming, but this didn't occur. Still, I'd rate Ben David as having a good night.  Over a quarter of Wyomingites voted against Lummis and for Ben David, which is somewhat remarkable under the circumstances.  Having said that, 27% of Wyomingites voted for Joe Biden as well.  3% voted for third party Presidential candidates.

Surprisingly Elizabeth Cheney did not do as well in her race to secure reelection, although she certainly did well. She took 69% of the Wyoming vote.  Her Democratic challenger Lynette Grey Bull took 25%, however, less than Ben David or Biden.  Third parties took the balance in between.

The ballot initiative to remove the municipal debt limit passed, but barely, 51% to 49%.

And so we wait.

Nevada, we'll set a 9:00 wake up call for you for friday. . . no hitting snooze.

Cont:

While so far any claims that "you heard it hear first" on the results would be premature, one area where I'll note that I was accurate, but didn't expect to see it this election, is that Hispanic voters turned out in greater numbers for Trump than anticipated.  

Hispanics as a group (and there's some debate now that they can really be regarded as a group), still generally vote Democratic, but that's changing quickly now, and in places where that wasn't expected.

It should have been.  Hispanics are like prior immigrants. Their ethnic classification as a "race", which all such classifications being false in the first place, will be temporary as they're incorporated into the American mainstream, and its already changing.  Moreover, their association with the Democratic Party has been economic. As they rise in the American economy their voting concerns will lie elsewhere, and as an ethnic group they're culturally conservative.

Yesterday NPR reporters were noting that it appeared that older African American men were also voting for Trump in unanticipated numbers, which also doesn't mean that the majority of them are.  That generational cohort was definitely traditionally in a more liberal political class but it too has roots in a conservative culture that's been largely ignored.  

People have long been wondering how the GOP plans to survive as a party when it has been so unattractive to ethnic minorities.  Oddly, the answer may have accidentally been found.  Cultural conservatism is turning out to be an attractant. It's at an early stage, but its notable that it seems to have been present in this election, at least to some extent.

On another matter, The Washington Post, whose vote tally is lower than NPR's, is predicting, through its tally page, a Trump victory.  Again, I've been predicting a Biden one.  I'll abstain from changing as I still think I'm correct, but this is going to be far closer than anyone would have predicted.  NPR's Politics was still hinting at a Trump victory last night, albeit a close one.

Cont:

Using NPR's map, and adding up the leaning states, and throwing Alaska in for Trump, which is probable but for which there are no results yet gives Trump exactly 270 electoral votes.

Not one more, not one less.

We'll see.  Of note, North Carolina will be counting its mail in votes until Friday.

Cont:

An no sooner did I type out the above than Michigan and Wisconsin's leanings changed.

If you tally it up based on leanings, and throw in Alaska, Trump will take 267. I.e., if that's correct, he's lost.

The Washington Post also changed its predictions.  It has both dead even right now.

Cont:

Okay, at this point Trump has no path to victory. Biden has won.

And, yes, I'm calling this before others have, but I can do the math.

Which means my pre election prediction on the outcome of the Presidential race was correct.  I'm calling it as "you heard it hear first", even though it wasn't that accurate of a prediction.  Like everyone else, I didn't see it coming in this close at all.

And the fact that it is is this close means we're almost certainly in for a round of lawsuits and disputes. That won't change the results, and it won't help the nation.

Now, on other things, the final makeup of the Senate is still up in the air, but I'm predicting again it won't flip.

And to my huge surprise, four House seats have flipped to the Republicans.  I don't see the House gaining a Republican majority, but I didn't see that coming either.  There's still a lot of House races left to go, so how this comes out overall isn't clear. What does seem to be the case is that Trump's popularity in some states swept out Democratic Congressmen.

So, right now, we can call the Oval Office.  Joe Biden is the next President.

I think the House will remain Democratic, and that's a safe bet.  I think the Senate will remain republican, and McConnell and Graham retained their seats, but that isn't really a safe bet.

Cont:

So, while everyone is waiting for the official results on the national races, a few odds and ends.

The State of Utah passed a constitutional amendment providing for a state right to hunt and fish.  It provides:

Article I, Section 30. [Right to hunt and fish.]

(1) The individual right of the people to hunt and to fish is a valued part of the State's heritage and shall be forever preserved for the public good.

(2) The right under Subsection (1) includes the right to use traditional methods to hunt and to fish, subject only to statute, and rules and regulations adopted as provided by statute, to:

(a) promote wildlife conservation and management;

(b) provide reasonable regulation of hunting and fishing activities; and

(c) preserve the future of hunting and fishing.

(3) Public hunting and fishing shall be the preferred means of managing and controlling wildlife.

(4) This section does not affect:

(a) the law relating to trespass or property rights;

(b) the State's sovereign authority over the State's natural resources; or

(c) the State's obligation to manage lands granted to the State under the Enabling Act.

Utah isn't the first state to pass such a law, but its interesting to note how the movement to incorporate these provisions into state constitutions has spread to the West where hunting and fishing are strongly appreciated.

Utah also amended its state constitution to remove language allowing for involuntarily servitude as punishment for a crime.  This is one of those amendments that people tend to snicker at as they assume that it means more than it really does about the state passing it.  It has to be kept in mind that it wasn't all that long ago that many states had chain gangs and such things, which are a species of involuntary servitude.

Five states legalized recreational marijuana, the same being Montana, Arizona, Mississippi, New Jersey and South Dakota.  It's interesting to note that this means three of Wyoming's neighbors have now legalized marijuana whereas Wyoming has not, which means that law enforcement in Wyoming will be faced with additional problems as a result.

Oregon provided that its marijuana tax money should be used to fund drug treatment, which provides an interesting example of using a drug to fund treatment for problems caused by drugs.

Alaska defeated an effort to increase North Slope fuel production taxes.

Californians voted against a proposal to make some criminal sentences more strict and Oklahomans defeated a proposal to modify sentencing guidelines.  Kentuckians approved a proposal for consideration of criminal victims rights.  Michigan passed a proposal to require search warrants for the search of electronic data.

Cont:

Massachusetts voters rejected a ballot initiative to bring in ranked choice voting.

The Trump campaign has asked for a recount in Wisconsin.

Cont:  

So, by close of business, election business that is, on Wednesday Biden officially has 264 electoral college votes to Trump's 214.

In order to win reelection Trump would need to gain all four of the states whose contests are not called; Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.  He will get three of those, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.  He won't take Nevada.

Of course, Nevada, who let everyone go back to their day jobs until Friday, is now like the popular girl in high school. .  holding out for the last moment prom date announcement even though we know who she's going to the prom with already, which in this case is Joe Biden.  Nevada has six electoral votes which will give Biden all he needs with no room to spare.

In the parlance of the weird American color scheme system, Nevada will go the way of its flag. . . blue.

There's nearly no doubt, so the election is decided. Trump should not concede as Nevada decided to take a few days off and certainty is required.  After it comes in, however, he should, and the round of lawsuits about to be commenced should cease.  They probably won't, however.

Not that it will make a difference. The country is tired, and already people have basically accepted the result, even if the network news, sadly about a day behind the print news, won't admit it.

The Senate is at 48 GOP and 46 Democrat, with one Democratic gain, Hickenlooper of Colorado.  It's likely to remain Republican as we predicted, which is a big deal in context. There are four undecided races.

Those races include one in Alaska, where the Republican is far ahead.  They also include two in Georgia, where President Trump won in the General Election, where they are both tight, with one favoring the Republican and one favoring the Democrat.  And there's one in North Carolina with the Republican barely leading.  The Alaskan race will bring the GOP up to 49 Senators.  The Republicans lead in two of the remaining three, although only barely.  So there's a chance that the Senate shall switch, although it appears unlikely.  The Senate is going to be, however, very narrowly Republican.

The House is 204 Democrats to 190 Republicans right now, with 25 seats still undecided.  So far the GOP has picked up 6 seats.  Of the remaining 25 undecided seats Republicans are ahead in 16 of them.  If that holds, the final tally will see 206 Republican Congressmen and 209 Democrats.  There is one California House race that is too close to call and there's also one in which Democrats are leading but which is a dead heat.  Indeed, there are several undecided races that are within two percentage points right now.  That means, ironically, President Trump's predictions that the Republicans would take the House actually remains a possibility.  The House is going to be almost 50% Republican even in the best scenario for the Democrats.

Therefore, assuming this all holds, Joe Biden will take office with a Republican Senate that's Republican only narrowly and a Democratic House that's Democratic only barely. This would suggest that not only is the nation sharply divided, all the talk about the GOP being done for is wildly off the mark.  Both in the popular vote and in the electoral one, the Republicans are not only a contender, they're somewhat gaining ground.  Indeed, in the Gubernatorial races not only did the Governor of Montana not secure election to the Senate, the Governor's office went to a Republican, adding one to the Republican nationwide tally. One legislature, moreover, New Hampshire's, went from Democratic control to Republican.

All in all, therefore, the Republicans had a really good night, all things being considered. The pollsters were predicting a Democratic landslide.  Instead, the Democrats gained the Oval Office with no room to spare, the Republicans picked up a Governor's office and a state legislature, and held on, most likely, to the U.S. Senate.

Indeed, if these results hold, the Democrats took a shellacking.  With a massively unpopular President in the White House, they didn't take the Senate, lost ground in the House, and they lost ground in the states.  Overall, those are horrible results.

With this being the case, Joe Biden has two years to build some sort of national unity, which I guess he'll likely do. The Republicans have two years to build a post Trump party, which I think they'll likely do.  The radicals in the Democratic Party are likely defeated in favor of the center, and the alt right in the GOP is likely headed out as well.  The country seems to have voted to put Trump behind them, but maybe for no radicals moves as well.

A lot of pre election analysis focused on this election being a referendum on Trump.  It may have turned out to be more than than anyone could have expected.  The country didn't turn to the left and indeed, overall, turned to the center right.  In electing Biden, it seems to have simply indicated that it was tired of Donald Trump and the drama associated with him, and not much else.

November 5, 2020

In some statewide news, Sweetwater County saw the Libertarian candidate defeat the incumbent conservative Democrat for the House.  The Libertarian, Marshall Burt, and the popular Democrat, Stan Blake, are both employed by the Union Pacific. 

Burt becomes the first third party candidate to be elected to office in Wyoming in a century and the first Libertarian in the United States to be elected to any statewide office since 2002.

There is one House seat, it should be noted, where the sitting independent candidate defeated a Republican nominee.  In that case, the Independent is a former Democrat.

A couple of things can be taken away from this, although perhaps this shouldn't be analyzed too much.  One thing thing may be the general drift of the state's legislature, which has gone increasingly rightward in recent years and did again in this election. The incoming legislature is now more in the hard right camp than the last one, and the last one featured a lot of hard right candidates.  These individuals are far enough to the right that they can't really be described as conservative in conventional terms, and are more headed towards what is a certain sort of fairly extreme conservatism. That brand of conservatism is partially expressed in libertarian concepts, although not fully. The election of a Libertarian suggests that the movement is now popping out of the party and into the public in such a way that even a Libertarian candidate can be elected, and from a county that is traditionally Democratic.  This doesn't bode well for efforts to address revenue raising in the upcoming legislature.

Additionally, while the Democratic Party did really well in the General Election in finding two very notable women candidates for the House and Senate races, the party is now extremely thin at the local level.  The party did an excellent job of finding two really interesting candidates who did not reflect the real extremist wing of their party, and there was one who was running in the primary.  They now need to somehow focus on regaining seats in the Legislature.  

The state's legislature was lucky, in a way, that the national election turned out the way it did. While Republicans would have undoubtedly preferred for President Trump to be reelected, the Republican retention of the Senate and Republican gains in the House kept the state from entering a period of what would have been severe political isolation.  More on that will follow.

We've called, we'll note, the election on our companion blog Today In Wyoming's History as well.

November 3

Lots of past races on that entry as well.

Cont:

Developing today:

Trump campaign asks to enter Pennsylvania mail-in ballot challenge

There's likely to be an entire slate of these things, all of which are highly likely to go nowhere.

In other matters, one Georgia Senatorial contest is going to go into a runoff in January, given that it is so close. Georgia's law provides for that in certain circumstances.

Given that right now the Senate called races give the GOP 48 seats, the Democrats 46 seats, and Independents, who caucus with the Democrats, 2 seats, the race is dead even.  We believe that the GOP will retain the Senate, and of the remaining four uncalled races, three out of the four are leaning Republican.  Only one, however, is strongly leaning Republican.

The GOP will definitely end up with 49 seats. It needs two more than that to control the Senate.  The other races are so close that it's really fairly impossible to really tell how they will end up. As noted, we predict that the GOP will retain the Senate, but now two days after the election the question really isn't answered.  It's possible that it won't be answered until January.

It's also possible that the Senate will be split 50/50, in which case Kamala Harris will end up being an extraordinarily active Vice President and her role as the President of the Senate will be uniquely important. 

Cont:

It'll be interesting to see if this oddity holds.

Right now Nevada has 76% of its vote counted.

Biden is leading with 49.43%. Trump has 48.5%.

Libertarian Jo Jorgenson has .95%.

Now, it isn't safe to assume that all of the Libertarian votes would have gone to Trump if they didn't go to Jorgenson. . . or is it?  Libertarians aren't Democrats, to be sure, and they certainly aren't in this cycle.

If Trump had that added .95% he'd be leading in Nevada. Barely but leading.

Another third party candidate, Don Blankenship, is also scrubbing off GOP votes.  Blankenship is from the Constitution Party, which is a conservative party.  He's not getting enough votes such that if he wasn't running, Trump would be in the lead, but it is the case that in Nevada every last vote is going to count.

None of this is to suggest that third party candidates shouldn't run.  But, if this holds, this may be the election in which third parties end up deciding the race, and not in the direction that their members would have universally wished for.

November 6, 2020

With it becoming increasingly unlikely that ongoing counting would result in a Trump victory, the President made accusations of their being voting irregularities and resorted to litigation.  Not surprisingly, and as we predicted, suits filed in the President's effort have been very quickly dismissed and it is clear that they will go nowhere.  

A resort to litigation was long feared as a Trump last ditch strategy this year but those who wrung their hands over it have failed to appreciate that the Courts have always reacted fast and negatively to such efforts.  Most of the fear is based on the Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore which was exceptional in numerous ways.  Nonetheless, the President is now vowing to go to the Supreme Court and will likely seek to find an avenue to do so.  The pathway for that isn't clear and if one is found, the Supreme Court is almost certainly likely to leave election results alone.

As counting continues, the race in Georgia has narrowed and is now a dead heat  NPR had Georgia leaning to Trump up until this morning but as counting goes on, it now has the state leaning to Biden.  It's late counting results such as this, which are perfectly legitimate, which the Trump administration fears as now it appears possible that Biden's final count may well exceed the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the office.

As this has occurred, notable Republicans have remained nearly completely silent.  Failed candidates tend to be yesterday's news, at least for a time, and this would suggest that the GOP leadership has already moved on from Donald Trump.  Indeed, the Party, as earlier noted in this thread, had a remarkably good November 3 if other races are considered.

In response to Trump's abandonment by GOP leadership, his son's lashed out on Twitter and waged their campaign there, complaining about an overall lack of GOP support and thanking those who provided it, while arguing that irregularities are the problem their father currently faces, even though there's little evidence of the same.  Indeed, Trump, all things considered, grossly over performed expectations.

In other election news Nevada removed a state provision that defined marriage as being between opposite genders.  The constitutional protection was inactive, at least for the time being, due to the Obergefell decision.  News reports provided that the state acted to protect same gender unions as a right, but this appears to be completely incorrect.  Rather, the state's voters removed an inactive prohibition. While this stands as independent news, it should also signal the extent to which Nevada  should not be regarded as a deeply conservative state.

The City of Denver's voters lifted a ban on pit bulls.

World War One era poster depicting the American Pit Bull Terrier as the symbol of the United States.  I'm not personally a fan but clearly the breed has its proponents.

With all the close attention to states that remain undecided but which have very close races, it's hardly been noticed that Alaska, which has three electoral votes, remains at only 50% in its tally of counts.  It has the slowest counting process in the nation, partially due to an emphasis on security.

We'll see if I'm correct, but my prediction is that all the the still counting states save for Alaska will be done counting today and called by the AP.

Cont:

On Georgia, it now appears that there will be a double Senate runoff.  This would almost certainly mean that those races will determine control of the Senate.  This surprising result means that it won't be clear until January who will control the Senate.

It's also a good reason that systems like Georgia's are bad.  Joe Biden is ahead in votes in Georgia by only 917 votes right now, but he is ahead.  Irrespective of whether Trump or Biden have the most votes, no matter who has the most votes will take the state.  The fact that the same system doesn't apply to Georgia's Senatorial contest will throw the nation into further uncertainty and, moreover, likely make the Georgia races the most expensive in the history of the nation.

Cont:

It appears that the Post Office was late in delivering 150,000 ballots, including in states with tight races.

Ironically, the way this is playing out, that can only have hurt Donald Trump, not Joe Biden.  With some races on the razor's edge, but Trump needing all of those races, it was Trump, not Biden, that was hurt.  The irony lies on a late Post Master General's messing with the Post Office which couldn't conceivably have helped it.

Of course, not all of that would be the Post Office's fault.  Very late ballots in a year in which both candidates have received more votes than any other in history would have a lot to do with that as well.

Cont:

And now Biden is ahead in Pennsylvania.

It's super close, but Biden could end up with considerably more than the 270 electoral votes he'll need.  The popular vote, which has been somewhat discounted over the past four years, will also be Biden's but the overall tallies will be extremely close.

November 7, 2020

A ballot initiative in Colorado was very narrowly passed requiring the Colorado Department of Fish and Game to reintroduce wolves to the western slope of Colorado.

There's a lot that's wrong with this idea, including its geographic scope.  An NPR article on it depicted two Boomer hippy backers in their dwelling in Denver, the crowded weedy metropolis on the East slope where wolves won't be going.  I'd support introducing wolves to Denver, but that proposal wasn't made. . . not surprisingly. 

Additionally, wolves have reintroduced themselves to the West slope and don't need Flower Power to do it.  Given that, hopefully the Colorado fish and game can just maintain that the wolves self reintroduction accomplished the goal and manage that.

The United States Supreme Court ordered that late arriving mail in ballots be kept separate from other ballots but declined to order the state to stop counting them.

What this means long term isn't clear, but it may mean that the Supreme Court might look at the propriety of Pennsylvania's counting on these ballots.

Cont:

The AP, and hence NPR, have Joe Biden at 290 electoral votes, and therefore, as we said some time ago, its safe to assume he is the President Elect.

House and Senate results remain unchanged.

November 8, 2020

Spontaneous demonstrations in celebration of Biden's victory broke out in various large cities across the U.S. yesterday.  Last night Biden and Harris delivered victory speeches.  President Trump has not yet conceded the race and is falling back on legal action.  Suits filed in support of the administration are doomed and likely to be disposed of in short order.

The proposed amendment to the Wyoming Constitution failed to pass.

The returning state legislature will be more right wing than the preceding one, following a path it has taken over the last several years.  This will mean that its unlikely to support any of the various tax measures that have been proposed and the state can expect deep budget cuts.  It's also likely to but the legislature deeply out of sink with the Federal government, which may reach the point where the Federal government largely ignores the state, an unenviable position for the state to be in given the extent to which it relies upon the Federal government.

November 9, 2020

With so much attention being focused on the Presidential race, it's easy to forget that the results are still  coming in for the House and Senate.  It's also easy to forget that some states still have fewer returns in than the two three states that are still being watched for the Presidential race.

One of the states that's called for the Oval Office, but not entirely in, is California.  Three House seats in that state, widely regarded as a Democratic state, may flip to the GOP.

More precisely, they may flip back. The seats in question were Republican seats prior to the 2016 election, and may be once again.

This demonstrates quite frankly what we've otherwise said her today in regard to this being a centrist election and a referendum on Donald Trump.  It also emphasizes demographic trends, however, that the Democrats have assumed were in their favor but which, as we noted earlier, are turning out not to be.

Indeed, it's worth noting that of the five House seats that have been called and flipped this year, all flipped to the GOP.  The majority of the races that haven't been called are leaning to the Republicans as well, and while there aren't enough uncalled races left for the GOP to have a chance of taking the House, they came pretty close to doing just that.

November 10, 2020

Internal fighting has broken out in the Georgia GOP with two Georgia Senators demanding the resignation of the state's Republican Secretary of State.  He refused to resign, and the State's Republican Lt. Governor further announced that there was no credible evidence of voter fraud.

Donald Trump authorized the Department of Justice to pursue voting irregularities, if they exist. There is no evidence they do exist.  Faced with the President's position on this, the party is taking the position that he's "within his rights" to pursue such matters, which, in spite of the way its being taken in the press, is a lukewarm endorsement at best.  In reality, the GOP seems to be taking that position as a way of trying to get through the next three months with a lame duck President that seems willing to resort to the courts in what will prove to be a doomed effort to retain office.

Even Attorney General Barr was taking a lukewarm approach ot the matter as his memo to his department stated:  "specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched claims should not be a basis for initiating federal inquiries” and “nothing here should be taken as any indication that the Department has concluded that voting irregularities have impacted the outcome of any election.”  With that, Barr all but instructed his staff to ignore the President's push to investigate.  This dovetails with the GOP leadership and it can be anticipated that in a couple of weeks that Barr will announce nothing was found, and the GOP will declare the process over. The President will react badly.

Locally, the state's Congressional representation took mostly non committal positions with Cynthia Lummis' being the most committal, to the extent it was, in that she expressed confidence in Donald Trump prevailing in the election based upon a conversation with Vice President Mike Pence in which he expressed optimism.

In reality there's no way for Trump to retain the office and the challenge for Republicans is not to taint themselves by supporting court action, which will be widely detested by the electorate, and which will damage their chances in the Georgia run off for the Senate. Additionally, some effort needs to be made to secure a smooth transition of office, which right now President Trump isn't cooperating in.  Turmoil may further be developing inside the Administration itself, with the President having fired his Secretary of Defense yesterday. My guess is that Barr will lose his position before the end as well.

November 11, 2020

Alaska's super slow counting is finally resulting in some calls with the result now being that the GOP has 49 seats in the Senate and the Democrats 46.  There are three races left to go, two of which will being going into a runoff in January.

In the House, the Democrats will retain the it, but it's now at 218 to 202, with fifteen races left to be called. All of the uncalled races are leaning Republican, so the Democrats could end up holding the House by a single seat.

Indeed, right now, it looks like the Democrats will hold the House by one seat, and the Republicans will probably hold the Senate by one seat.

Georgia is doing a recount by hand.

On Georgia, one House seat that the Democrats did flip, although only barely, was the 7th Congressional District of Georgia.  It went from Republican to Democrat.  It was one of three House seats to flip to Democrats, but it was the only one that was close.  It was within two percentage points.

While there would be other ways to look at it, that means is that with the six seats the GOP picked up, they actually would have gained control of the House if they'd kept that one.  The pre election predictions of the GOP flipping the House very nearly came true.  The Republican Party did extremely well down ballot.

And Georgia will turn out, this year, to be the state that determined the makeup of Congress for the next two years at least.

Cont:

And now two additional Senate races have been called so the GOP has taken 50 seats and the Democrats 46. Two seats are occupied by Independents who caucus with the Democrats, given them effectively 48 seats. Two seats, both from Georgia, are subject to Georgia runoffs which will occur in January.

The best case scenario, therefore, for Democrats is to take those two seats in which case the Senate is tied, 50 each.  In that case the Vice President as the President of the Senate can cast tie breaking votes.  The Republicans only need one of the two seats to have a majority.  Both seats are presently held by Republicans, but obviously they aren't safe seats.

November 12, 2020

It's being reported in legal circles that at least one of the law firms that President Trump's campaign has been relying upon for legal challenges on the election results is experiencing internal firm dissention over the representation.  This is remarkable in that this firm has represented some highly unpopular causes in the past.

According to reports, lawyers within the firm are questioning the efforts due to the reaction they are receiving.  Negative reaction to firms based on their client's causes are not unusual, and aren't, apparently, to the particular firm.  The difference here may be that the representation will be taken in some quarters as being contrary to democratic principles. In legal circles almost no one gives any of the challenges any serious chance of reversing the outcome.  A Trump spokesman noted that they're expected to be completed within a couple of weeks which is the same estimate of time we provided the other day.  Generally courts dispose of such challenges quite quickly.

The Trump Administration is being shaken up post election, something extremely unusual for a departing administration.  It'll be interesting to see if any new appointments which require confirmation will be taken up by the Senate given that there's little point to doing so and it may serve as a distraction from the race in Georgia.  

One GOP Senator has imposed a deadline on the Administration to start sharing intelligence briefings with President Elect Biden.  These are typically done for the incoming administration but are not presently occurring.  If the deadline isn't met, the Senator "will take it up", although it's not clear what that means.  The delay in 2000 to share the briefings is being blamed in part for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, although given as that occurred nearly a year later, its difficult to see how that would really have been the case.

November 14, 2020

Georgia now remains the only state that hasn't been called by the AP with North Carolina having come in for Trump. The current tally therefore is 290 electoral votes for Joe Biden and 232 for Donald Trump.  

As widely reported on, a slate of legal actions, none of which stands any chance of success, has been filed by Trump's campaign or his backers, although one has already been voluntarily dismissed in Arizona. The purpose of filing the suits has been widely debated and attributed to such varying goals as simply hoping against hope to reverse enough results to result in a victory or, as set out in the pre election article by The Atlantic, to delay the certification of the official results in enough states to throw choosing their electors to Republican legislators who, it's hoped, would choose Trump delegates.  The latter result would totally discredit a second Trump term and probably result in the Democrats winning the Senate run off in Georgia and a second Trump impeachment in the Spring.  Whether that goal is seriously entertained is of course not known and it there's good reason to believe the effort is simply hoping against hope.  In event, no credible legal observer gives this effort any chance of success and even at least one of the law firms involved is reported to be internally questioning their association with the effort.

There are some reports that Rudy Giuliani has been tasked with overall leadership on the lawsuit effort.

In the House, where the Republicans are doing really well, the results now reflect 219 Democratic seats and 203 Republicans ones. The remaining 13 uncalled races are all leaning Republican.  This means my counting was in error the other day as the final result is likely to be 219 Democrats to 216 Republicans, an uncomfortable three seat margin.

Two of the seats flipped to Republican control were in California which has been regarded as increasingly solid Democratic but obviously isn't completely so.  Young Kim regained an Orange County seat that has been lost just two years ago.

Cont:

Nine of the legal actions filed last week have been dismissed, one voluntarily.  Adding to that, the lawyers from one Pennsylvania case informed the court that they were withdrawing from the case, indicating they almost certainly are in strong disagreement with their client about continuing to prosecute the case.

While some of these matters will now go on to appellate courts, this effectively means that Trumps legal strategy has met with practical defeat.  None of this is a surprise to legal observers, myself included.  There was never any serious chance of these suits prevailing.  If the thought was to slow the process so that legislatures would chose the electors, the strategist apparently didn't take into account that courts are capable of very rapid decisions in matters such as this.

November 15, 2020

Republican lawmakers in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have declared that they will not intervene in the selection of electors with some noting that doing so would violate state law and defy the vote of the people.

If the hope of the Trump administration was to have state legislators pick electors that would favor Trump in the electoral college, after delaying the certification of the election through lawsuits, or by otherwise gumming the process up through suits, as The Atlantic has claimed, this puts a definitive end to that remote possibility.

November 16, 2020

An odd occurrence in an odd election happened yesterday when President Trump issued a tweet that stated that Joe Biden had "won" the election due to cheating.  This occurred just before the Sunday morning news programs and the networks immediately contacted a representative of the administration to find out if this signaled a type of concession of the election, and received confirmation that it had.  By the end of the morning news programs, however, Trump was back on Twitter indicating that he was not conceding.

There's quite a bit of speculation that this will the Trump position giong forward.  He may simply not concede but end up admitting that Biden won, preserving a "lost cause" myth which has already been compared to the Lost Cause myth of the Confederacy.  The reason for this isn't clear, and it may just reflect his personality.  It has been noted, however, that money being raised for the completely doomed legal actions will be possible to keep, and this may be future seed money for Trump to attempt a run in 2024, which is already being speculated on.

A lot of commentary has been forthcoming on whether the administration's efforts should be abandoned by Republicans as its likely to hurt them.  John Bolton urged Republicans over the weekend to take that position.  So far, only a few are.  The though in part here may be that failing to concede will aid Republicans in the Georgia senate runoffs, but that's likely to be a miscalculation. As one Georgia candidate has pointed out the number of Georgians who will become eligible to vote prior to January and who were not in November is over 20,000, with most of them being younger voters who are more likely to break Democratic than Republican.  Generally, it would appear that the GOP would be better off admitting it lost the Presidency and urging Georgians to be a firewall.

November 18, 2020

It's being reported that Rudy Giuliani is seeking a fee of $20,000 per day to take over Donald Trump's legal efforts in regard to the election.  At this point, that would only add the element of the surreal to the efforts which have all but failed.  Among those losses came one from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court yesterday.

Michigan's largest precinct briefly deadlocked on certifying its election results and then reversed itself. The four person board, two from each party, initial deadlocked but then certified after asking Michigan to look into discrepancies.  The brief deadlocked was noted in a tweet by the President prior to the board reversing itself.

November 19, 2020

The Wayne County Michigan drama goes on.

Yesterday, as we noted here, the county's vote was certified after briefly being deadlocked. Today the two Republican delegates are trying to take their certification back, claiming they were bullied.

Wayne County is a Democratic county with a large African American population.  The vote there undoubtedly went for Biden, which doesn't mean that everything was perfect.  Still, whatever irregularities may exist would have to exist on a massive scale in order to make a difference in the Michigan race.  Beyond that, being wishy washy on certification isn't covering the delegates in glory.  People probably really were upset at them, but to certify things one moment, and then take it back (or try to) the next, is less than stellar conduct.

I don't know what this actually achieves, if anything.  By and large most processes like this don't allow for "backsies".  We'll see if Michigan does, but a probable result is that you just can't do that.

November 20, 2020

Georgia finished its manual recount which confirmed that Joe Biden took the state.

This is no surprise.  Recounts almost never reverse the original results.

More surprising is President Trump's invitation to several Michigan lawmakers. His Press Secretary has denied that this is an effort to pressure them to refuse to certify the vote and pick new electors, but the purpose of the meeting otherwise would be a mystery.  

If that is the plan, it won't work.  Michigan provides that its electors must follow the popular vote and an effort of this type cannot legally result in a change in results.

It is making the stability of American democracy more questionable than at any point since 1860, however.  At this point, numerous questions are being raised that the GOP is going to have to answer for.

Cont:  

Michigan lawmakers who met with President Trump rebuffed him and issued a written statement noting that the electoral votes would go to the winner in the state.  The statement was strongly worded.

November 21, 2020

Georgia certified its results making it the first state where Donald Trump has been contesting the results to do so.  To some degree it has to be wondered if its rapid certification is aimed to take it out of the target of post election actions attacking the results.

Cont:

With this, I'm inclined to start a new edition of this thread.  New headlines in the Tribune:

Cheney calls on Trump to provide evidence of fraud or respect the electoral process

Liz Cheney, I have to say, has really being rising to the occasion this past several months.

November 22, 2020

Cheney's statement:

America is governed by the rule of law. The President and his lawyers have made claims of criminality and widespread fraud, which they allege could impact election results. If they have genuine evidence of this, they are obligated to present it immediately in court and to the American people. I understand that the President has filed more than thirty separate lawsuits. If he is unsatisfied with the results in those lawsuits, then the appropriate avenue is to appeal. If the President cannot prove these claims or demonstrate that they would change the election result, he should fulfill his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States by respecting the sanctity of our electoral process.

The Federal judge who dismissed Trump's Pennsylvania lawsuit on Friday noted that it contained "strained legal arguments" and was "without merit". That may be a warning sign that the courts have had enough and will start sanctioning Trump.

Rudy Giuliani claimed the ruling would help advance the suit the United States Supreme Court more "quickly", which may declare his intent but which is really trying to put a happy face on another serial legal defeat.  Pennsylvania certifies its vote tomorrow.

The Republican National Committee and the Michigan Republican Party issued a letter yesterday to the state's election certification seeking a "full audit" of the process.

The Trump campaign asked for a recount of the Georgia vote which was already recounted.

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey congratulated Joe Biden for winning the election. The Republican also called on Trump to acknowledge the results.

Cont:

The weekend news shows proved interesting.

On Meet The Press Republican Senator Cramer of South Dakota took the position that it "certainly appeared" (or words to that effect) that Biden had won the election and that the transition should start tomorrow, as it really should have started a week ago.  Cramer stopped short of criticizing President Trump for his lawsuits simply stating that this was a right and that people ought to "calm down".  Commentary following Toomey, however, suggested that this is a new Republican tone in anticipation of certification tomorrow after which departure from the President will increase.

On This Week Chris Christie fully acknowledged Biden as the President Elect, noting that he had done so the early morning following the election.  Christie was quite critical of Trump in this context, compared in fact with the fairly subdued Rahm Emanuel.  Be that as it may, Karen Finney managed to make an amazing muddled comment intending to praise Christie while criticizing other Republicans, but which sounded like she was criticizing Christie.  While in context it was apparent, although only barely, what she was attempting to do, Christie didn't pick up on it and gave her a blistering lecture in return.

Christie also termed the Trump legal effort a "national embarrassment".

Taken all together, the signs are there that the GOP may begin to shift this week.  We ought to know by mid week, given the Thanksgiving holiday.

November 23, 2020

The Trump legal team distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell who had made a series of increasingly extreme claims regarding the 2020 election.

Cont:

The General Services Administration will begin the transition process and cooperate with Joe Biden's incoming team.  This acknowledges him as the "apparent winner".

November 24, 2020

Michigan certified its vote yesterday.

Cont:

Pennsylvania and Nevada certified their results today.

Related Threads:

2020 Election Post Mortem I: The Conspiracy theorists.

2020 Election Post Mortem II. A vote for the center

2020 Election Post Mortem III. Democratic infighting

2020 Election Post Mortem IV: A Non Story? Kamala Harris and "firsts".

2020 Election Post Mortem V. Conservatives down ballot, Marching through Georgia, and what it means.

Access to Courts and Contempt of the Law

2020 Election Post Mortem VI. Looking at the Democrats. . . isn't it time that Pelosi and Schumer pack their bags?

2020 Election Post Mortem VII. Joe Biden and the "Catholic vote".

2020 Election Post Mortem VIII. What in the world is Donald Trump doing?