The blow that just might save our Democracy

Women--American's last best hope

 

While there is rightfully much consternation, doubt, and concern with regard to the conservative justice leaked decision that will in all likelihood overturn Roe v. Wade, I think it important to remember that the last time women were this pissed off it resulted in a midterm bloodbath for republicans.

I'm talking, of course, about the Russian engineered election of Donald Trump in 2016, costing the incredibly more qualified Hillary Clinton a chance to become the first female U.S. President, which two years later resulted in historic Democratic victories in the U.S. House in large part due to enraged women who would have preferred a President who hasn't allegedly sexually assaulted 26 women.  Democrats in that election picked up 41 seats in the House of Representatives.

While nothing will ever erase the stink that was Donald Trump or make up for the suffering that far too many women are going to experience as a result of Justice Alito's horrifically bad decision on abortion, making republicans pay at the ballot box this November can get us started back in the right direction.  Codifying Roe and reshaping the Supreme Court will go a long way toward making America great again (to coin a phrase).

If nothing else, it will save our Democracy for at least two more years and that's two more years that the hope that America at its best represents stays alive.

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

Can we get an "Amen!" for Michigan?

In Michigan, Democrats came, saw, and conquered

Though I don't watch her show anymore, Rachel Maddow has spent considerable time over the past eight years explaining (and rightfully so) how Michigan has been a laboratory for implementing the republican game plan--everything on the GOP wish list, from passing a right to work (for less) law to privatizing government responsibilities, from taxing seniors and giving tax breaks to corporations to cutting working folks' pensions, the GOP has done here in Michigan.

No more.  Last week Michiganders delivered a gut punch to the republican agenda from top to bottom.  For the first time since I moved here nearly twenty years ago, Democrats will control the top three spots in our state--Governor (Gretchen Whitmer). Attorney General (Dana Nessel), and Secretary of State (Jocelyn Benson).  For the first time since 2010, Democrats will be on par with republicans for the U.S. House, with seven representatives each.  Also for the first time since I moved here, my U.S. House representative will be a Democrat (Elissa Slotkin).  While we didn't end republican control in our state legislature, we did end the republicans' super majority which means their agenda is done through at least 2022.  We added a Supreme Court seat, elected the first Muslim woman to the U.S. House (Rashida Tlaib), and passed propositions ending gerrymandering, implementing automatic voter registration, and legalizing marijuana.

I know I'm biased as Michigan is my adopted home, but the Democratic rout in Michigan has to be the most under reported story of the 2018 midterm elections.  In a state that is a must win for Donald Trump in 2020, we provided a blueprint for turning a recovering purple state blue again.  And it's a very progessive blueprint.

Michigan is a bellwether for 2020 because Michigan voters resoundingly found the republican experiment to be a massive failure.

Just like Donald Trump.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Goddamn right, it's a beautiful day

We won, we won, we won...

Forget the spin--Trump can claim victory because of the Senate and the media can claim it was a split decision, but all the evidence points to Tuesday being a humongous night for Democrats.  The House alone means that cuts to Social Security and Medicare, as well as a repeal of Obamacare, are dead.  We turned it around in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and my home here in Michigan, and if we hold the states Hillary Clinton won in 2016, plus add those three, Donald Trump can move to Moscow or take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut (either way I don't care).  The Democratic margin of victory of  +.9.2 is the largest in recent times (even beating Dems in 2006 and 2008 and republicans in 2010).  Even though we lost the Senate, our candidates garnered more votes than theirs.  And all of this despite electoral maps that were absolutely brutal for us this year.

Yes, we lost some races we would have liked to have won, and we may need to rethink strategies in Ohio and Florida (write them off and pour money into more likely winners?), but this election was a complete and total repudiation  (seriously, read the link, it'll make your day) of Donald Trump.

So celebrate (for about five minutes and get started on 2020):

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Just fucking vote

Fuckin' A, 110 percent...

There's a lot to be nervous about going into tomorrow's midterm elections...like basically the future of this experiment that we've been conducting surprisingly well for the last 242 years.

Like...will there be a blue wave?

Can we win the Senate?

What if the blue wave doesn't materialize?

What happens to the Mueller investigation?

What will the election's outcome mean for 2020?

In the end, try to remember that even if we don't win as many as we'd like, if we win just one more seat in the House than they do we can effectively end much of the Trump agenda (cuts to Medicare and Social Security will be dead, dead, dead).  Or that every governorship we win means that there's one more state where republicans will not be able to gerrymander its districts to their own advantage.  And that even if we just break even in the Senate, it still means republicans are going to have to tailor their agenda to make sure they can get 51 votes.

It's a cliche, but this is a marathon, not a sprint.

So don't get caught up in the future--fight the battle that we can fight tomorrow.

And just fucking vote.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Giving the devil his due

Satan laughed...at the republican party

Any which way you look at it, in the end the republican party made a deal with the devil in accepting a veritable madman like Donald Trump to be the leader of the free world.  Outside of the lunatic fringe, the only reason most republican leaders have accepted him is so that they can finally force their rich people/Corporate America/Wall Street agenda down all of our throats.

Alas, republicans have forgotten that when all is said and down, Satan always comes calling for his end of the bargain, and he usually exacts much more than he gives.

And eventually they will find out that payback is indeed a mother fucker.

Here's hoping it's sooner rather than later.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The first cut is the deepest

Near as I can tell, the Democratic Party plan for the next 2018 mid-term election is to hope Donald Trump falls flat on his face and we get swept back into power.

How else to explain the election of Chuck Schumer to be our Senate Minority Leader?  As a man whose slogan could be "If it's good for Wall Street, it's good for Chuck", it's very hard to see how Schumer will inspire voters who don't turn out in non-Presidential election to turn out in 2018--hell, we couldn't get them to turn out in 2016 in an election against Hitler, and somebody somewhere thinks Schumer will help change that?  What the fuck?

Schumer has already said that he doesn't see voters supporting an obstructionist party in 2018 which already shows his utter lack of paying attention to the last several elections--voters supported republicans quite nicely in 2010, 2014, and 2016 even though they accomplished nothing except obstructing any chance at progress for millions of Americans.

Never fear, though, Schumer has made Joe Manchin a part of his inner circle--the same Joe Manchin who said he wouldn't rule out siding with republicans before the election and called Harry Reid (the only Democrat who has shown any spine at all since November 8th) an "absolute embarrassment" for ripping Hitler after the election.  Why this is is anybody's guess--Manchin resides in the reddest of red states and even if he switches parties, there's not a potential opponent in West Virginia who isn't salivating at the commercials they can run against the father of Miss I Made Millions Off The Suffering Of Those Who Need Epi-Pens.  Apparently Democrats learn nothing from history as it's pretty darn easy to see the comparisons between Joe Lieberman and Manchin--and look what that got us:  a big fat nothing.

We also got Debbie Stabenow, my own Senator here in Michigan, whose lone accomplishment in 12 years as a Senator has been to gut food stamp benefits.

They threw a sop to the base with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Sherrod Brown, but none of them will wield any power and it's really nothing more than giving a lollipop to a crying kid to get him to shut up.  It won't solve the problem and will just serve to anger the kid even more when it's gone.

Keep in mind that it took a majority of Americans six years to realize George W. Bush was a bozo--and a Democratic Party strategy of waiting for epic republican failure in two years is a pipe dream (just ask the national media, who completely blew the election--and the Iraq War, and the economic collapse of 2008--and are now blowing the transition).

And that pipe dream is going to take millions of Americans down with it.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee