Tag: republicans

94! 94! 9-9-9-9-94!

On By Luther M. SilerIn PoliticsLeave a comment

I voted on the way home from work, and an hour and a half before the polls close I was somehow only the 94th voter at my precinct for the day. Voter participation is traditionally terrible for South Bend mayoral elections, which are always held the year before a presidential election and generally garner no more than 20% turnout, but that number seems lower than usual. The polls close at six; I expect to find out by seven that James Mueller has been elected derplord mayor of South Bend, probably by about a 60-40 margin, if not better. I am moderately invested in one of the City Council races, and hope to find that Rachel Tomas Morgan wins one of the three at-large seats, and … well, that’s about it. It took longer to get the newfangled voting machine to scan my ticket properly than it did to actually vote.

From the Credit Where It’s Due department: I have kicked Republican mayoral candidate Sean Haas some shit for his ungrammatical yard signs and his shitty website; in a burst of curiosity last night I went to his site again and he’s actually had a pretty major overhaul since the last time I looked– and, interestingly, the word Republican is never used once, anywhere on the entire site. I live in Indiana, so I’m used to Democrats trying to run as stealth Republicans (and I don’t appreciate it,) but I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen a Republican pull that move. Honestly, the guy described on that page seems like somebody who I might be able to vote for, but at this point in American history I am never voting for a Republican again no matter how reasonable they sound. Anyone still remaining in the party belonging to the person in the White House cannot be trusted. That’s all there is to it. If you’re a Republican and you don’t think that should apply to you, fix your fucking party. I’m well beyond sympathy at this point.

Honest truth: the single race I’m most interested in tonight is Qasim Rashid’s. Qasim is running for State Senate in Virginia in District 28, and I haven’t seen any polling or anything but the guy has been working his ass off to get elected. I’ve been following him on Twitter since well before he started to run for office, and he’s a fascinating, progressive guy who will do well for Virginia if he’s elected. I will be more upset if he loses than I will if the guy I voted for for Mayor loses, if that helps you calibrate at all.

(On the headline: I graduated high school in 1994, and the headline, chanted at a certain cadence and speed, was the way our class ended damn near every high school pep rally, with other classes yelling similarly but with whatever their year was. That cadence basically stopped working in 2000, and every so often I wonder what Adams pep rallies are like, because it’s been 20 years since it would work– although, I note, for anyone graduating after 2021 it works again.)

In which this is exactly what I’m talking about

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics3 Comments

I say it every time I talk about local elections in South Bend: the actual election is the Democratic primary, particularly with respect to the mayoral race, because the local Republican party absolutely refuses to run anyone with the remotest shred of credibility. In the last several years their candidates include demonstrably crazy people and at least one person who was homeless while running for office. They’ve run exactly one credible candidate since I moved back here in 2007 and he spent his entire race running against the city. Turns out if you think a place is a terrible shithole where no one should live, the voters who live there don’t choose you to run the place! I know, it’s weird.

Seriously, this was an actual mailing by those fuckers. Forgive me, it’s the highest-DPI scan I can find and it’s not great:

… yeah, that’s even worse than I thought. It reads: RIP: Here lies South Bend, a once vibrant city now abandoned by business, overrun by violent crime, and driving people from their family homes because of high property taxes.

Now, put me in charge of this awful place that I obviously hate!

Yeah, good luck.

Anyway, I talked about Republican candidate Sean Haas’ shitty website the last time I talked about the mayoral race around here. I am compelled to let everyone know that I have seen my first Sean Haas yard sign, and this motherfucker, who supposedly is a teacher, has no fucking clue whatsoever how capital letters work:

There are ten total and six unique words on that goddamned sign and two of them need capital letters and don’t have them. I dunno, maybe some of you out there think I’m being superficial, but this is a level of don’t-give-a-fuck that I would find shameful from a middle school student. I have both a former student and a former co-worker in common with Haas, although I’ve never met the guy, and while they both say they won’t vote for him neither of them think he’s a terrible person. So, fine, I won’t cast aspersions upon his ancestry or anything like that. But if your damn lawn sign has two typos and only ten words you do not get to be Mayor. I need people who give a shit in that job, and this guy clearly doesn’t, and furthermore he doesn’t have anyone working for him who gives a shit either or this abomination would never have made it out of Photoshop.

Or, y’know, Paint.

It was probably Paint.

So, yeah: when whoever wins the Democratic nomination wins 70-30 in the fall, this is why: it’s not because South Bend is so monolithically Democratic that a Dem win is inevitable– South Bend is in Indiana, after all– it’s because none of the local Republicans give enough of a shit to actually put up a nominee who is worth the money spent on his campaign.

(EDIT: I think I’ve decided who I’m voting for, by the way, but I think I’ll save it for another post and not step on this one. Needless to say, it won’t be Haas.)

In which I literally can’t believe this shit

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Politics1 Comment

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So, in theory I have to have heard of Jacob Wohl before yesterday, or at least become aware of his existence, because I already had him blocked on Twitter.  But … surely, surely the combination of this unbelievably fucking dumb story and the person claiming to be President insisting that we are under an existential threat because of the existence of a small band of starving refugees a thousand miles away from the US border, we’re at least going to have a brief reprieve on Republican idiocy before it gets worse again?  For a couple of weeks, at least?  Please?  I know full well that the two rules of Republicans are They Always Get Worse and They Only Get Worse.  I literally wrote those two rules.  But does the slope have to be constant?  Can we get a fucking break, please, just for a minute, before you idiot fuckweasels step on your dicks in public again?

I feel like I ought to be able to send these motherfuckers a bill for the brain cells I’ve lost since becoming aware of them.

At any rate.  I’ve been quiet around here for the last couple of days, mostly because I’ve been trying my damnedest to spend every available second asleep, and I still feel like I have a month of sleep deprivation to catch up on.  If I’m doing NaNoAnything I don’t seem to have started yet, and if it weren’t for the fact that I have an outside chance of actually passing up last year’s traffic numbers I’d seriously think about taking a hiatus at least until after the election.  I’ve already voted, so I think I’m probably justified in burying my head in whatever sand might be nearby until after the horrorshow is over.

But, y’know, as usual, anytime I say “I won’t be posting for a while!” the next post is 3000 words.  So.

In which I still ain’t right

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics, WritingLeave a comment

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If you ever needed proof that I make foolish decisions: I decided to release a book during what I think may literally have been the stupidest and most rage-inducing week of my entire life.  I mean, there was probably a week during the Bush administration that at least came close somewhere.  Hell, there was probably more than one.  But right now hell if I can remember when that week might have been, and perhaps more importantly I didn’t have a wife and kid near me to remind me of my need to keep my shit together, and it has been fucking hard to come home from work each night and force myself into editing and creating mode instead of staring dully at Twitter and thinking thoughts that I ought not to be thinking.

I have never hated Republicans more than I do this week.  I have never been more exhausted and sick of white men than I have been this week.  I have never been more embarrassed by men in general than I have this week.

I cannot imagine how any of my women friends feel, and I can’t believe my wife is even still standing after all this shit.  The rage has nearly incapacitated me and I haven’t been putting up with entitled assholes like Brett Kavanaugh my entire life, like virtually every woman I know has.

Oh, and today at work involved transcribing a bunch of witness statements and having to find a way to get a four and a half minute, 500mb video of a kid in one of the scariest meltdowns I’ve ever seen in a school off of an ancient Android phone with a broken screen and to the cops.  I will say this: I have never been shy about criticizing cops when I feel like they’re doing a shitty job.  Our SRO took what could have been (what already was) a very, very bad situation today and, while it did ultimately lead to the student being taken out of the building in handcuffs (and still fighting the cops the whole way) it could have been much, much worse with a different police officer.  He was an absolute model of using minimum force required and attempting de-escalation the entire time (and it was the police officer who asked our security guard to start recording the incident) and the decision wasn’t finally made to take the student to the police station until the parent of the student, who, it should be pointed out, started the shit in the first place, refused to come and collect their child and actually told the SRO to take the student to jail.

Which … Okay.  But then I’mma come get you, and you’re going to jail too, you fucking asshole.  Ain’t no goddamn universe in existence where somebody calls me and says they need me to come get my baby and the words “Just take him to jail” come out of my mouth.

It’s been a very, very, very fucking rough week.

But I’m going to get this book done, and it’s going to be available this weekend, so go check me out on Patreon so you can have it once it’s ready.

In which I give this more attention than it deserves

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Politics4 Comments

DmR4hllU8AIQdfa.jpg-large.jpegLet’s talk about this asshole for a second, and the shape her hand’s making.  Would I rather be talking about something else?  Yeah, probably.  Should this be a series of Twitter posts and not a blog post?  Well, maybe.  Am I still sick, and is this what I’ve come up with for tonight?  Yeah.  It’s my blog, so if I wanna waste time on nonsense I can.

The following things can all be true at the same time, and the majority of them are undeniable fact:

  • The woman making the gesture in the picture is of Mexican and Jewish heritage, which would make one think she, generally speaking, is rather unlikely to be a white supremacist;
  • but she still works for Brett Kavanaugh, so in this particular case “she can’t possibly think that because of her racial background” is, shall we say, somewhat less sound reasoning than it might otherwise be;
  • One can be Latinx and white at the same time!  The identities can overlap!  You can absolutely be Mexican, white, and a white supremacist at the same time.
  • You can also be Jewish and a white supremacist!  Ever heard of Jared Kushner, son in law to the person in the White House?  Hitler his fucking self was a quarter Jewish, for God’s sake.
  • I know how photographs work, and I know that sitting in one seat for hours with cameras trained in your general vicinity can lead to all sorts of ridiculousness.  It is entirely possible that she’s popping a zit in this picture.
  • 4chan originated the idea that this gesture meant “white power” as a troll move a couple of years ago;
  • but since then it has started to be used by actual, non-ironic white supremacists;
  • and part of the point is that it, as a fairly common gesture, will always be deniable.  That you will always be able to find pictures of, oh, Barack Obama making the same hand gesture and point at it and go “See!” and you can always make anyone making an issue of the white supremacist flashing white supremacist hand signs look foolish, by laying out the precise chain of reasoning I’ve set out above.  That’s.  The.  Fucking.  Point.  

So: Do I think that Brett Kavanaugh has white supremacists working for him, and do I believe that Kavanaugh himself may be one?  Absolutely.  100%.

Do I believe that this woman is, herself, a white supremacist?  Except insofar as it would not surprise me for any member of Kavanaugh’s staff to be one, I had never heard of this lady yesterday and will have forgotten about her tomorrow.  So maybe!  Maybe not!  I dunno.

Did this woman deliberately decide to take the time out of the however-long-she-had-to-sit-there to randomly and quietly flash a white supremacist hand sign at the cameras?  Ehh.  Try as hard as I might, I can’t figure out what the point might have been of doing something like that, and, importantly: it doesn’t really fucking matter, because they’re about to steal another fucking Supreme Court seat.  

The end.  I’m going to bed.

UPDATE: In which I’m not voting for at least one asshole

On By Luther M. SilerIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Last week I had some things to say about my House and Senate race.  I remain powerfully conflicted about my Senator, and am very carefully monitoring everything he says and does regarding a certain Supreme Court candidate; if he votes to confirm, he loses my vote and will not be regaining it.  I’ll send some money to Beto O’Rourke instead and see if him beating Ted Cruz can offset Donnelly losing his seat.

As for Mel Hall, as of this mailing today, that ship has officially sailed.  I will probably be just leaving the House line on my ballot blank, but part of me is seriously thinking about voting for Jackie Walorski because I would rather have a Republican in office who is honest about her party affiliation than a “Democrat” who is going to stab the party in the back at the earliest opportunity.

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That last paragraph?  Nope.  I’m done with you, Mel.  You don’t get to run as a fucking Democrat and guarantee that you’re going to vote against Nancy Goddamn Pelosi and still think I’m going to vote for you.  Newsflash, asshole: I’d rather have her in office than you.  And “personal responsibility” is what Republicans talk about when they feel like they can’t say that poor people deserve to be poor.  Fuck “personal responsibility.”  It’s a dogwhistle.  And fuck you.

The flipside of the flyer is all about Jesus:img_7608.jpg

So, yeah: rich, white, male, old, CEO, Jesusy, and anti-Pelosi.  All that says Republican to me.  And once again the word “Democrat” doesn’t appear anywhere on the flyer except for the part where they talk about who paid for it.

I am not voting for Mel Hall, because I vote for Democrats.  He isn’t one.

EDIT:  Having thought about it for a few more minutes, I’m making the somewhat more obvious choice and writing in Pat Hackett’s name for IN-02.  I’m going to vote for someone I actually want in office.

VENTING: In which I’m going to vote for assholes

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics3 Comments

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Hey, Mel?  Joe?  This is what they think you are, and you aren’t going to trick these fuckers into voting for you.

I live in Indiana.  I live in one of the bluest parts of Indiana, don’t get me wrong, but I was born and raised in this state and for whatever the hell it’s worth I’m likely to die here.  I am, as a mostly-lifelong Hoosier (I lived in Chicago for nine years in there, and still occasionally refer to myself as a Chicagoan when the mood and necessity strike me) used to being ruled by Republicans, although Indiana is not remotely as monolithically red as most people who live outside the state think.  I’ve had a Democrat as a Senator for most of my life, a couple of Democratic governors, and most of my House representatives have been Democrats.  In fact, Joe Donnelly, my current Senator, used to be my House rep. He is only my Senator because he read the writing on the wall after redistricting and decided he would lose his seat and then lucked out against a truly abysmal Republican opponent.

Jackie Walorski became my Congresscritter after that election and has been re-elected a couple of times since then.  She’s running against a guy named Mel Hall right now.  I didn’t want Mel Hall to be the Democratic nominee.  I didn’t want to vote for another old white guy, I could detect no enthusiasm anywhere for his candidacy, and of the three he seemed to be spending the least effort trying to be my candidate.  Pat Hackett, who I voted for, and Yatish Joshi, who I didn’t vote for but wasn’t at all unhappy with, were everywhere, and they were both visibly working for votes.  Mel Hall was just the default old white guy.  I seriously thought, judging from what I’d seen, and in the absence of polling, that he was going to come in third, and I was shocked when he won.

My problem with Mel Hall, now that he’s officially the candidate, is that it’s becoming increasingly clear that Mel Hall doesn’t want to be the Democratic nominee either.  None of his TV ads mention being a Democrat, and we just got a flier from him today and the only place the word “Democrat” appears on it anywhere is the legally-required little line in the corner about who paid for the damn thing.  Instead, it talks about how he used to be a minister.

I don’t vote for ministers.   I sure as hell don’t vote for ex-ministers who decided to go show the poor people of Detroit the way and the light until he and his wife had kids and then decided that being a missionary wasn’t important any longer.  You were already a shitty minister and then you stopped for a shitty reason– and then got rich as a businessman, so fuck your religion one way or another.  Not one single thing Mel Hall has released as a political candidate has given me a reason to consider voting for him.  If I wasn’t the type to pay attention, I would think that we had two Republicans running for office.  Which is what he wants.

And Jackie Walorski is going to spend the entire campaign calling him a fucking liberal anyway.  Everyone to the left of any Republican is a liberal.  That’s how it works.  There is no such thing as a centrist to Republicans.  There is them, and there is the demonrat liberals, and that’s it.  And Mel Hall’s TV ad, which doesn’t mention the fact that he’s supposedly the Democratic nominee, does find time for him to say that “both parties are to blame” for Washington’s dysfunction.

Fuck you, Mel.  We have a center-right party in Washington and we have a party that is rapidly degenerating into fucking fascism if it’s not already goddamn there and I don’t wanna hear shit from you about “both fucking sides” right now.

Which brings me to Joe fucking Donnelly.  This fucking asshole is actually running an ad right now with video footage of the person claiming to be the President praising him.  Meanwhile, I can’t watch a fucking home renovation show on Hulu without seeing six dozen ads about how he’s a filthy liberal who wants open borders and hordes of illegal Mexicans to come rape all of our pristine pure white women.  One of their ads actually calls him “Mexico Joe.”  That’s not an exaggeration.

These fucking assholes are not going to vote for you, Joe.  And it would be a really good idea for both of these two shitbirds to realize who their goddamn base is and maybe try to goddamned motivate us to vote for them.  Because here’s the thing: as much as I piss and moan about it, and as much as I’m going to hate doing it, we’re not in a position right now where I am capable of not voting for the Democrat on the ballot.  America is in too much fucking trouble for me not to.  I’ve said “fuck your conscience” on this blog and on Twitter a whole bunch of times, and “fuck your conscience” applies to my ass too, as much as I don’t want it to.  Hall, as much as I hate to admit it, might have an outside chance if enough sexist assholes look at him and look at Jackie and decide that even a shriveled white librul Demonrat penis is better than no penis at all.  Maybe.  But I kind of doubt it.  But Donnelly?  Donnelly has nothing to offer to Republicans that his opponent doesn’t offer more of.

Gimme a reason to vote for you, you assholes.  Just one.  Some fucking thing I can hold on to when I vote.  Because the thing is, there are a lot of us out there, and while I’m going to be in that ballot box come November there are a lot of people who just might not bother if they see no one who represents them.  And frankly, if either of these two loses, they kind of deserve it.  I’d hate for control of the Senate to hang on whether Joe fucking Donnelly gets re-elected in Indiana or not, but it very well fucking could.

So get out there and act like you want the goddamn job, you milquetoast pricks.

EDIT:  I should make something clear here, actually: while I would really like to vote for someone who is at least as far left, if not farther, than I am, I am aware that the majority of this state and even this district are more conservative than me.  I’m well used to voting for people more conservative than me, and I’m not even that bothered by it.  It’s actively working to avoid representing the party that you’re running as a member of that is pissing me off so much about these two.

In which that wasn’t a joke

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics5 Comments

AngerIn the long run of things, this probably isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s still on my mind, so fuck it, I’m talking about it.  I work high-end retail, right?  We all know this.  So I’m working on the Fourth of July, just like a whole lot of other people.  I actually get it pretty well; normally big national holidays mean everybody has to work all day (and Wednesday is usually my half day) but we’re closing at six, so my Big Holiday Work Schedule is having to work a fairly inconsequential three and a half extra hours for the week.  I’m gonna survive.  Frankly, my birthday is the 5th and that’s always overshadowed the Fourth for me.  Call me unpatriotic if you like.

So dude calls on Wednesday to find out if whateverthefuck he ordered is in.  He’s not one of my guests– and, incidentally, my tolerance for putting up with even an iota of crap from people I’m not personally making money from has been declining precipitously lately– and I look his stuff up and find out that it’s in the store.  We had received a delivery that day; chances are it had just come in a few hours prior to the phone call.  I offer to set up his delivery.  As it turns out, the rest of this current week is full but all of next week (ie, the first week of July) is pretty much entirely open.  I tell him that and point out that we do deliver on the 4th (if we’re open, we’re open) if Wednesday works for him.

There’s a pause.

“You’re delivering on the Fourth?”

Another pause.

“You should be shot.”

…

Now, there’s really not much left to this story.  I told him everybody in the store was working that day but that I appreciated the murder threat.  He acted like he didn’t hear me.  I didn’t hang up on him or cancel his shit (although if I remembered his name, I might seriously jump in and reschedule him for, like, 2028 without telling anyone) and I sure as shit didn’t tell his entitled white Republican ass (argue with me, I dare you) to shut the fuck up and die alone and in pain like I probably ought to have.  He snarled at me that he wanted the 3rd, I scheduled it, got off the phone, and then sent this email to my regional manager:

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(I had, as you probably gleaned from context, just sent my RSM an email prior to getting that phone call.)

He wrote me back and told me he appreciated the laugh, apparently misreading the tone of my email, which was meant to be “this is fucked up, this guy is fucked up, I’m tired as hell of fucked up, and next time this won’t go as well,” not “here’s a funny anecdote about a routine thing that just happened to me.”

But yeah.  Maybe I’m taking shit too serious.  But these fuckers are getting more and more emboldened on a damn near minute-to-minute basis, and it’s just like a fucking Republican to get mad at the motherfucker who has to be at work rather than the motherfuckers who are making them come to work, and I don’t want anything to do with these entitled, violent, stupid assholes any longer.