It's December . . .

 It's December finally in the year that wasn't.  The time for a summing up of the year past, a making of lists.

Except there aren't many or any noteworthy personal events in this year that never should have happened; it's like God stepped away for a moment and got distracted.  What would I list as something I did, because I never went anywhere hardly, or did anything practically, once the virus took hold, and what I think happened this year, my reality, is regarded by the Trumpite side of my family as my fantasy, induced by osmosis apparently by my location not only within the Northeast Bubble but actually inside the Beltway. 

Of course, they live in the real fantasy world, not me, because I operate on real information that I acquire from the Washington Post, the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN and my further reading in books and magazines as filtered through my education at boarding school, a state university and a top ten law school which taught me critical thinking skills to augment my life experiences acquired from being a ski bum for four years, a policeman for nine years and a lawyer for 25 years.  So what did I accomplish or do in this DOA year?

I went to one movie, on Valentine's Day, Parasite, because it won the Academy Award for being the best picture, where I got really sick by that night with a respiratory ailment that kept me down for two weeks and that I still don't believe I've fully recovered from. The movie was, well, awful and the illness was, well, I'll never know what I actually had because in Trump's America nothing is as it was before him and not for the better by a long shot.

Flipping the Tenth in Virginia

Twice before I had gone far west on I-66 in Virginia to canvass for State Senator Jennifer Wexton, a democrat running against two-time republican incumbent Congresswoman Barbara Comstock in the Tenth Congressional District, a safe republican district for four decades that stretches from McLean to West Virginia, prompted by the sham Kavanaugh hearings and his bogus confirmation. Wexton is ahead in the polls, seemingly safely, due to anti-Trumpism that percolates through this educated and affluent district, especially in its furtherest east parts, but the polls have tightened, and the president's rhetoric, especially lately, has created a climate of hatred and division in the country, culminating in more than a dozen bombs being sent by an extreme Trumpite to journalists, Jews and democratic politicians, that has to be addressed by patriotic Americans, so I went down I-66 again on Saturday to knock on doors to ensure that the tenth flips and real change can begin.

I received a dedicated list of 41 doors to knock on in an large apartment complex of tall buildings encircling a central interior parking lot in Sterling, about 15 miles west of the beltway. The first thing I noticed as I walked alone into the inward facing series of long, fortress-like 4-story structures almost touching each other like a laager square, was the stairs I would be walking up on the outside of each building to reach the top floor--40. Two days later my calfs are still sore from walking up and down the equivalent of 108 flights of stairs but I knocked on every door except for those two or three designated doors in the two buildings that were clearly marked, No Solicitation.

The persons I spoke with in this complex were almost exclusively motivated to vote democratic, although some said they were undecided on the congrssional level because they did not know who Jennifer Wexton was, so I left behind with them a placard outing her positions. Some said their primary issues were education or health care, but surprisingly several said their main issue was immigration. This is an answer I heard more often when I was canvassing further west, in the predominantly republican sections of the state, in an exclusionary and fearful tone, but in this complex with many recent arrivals to the country, it was a different take on immigration, one that bespoke of welcoming those coming behind them and bringing their expertise and skills and drive to make America even greater, as the waves of preceding immigrants did.

I felt it was a 3-hour stint well done, and agreeably received, and I drove home blaring a Doors album on the CD player and happily went inside my house to turn on the news and relax. In my face again was the current state of America, a synagogue shot up in Pittsburgh, and I knew I would be heading west on the morrow again to try to make a difference in America beginning with adding a democratic seat to congress to start presenting a check on our wannabe strongman at top who is busy sowing division and discord and wrecking our country and its standing in the community of nations.

Trolling each other

The very last house I knocked at in my canvassing over the weekend was an interesting end to my two days of efforts.  On Sunday, after three hours of knocking on doors, I spent ten minutes trying to locate the very last last address on my dedicated list of houses given to me at the democratic HQ.

My tenacity in finding the house on a windy cut-de-sac was rewarded with this amusing interaction.  The man who answered listened to my standard spiel about Jennifer Wexton, the democrat running for congress against the republican incumbent Barbara Comstock and at the end of it said, "I'm not going to vote for Wexton but since you said she is interested in what issues are of concern to voters, tell her my primary concern is putting even more great justices on the supreme court like Brett Kavanaugh!"

I could tell by how intently he was watching my face as he spoke and the rising emphasis of his tone as he said great justices and Brett Kavanaugh that he was trolling me.  I think he was hoping to get a rise out of me with his statement of adoration for an alleged sexual assailant.

I dutifully wrote down his main issue in the space by his address on my list.  "So you like beer, then?" I asked.

How Republicans used to be

On Sunday when I was reaching out to 40 households in an affluent subdivision from a dedicated list handed to me at the Jennifer Wexton campaign HQ, I knocked on the door of a spacious house in the middle of my three-plus hour stint of canvassing alone in the Tenth Congressional District where State Senator Wexton is attempting to unseat incumbent Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, referred to as "Barbara Trumpstock" at more than one household I spoke with.  An elderly man came out of the garage and asked if he could help me.

I spoke with him in the driveway about Wexton as he surveyed the perspiration streaming down my face on the humid day.  When my initial spiel had run down, he said in a friendly tone, "I'm a pretty firm Republican, but I can offer you a glass of water or a cold soda."

I  was thunderstruck.  No one else at 70 households had offered me refreshment in the two days I had been canvassing.

I thanked him for his kind offer and for speaking with me and went on to the next address on my list.  That's how Republicans, and Democrats, used to be, kindly to each person they interacted with.

Violence

On Sunday I engaged in that hallowed and hoary American political tradition of canvassing, for State Senator Jennifer Wexton who is running to unseat incumbent Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock next month in Virginia's 10th Congressional District.  I knocked on 40 doors specified by a dedicated list handed to me by Wexton's campaign HQ in Sterling, and spoke with at least one passerby on the sidewalk and obtained a pledge card from him to vote in next month's election.

It was interesting in at least three ways, demonstrated by the response I received at three different doors, the first door I knocked on, at the most affluent-looking house in the middle of my three hour stint canvassing alone in that particular subdivision, and the very last door I knocked on after searching through the labyrinth of winding roads and culture-de-sacs for ten minutes at the end of my shift to find it.  The first door was the most memorable, bringing forth what's increasingly been wrong in America in the last two years as encouraged by the paramount rhetoric of the times using terms like "mob rule," "enemies of the people," and "evil democrats"--violence.

At the end of Falling Rock Terrace, for my first contact I walked up the driveway and walkway to a townhouse in a short row of cookie-cutter such residences, and knocked.  The door opened and a whisker-stubbled male face and torso protruded out.

"Hi, my name is . . .  ."  The door closed.  I continued, "I'll leave this card of information behind for you then."  The door exploded open and the man boiled out of the house and advanced on me

"What did you say, motherfucker?" he said in an elevated tone.  Before I could answer he said, his poking fingers jabbing to within a half-inch of my eyes, "Get off my property before I shoot you."

"I'm leaving, but watch your hands," I said.  I didn't want to get jabbed in my eyes or face or anywhere as I turned to leave.

"Bitch!" he called me as I turned away.  He punched me in the shoulder.

"You just assaulted me," I said, meaning of course that he had also committed battery upon me, but many people use the term assault to describe both the threat and the physical attack.

"Call the cops then!" he said as I walked away.  I didn't, because I had at least three hours of political work ahead of me that I was more energized than ever to complete and I didn't want to get bogged down in a he-said he-said matter for hours or weeks.  Later, at campaign HQ, I made sure to bring this particular address to the attention of the persons there and pointedly told them to remove the address from all of their lists because it was a dangerous, potentially lethal place to approach.

My heart racing, I walked across the parking square and continued my canvassing.  I got a better reaction at the townhouse across the square, where the man who answered chatted with me for a minute or two.  I thanked him for speaking with me and said that his was a better reception than the townhouse across the way, where the occupant had threatened to shoot me.  He asked, "You mean over there where the white van is in the driveway?"  "Yes, over there," I answered.

"It's good to know," he said.  "I always knew those were strange people."  My dedicated list had indicated that there was a female at that address, in addition to the man who assaulted me. " I've never been able to get a handle on them," he added.

I finished approaching my other 38 listed addresses on this hot and humid day, drove back to HQ and turned in my notes, which closely detailed especially my first contact.  Next post: A kindly encounter, like the way it used to be.

Going forward

The Republicans have unconstitutionally packed the US Supreme Court via the soulless Mitch McConnell's cynical manipulations (Merrick Garland), with a big assist from the out-of-the-mainstream Federalist Society (which scrubs judge candidates till they're certain they're off the far right end of the political spectrum) and the Russians, who gave us our current faux president.  The GOP has delegitimized the high court for two generations or more; packing it with a lying, besotted, temperamentally unfit conspiracy theorist, a revenge-seeking partisan party hack accused of multiple sexual predation, Kavanaugh; a faux justice occupying a purloined seat (thanks, Uncle Mitch!), Gorsuch; and a serial sexual harasser, the weird silent sphinx, Thomas.  The right end of the bench is so heavily weighted down with illegitimate jurists that American jurisprudence has been sent back to the sordid days of Plessy v. Ferguson or even Dred Scott v. Sanford.

What am I going to do about the re-emergence of these sordid times dragging down our great nation?  A long time ago, I dropped out of college to work full-time on the George McGovern campaign against the criminal tenure of Richard Nixon for president, and McGovern, a fine man and a war hero, lost in an historical debacle.  Nixon resigned less than two years later in disgrace.

Two years ago, the choice between presidential candidates was so stark, one qualified and the other totally and obviously unfit as well as being a narcissistic fraud, that I worked long and hard for the Clinton campaign, just in case I ever had to say to my children or grandchildren--Don't blame me.  Thanks to FBI Director James Comey and the Russians, the failed businessman won over the Secretary of State and now he and his family mafia are driving the future of this country, and perhaps the world, into the ground in their drive to secure personal wealth and power.

Yesterday I donated money to the future opponent of Senator Susan Collins of Maine and to the current Libertarian opponent of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both of whom voted for Kavanaugh, and today I am going to Manassas to canvass for the democratic opponent to Republican incumbent Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, who is in the pocket of that GOP affiliate arm, the NRA.  Later I'll research donating to Senator Ted Cruz's opponent in Texas, to the Democratic senatorial candidate in Arizona, to the candidate opposing the odious Congressman Devin Nunnes, and further working for candidate Jennifer Wexton who is Comstock's opponent.  I want my country, and fairness, back.

Record or Assist

It was cold and rainy on election day Tuesday but at least I had the opportunity of working inside all day, although I walked outside several times to introduce myself to every observer, volunteer and candidate out there doing hard duty handing out sample ballots, blue for democrats and green for republicans, to voters as they walked up to enter the local high school to vote. All were unfailingly polite.  

Inside, there was a stark difference in what I perceived my duty to be as an inside poll observer and what my republican counterpart's assigned duty was. All day I stood or sat near the check-in table and watched for problems voters encountered in being enabled to cast their ballots--wrong precinct, no longer living in the district, their name spelled wrong in the voter rolls, their sister voted previously in their name because the staffer couldn't decipher the Asian name properly, the voter couldn't understand English and required assistance but couldn't write either and thus couldn't sign her requires-assistance form--and followed them discretely to the chief's table to stand by and listen to the problem's resolution. Almost always there the situation was resolved in favor of the person being entitled to vote, sometimes after a call being placed to the registrar. Three provisional ballots were cast (the aforementioned sister/brother mix-up, for instance), often the voter was sent to one of the other two precincts to vote and rarely the voter was turned away, usually after being registered on the spot to entitle them to vote in the next election. I never felt the need to intercede with the election officials in support of a voter and only made one or two suggestions to them all day, and asked them questions about situations or procedures several times. I often spoke conversationally with the officials to varying degrees during slow moments, having introduced myself to each of them and made a point of remembering their names. It was an efficient organization with heart there.

The other poll observer had a different reason, obviously, for being there. Aside from getting up occasionally to go outside to make a call on his cellphone I assumed or use the facilities or stand in order to stretch his legs, he sat in a chair within 3 feet directly behind central check-in person and furiously thumbed his I-phone all day, doing his best mark on his "app" (I presumed it was a registered voter list or perhaps a list of persons that party had contacted during the campaign) the appearance of every voter who checked in as they announced their name and the name was repeated back to them by the staff member. Never did I see him wander around the voting room by the officials' tables except to plug in his back-up battery, nor did I see him converse with the staff except in the course of a situation arising out of him placing his chair initially so close behind the check-in person's chair that that officer complained that the observer was in such proximity with him that he was uncomfortable and felt interfered with in the performance of his duties. He literally couldn't get up from the table without the observer moving his chair back. (He also conversed with staff in the course of graciously being offered a donut or two during the long day.) The chair incident produced the day's only "drama" as my friend across the aisle, Joe, termed it. 

The staffer who felt Joe was too close to allow him to do his duty properly requested him to move back permanently and the observer refused, saying he couldn't hear the names as they were announced otherwise and to do his "job" he needed to be right there behind the staff member. Thus the right of the observer to be able to see and hear everything being done and said at the check-in table clashed with the right of the staffer to be free of interference or influence in the performance of his duty, and this stand-off at the fulcrum point of the free and transparent operation of our basic voting rights pulled in the Board of Elections Directer and Mr. Dan Dodds, who I presumed was the roving Republican operative assigned to that district.

In my opinion, Mr. Dodds was a pissant, and I watched from my perch five or six feet behind the check-in table where they had set up a table for the observers as in the back, the twenty-something tall gaunt man argued down in an angry voice, with much finger jabbing interspersed with backhanded slaps across the sheaf of important papers he was clutching for awe-inspiring emphasis, with the diminutive fifty-something Director who was standing her ground even as, at one point, the rover had a metal chair slung menacingly over his shoulder as he gesticulated. In a word he was, in my opinion, nasty.

Order was restored to the process with a compromise as the two came out and together moved Joe's chair to a spot about 32 inches behind the staffer's chair and declared that that was the redline, for both of us. Joe tried his dictated location and claimed that he still couldn't hear but Mr. Dodds spoke to him like one would rebuke a dog, telling him to do his "job," to get busy with his "app," and that that spot was "final." Then Mr. Dodds stalked out, obviously an important personage with more places to be on that day.

The rest of the day was long and uneventful for us. Joe liked history, and had brought two books to read, and we talked history and books sometimes. I tried to time our quiet discussions for when a crowd of voters came in and he tried to time them for when a voter was spending an inordinate time at the table, indicating a problem. I offered him a cracker smeared with spicy tuna from a small tin I had for lunch, which he declined, and he had a bag of nuts in his pocket which he would occasionally go into the hallway to nibble from, of which he offered me none. We got along famously, and I even told him that I had observed that the voting machines were set at zero that morning before the polls were opened at 6 a.m., something he hadn't observed in person, as that apparently was on both our checklists.

During the long day I had the opportunity to reflect upon which course of inside poll observation action was better--to record on your hand-sized computer every voter who comes in so that at HQ they can selectively utilize their phone banks to get out their voters, or to look out for problems as they develop inside the voting area and follow them through to their resolution, thus allowing as many voters presenting themselves to vote as possible. Since the permissible number of inside observers is limited, doing both is well-nigh impossible. I'm not surprised at the very different choices each party made in this election, and I wonder what it augurs for the future of voting and inside observing.

America's Coming Back

Against my better judgment and against all my wishes, I signed up to work in the gubernatorial race in Virginia for democratic candidate Dr. Ralph Northam, who is a fine man and a moderate in the recent trend of winning democrats in turning-blue Virginia.  I was gun-shy because I have worked intensively in two campaigns in my life, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and George McGovern in 1972, thinking they were transcendent times, and the result each time was a devastating defeat resulting in utter disaster (an effing moron winning and a president resigning in disgrace).  (5 a.m. somewhere in Virginia yesterday.)

But I volunteered to register voters and make phone calls last month, I sent out e-mails and undertook training to be an inside poll observer this month and yesterday I put in a 16-hour day working at Precinct 1 in Manassas Park.  When I got home from my exhausting day I was astounded and gratified to learn that already Northam had been declared winner and the democrats had won the other two top state spots of lieutenant governor and attorney general.  Maybe the country has awoken from its self-induced stupor.  (Taking training at the George Mason School of Law, trying to quell my gag-reflex.)

The day was interesting watching rough looking voters in not-quite-Northern-Virginia not-really-Tidewater-either file through all day.  One man angrily asked if we were "letting all them illegal aliens vote" and another angrily objected to the check-in election worker call out his name out loud, as is required, due to "privacy" concerns, and the local roving Republican operative showed up to angrily berate the local Board of Elections chief in strident terms over some supposed infraction of the rules or the law with much finger jabbing towards her face and hand slaps on the important papers he was holding, obvious anger and disdain infusing his body and soul, a tall twenty-something man towering over a diminutive fifty-something woman as he gesticulated for show, in his mind's eye a projection of power.  Dan Dodds, you're a querulous a**.  (Just like your hero, who is a train wreck.)

When the long day was done it was Northam 669, Trump surrogate Gillespie 295, with similar showings for the rest of the top of the ticket.  Make America great again.  (Campaigning a year ago, before the fall.)

  

Acceptance

The current issue of The Atlantic has an interesting article about nuclear brinkmanship by Mark Bowden, Can North Korea Be Stopped?  Bowden is the author of the best battle book I've ever read, Blackhawk Down about the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.

During the current president's term, the rogue nation North Korea is likely to obtain nuclear missiles it can deliver to the US mainland.  I live in Washington DC, so it's less of a concern for me as the residents of Los Angeles.  It's about 7800 miles from North Korea to DCA, and "only" about 5800 miles to LAX, probably a reachable distance for North Korean nuclear-tipped missile in a few years, or maybe months.  North Korean leader, the semi-god dictator for life Kim Jong-Un, has assured America that he will create a "sea of fire" here, or in Japan, South Korea or elsewhere for transgressions against the sovereignty of North Korea that his fevered mind perceives or conjures up. Apparently it's personal, because the Young One wants to stay in power for life and he intends to do this with a nuclear arsenal and a fevered populace whipped into a frenzy of rhapsodic xenophobia by fiery state-controlled rhetoric.

People of Los Angeles, do you want your personal safety to rest in the palm of President Trump's hand?  Unless you're related to him, do you think he has your best interests in mind?  But it is him who will act upon this threat, or not act. And the issue will be resolved by 2020, I am sure, one way or another.  The likely outcomes to me seem to line up along three main possibilities: a bombastic nuclear North Korea to be dealt with (acquiescence), a nuclear, chemical or biological desert somewhere (the light military option, turning the screws a little more tightly, with unpredictable results), or a vassal state in North Korea controlled by America, South Korea or China, with millions of Asians and thousands of Americans dead with possibly still an ongoing war or world war (the heavy military option).

Bowden lays out four options for the US, based upon the certainty that North Korea, in its current state, will never give up its nuclear program or ambitions because the Young One views this as essential to its, or his, survival.  None of the realistic options are good, as Bowden points out.

Prevention envisions a massive military strike suddenly launched by the US either with or without South Korea that a) would be a surprise to the Hermit Kingdom of the north; b) hopes China would idly stand by; c) involves Seoul, 40 miles south of the DMZ, being subjected to hours or days of massive artillery bombardment with horrendous casualties (not to mention Tokyo being subjected to a missile, or nuclear, attack by the north only about 800 miles away) and d) imagines everything going like clockwork (no fog of war) and that the North Korean army doesn't escape to Manchuria or the mountains of North Korea (or South Korea) to form a formidable guerrilla army.  It is unimaginable that this option would go well, even if the US could sneak a million soldiers into South Korea along with several air fleets and many naval units offshore and the South Koreans would cooperate, even if that meant merely standing by (their people would suffer the most).

Turning the Screws is the military option lite.  It imagines limited but aggressive military responses to provocations like bombing nuclear production sites whenever a test missile is fired or a nuclear device is detonated (tested).  An attempt at altering the north's state of mind and behavior with a firm cause/effect infliction of force.  It's hardly likely that this approach would work and either North Korean behavior probably wouldn't change one whit except to become even more determined or insidious, and it could easily and quickly slide into the scenario outlined above, only without the surprise start.

Decapitation is a third alternative being considered.  Take out the Young One with a pinpoint strike of some sort and hope that a more reasonable leader would assume power who could be pressured or bought off or reasoned with to abandon nukes.  This seems highly unlikely because it's not like we could send a drone over to drop a bomb on the North Korean leader (it would be shot down) and the US doesn't send suicide squads out (this would be more complicated than the ill-fated mission to rescue the Teheran hostages under President Carter, which doomed his presidency).  If such an attempt was made and it failed, the response from North Korea would probably be entirely unpredictable and disproportionate.  This is the stuff of a spy novel thriller, not the real world.  Bowden implies that a better option than trying to kill the Young One is to wait and hope he'll die in the meantime from being so obese so young and the fact that he comes from a family with a history of heart afflictions and strokes.

Acceptance is the last option, and the most likely to occur, if by nothing else, with the passage of time.  It's the inevitable or immutable occurrence, dealing with an armed and bristling North Korea like we deal with a hostile Russia and an inscrutable China, through the time-tested resort to MAD (mutually assured destruction) because we could annihilate North Korea with a nuclear strike and for the foreseeable future, even if the reclusive nation could hurt us, it can't destroy us.  North Korea is a real problem, and could conceivably be the source of ending life as we know it, but Bowden's choice, and I guess mine, seems to be to just deal with it.  Unless we are ready to have millions die due to an action we undertook.

Whoo Boy!

It's been a whole month since the election without a press conference by the prez elect.  That is unprecedented.

He appointed Rick Perry to head up DOE, the very agency the former Texas governor was going to eliminate in 2008, if only he could have remembered its name during a presidential debate that year.  And now the transition team wants a list of the names of all those DOE employees who ever had anything to do, either by association or professional encounter, with any climate change science, group or initiative.

The repugnants are science deniers, you know, and now they're ready to kick ass among all those federal employees who are earning an honest living.  I have a list here in my pocket (which I'll never show you) of all the suspected communists in the state department, said tail gunner Joe during the red-baiting 50's, and now we're back to the days of those those deplorable witch hunts.

It's enough to get you discouraged.  I personally think that The Donald might start a major war, with Jhina, in his ignorance of, avarice regarding, or lack of interest in anything that doesn't directly advance his personal brand.