Month: September 2024

On September 8, I asked, “Could Mark Robinson Sink Trump’s Chances in North Carolina?”. It looks like the GOP’s problems with their Tarheel State gubernatorial candidate have only grown since then. Thursday is a big day. As The Carolina Journal reports, Robinson is now “under pressure from staff and members of the Trump campaign to withdraw from the governor’s race, and Thursday is the last day that he can do that.

Thursday evening is the state deadline to withdraw from the race. The deadline to remove Robinson’s name from the ballot already has passed. There are just four weeks to go until early voting, and absentee ballots are due to go in the mail Friday…

…Should Robinson decide to withdraw from the race, something that Carolina Journal’s sources say he is opposed to at the moment, the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee would need to choose a replacement candidate for November.

According to elections expert Andy Jackson of the John Locke Foundation’s Civitas Center for Public Integrity, the deadline to change the name on the ballot has passed under state law. Once the North Carolina State Board of Elections mails the absentee, overseas, and military ballots on Friday, changing the names could run afoul of the 14th Amendment. Instead, any votes Robinson receives on Nov. 5 would go to the replacement candidate chosen by the NCGOP.

So far, the immediate cause of this increased pressure is somewhat unclear. The rumor is that Robinson made some very disturbing comments on an adult website 15 years ago. He has apparently been told that he cannot appear at Trump events, and he just claimed a positive test for COVID to explain why he isn’t making a planned appearance with J.D. Vance.

As I discussed in my earlier piece, Robinson’s extreme beliefs and statements were already a potentially fatal drag on the Trump campaign’s efforts to win North Carolina. September polling of the race has consistently shown Democrat Josh Stein beating Robinson, often by double digits.

And Robinson’s name will appear on the ballot irrespective of his decision on withdrawal. If he formally drops out today, votes for Robinson can be counted for a substitute candidate chosen by NCGOP, which is the best result the party can hope for.

The comments in question, which CNN is preparing to report, aren’t sexual in nature.

“I spoke to Mark this morning and he was prepared to go on CNN and defend himself against the allegations,” Jason Williams, a partner in Endgame Consulting, the agency handling Robinson’s campaign, said in a text response to a question.

Williams described the CNN story as a “hit piece.” The reported story makes explosive allegations regarding statements the national network says Robinson made on an online message board in 2009, Williams says. Robinson did not hold elected office until 2021, after his successful campaign for lieutenant governor in 2020.

“The main ones I remember were that they were alleging he made some extremely racist comments about Martin Luther King, referred to himself as a Black Nazi and used antisemitic language referring to Jews,” Williams stated in the text message.

Robinson denies making those statements. “He 100% denied it when I spoke to him,” says Williams.

Having to deny you called yourself a black Nazi on an adult website isn’t a good look.

The impact on the campaign should be obvious. As Jonathan Martin of Politico writes today, “If Vice President Kamala Harris can’t carry Pennsylvania, her only hope is on a Southern strategy. Harris must win either Georgia or North Carolina. She has no other path to the White House.” In Georgia, it seems unlikely that Harris will easily be declared the victor even if she wins. This is especially true if the victor of the state will be determinative of the winner of the general election. One possibility is that  Trump takes Georgia outright and is certified as the winner. But, if he loses, the state’s electoral votes will most likely be awarded either by the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. House of Representatives, both of which will be controlled by supporters of Trump. In the case of the U.S. House, this will be true even if the Democrats retake control, as is expected. That’s because decisions on the Electoral College are decided by state delegations rather than individual members, and even if in the minority, the GOP is certain to have a majority in more state delegations than the Democrats. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Trump will falsely be awarded Georgia in these scenarios, especially if his loss is clear, but it should be a messy and protracted process at a minimum, and a potential cause of an outright coup.

For these reasons, the outcome in North Carolina could be extremely important.

Polling out of Pennsylvania this week has looked somewhat positive for Harris, with surveys showing her either tied or narrowly leading. The best results, for Quinnipiac, have her opening up a five-to-six point lead, but polls by Emerson College, Marist College, and the Washington Post have the race even.

It’s easy to see why Robinson is giving the Republicans heartburn, and it will be interesting to see if Robinson decides to drop out or stay in.

Howdy! How are you all doing? Here’s a tune that seems as timely as ever:

I would have heard this song on the radio around autumn 1981. The steel guitar solo is very David Gilmour-inspired. The keyboard intro was haunting. If Tom Cochrane’s vocal style had been closer to either Roger Waters or David Gilmour, I might have mistaken this song as an outtake from The Wall recording sessions.

The bar is open and the jukebox selections are limited only by your imagination. Drop by and say hey if you get a chance. Cheers!

Some whack-job was thinking about taking a shot at President Trump at his golf course but it didn’t work out how he planned. Now he’s in custody and people are trying to turn him into a Democrat. I don’t know a lot of Democrats who both voted for Trump in 2016 and pined for a Ramaswamy-Haley ticket in 2024. He’s an unstable man with a long rap sheet who has supported everyone from Andrew Yang to Elizabeth Warren to Tulsi Gabbard. The last one is telling since the guy is a huge supporter of Ukraine and Gabbard gives every appearance of being on the Kremlin’s payroll.

But you know what? I’m glad the Secret Service did their job this time because we need them to be able to keep our leaders safe. Other than that, I’m already bored by this story. It’s a giant distraction that only helps Trump and J.D. Vance avoid scrutiny. It has interrupted coverage of their full-tilt move into racial hatred politics for the home stretch of this election. And even that was a distraction from what Kamala Harris wants coverage of this campaign to be focused on.

She wants the focus on her, and only on Trump as a comparatively non-serious person who utters a constant stream of outright gibberish. She could keep hammering him for being a felon and a racist, but she prefers to treat him as silly and ridiculous, and I think she’s landed on his kryptonite. The sooner the campaign can get back to mocking him, the better. I wouldn’t even take a day off. We have Elon Musk posting the Democrats are coming for people’s children and wondering why no one will step up and shoot at President Biden and Harris. These assholes aren’t letting up for one moment, and there’s no time to offer grace periods.

Why is the man golfing anyway when it looks like the election is moving out of his grasp? Why did he sleep through a trial that landed him with 34 felony convictions? Why does he think we should use nuclear weapons to deflect hurricanes or Clorox to cure Covid-19 or that windmills cause cancer? Why is he making social media posts that he “hates Taylor Swift”? Why is fooling around with Laura Loomer?

Because he’s an astounding idiot and deeply immoral person who should be in prison but in the meantime is deserving of only scorn and laughter. Let’s get back to keeping the main thing the main thing.

 

There’s a lot to sift through in all the polling that is coming out post-presidential debate, but one thing seems pretty clear. If America’s presidential elections were decided the way all our other elections are decided, by popular vote, Kamala Harris would be a strong favorite to win. In the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, for example, Harris leads Trump among likely voters 52 percent to 46 percent.

But in a sign that nothing is simple, that number is unchanged from the ABC News/Ipsos poll that preceded the debate. The difference is mainly that the pre-debate poll was an outlier while the post-debate poll is more in line with what other surveying outfits are now finding. The latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll finds Harris up 49 percent to 45 percent among likely voters, while the two were tied in the pre-debate poll. Data for Progress has Harris leading 50 percent to 46 percent. Morning Consult has Harris up 50 to 45.

If I were a Trump supporter the thing in these numbers that would terrify me is Harris hitting 50 percent or above among likely voters. Consider that these polls still include a bunch of people who are still undecided. Trump could win virtually all of them and still lose the popular vote. Unfortunately, we don’t decide our presidential elections by popular vote, as Al Gore and Hillary Clinton can tell you. Thanks the Electoral College, the actual election we’re having is as tight as a tick and basically a pure toss-up at this point.

All the swing states seem to be polling within the margin of error. We’re seeing more movement elsewhere. In Alaska, where Trump won in 2020 by over ten points, Harris may be only five points down. A June Selzer and Co. poll of Iowa had Trump beating Biden by 18 points, but a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Trump ahead only 47% to 43% among likely voters. In 2020, Trump won Iowa by nine points.

These shifts will do Harris little good under the Electoral College system. If you want to put the happiest face on it, I think this tightening of the race in non-competitive states could be a sign of real momentum for Harris. If Trump suffers more slippage over the next month and a half, states like Iowa and Alaska could move into the toss-up category, and the same is probably true of Florida and Texas. But, for now, Trump doesn’t much care if he’s losing margin in the popular vote so long as he’s hanging tough in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the race is basically tied, and where the outcome of the election will be decided.

One thing I sussed out of a deep dive into the ABC News/Ipsos poll, is that as badly as Trump is getting pummeled in the media and in online memes for his Haitians-eating-pets story, he’d much prefer us to be talking about it than about women’s reproductive rights. If we’re focused on immigration, he’s winning. If we’re focused on abortion rights, he’s getting crushed. So, he’s probably happy to take the slings and arrows over his racism. His racism is popular and it’s what is keeping him competitive in the race.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing my painting of Navajo Bridge near the Arizona/Utah border. My recent photo is seen below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 inch canvas panel.

When last seen, the painting appeared as it does directly below.

I’ve been away and made only limited progress this week. I’ve added some preliminary paint to the left side of the river.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

The Biden administration has been working on several fronts to protect pregnant women ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

After the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to an abortion, the Biden administration turned to a longstanding federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, in a frantic effort to ensure abortion access for women in dire medical circumstances. The White House has argued that to comply with the law, hospitals must provide emergency abortions for pregnant women who need them to save their lives or reproductive organs, despite state abortion bans.

HHS has sent letters to hospitals repeatedly reminding them of that law and the penalties — up to $129,232 per violation or loss of Medicare funding — for flouting it.

The government also rolled out a new website making it easier for patients to file a complaint if they are rejected, and it promised to expediate those investigations.

So, the good intent is there. But the enforcement is so far lacking teeth:

A Reagan-era federal law that prevents hospitals from denying care to patients in need has been violated by dozens of hospitals that turned away or mistreated more than 100 pregnant patients in the past two years, according to government investigators. None of the hospitals faced penalties from the federal government.

Here’s a basic example of a violation:

Last year, for example, HHS announced that two facilities — Freeman Health System in Joplin, Missouri, and University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas — ran afoul of the federal law after refusing an emergency abortion to Mylissa Farmer.

Doctors at both hospitals told the 41-year old Missouri woman that her baby had no chance of surviving after her water broke at 17 weeks but because a fetal heartbeat was still detectable, her condition needed to worsen before they’d be willing to terminate her pregnancy.

These hospitals have not been fined, nor have they lost their Medicare funding. An investigation of Ms. Farmer’s case is being conducted by HHS’s Inspector General. Apparently, that single office is responsible for dealing with possible violations. This is not going to cut it.

On a positive note, there would probably be thousands more women being denied emergency care if the administration were not proactively communicating with hospitals. I have serious doubts that a second Trump administration would keep that as a priority.

Hi photo lovers.

I could not resist a Friday the 13th post. The featured photo this time is of one of the Guara plants one of my daughters brought home this summer. We really need to get it planted, since it is a perennial. We have a few weeks left in the growing season, so it will come back next spring. I have two other Guara plants with white flowers in the flowerbeds by the patio. This one produces some beautiful pink flowers, and right now it is putting on quite a display during the waning days of summer.

I am still using my same equipment, and am no professional. If you are an avid photographer, regardless of your skills and professional experience, you are in good company here. Booman Tribune was blessed with very talented photographers in the past. At Progress Pond, we seem to have a few talented photographers now, a few of whom seem to be lurking I suppose. The distant hills in the background are in Crawford County, just a ways south of the Ozark Pleateau, which starts maybe a good half hour or so north of where I was standing. Across the river to my west is some unincorporated land in Oklahoma. I’m on the Arkansas side. It’s good to see that any remaining damage from the flood of 2019 has been repaired. I am grateful for some lovely scenery that is a very convenient drive from where I work and live.

I have been using an LG v40 ThinQ for almost six years. My original LG v40 ThinQ is gone. The back of the phone came off. Apparently the battery began to burst. My initial replacement had a similar fate. I bought yet another version of the same phone about a year and a half ago for hardly anything, as I simply didn’t have the time to really research a good permanent replacement. We will see how long this one lasts. I need more time to research smart phones, especially at the high end. I prefer to get a device and keep it for four or five years. Most of my family seems to be gravitating toward iPhones, but I am determined to avoid going that route. The newer Samsung phones look really promising. Given the times we live in, my default is to delay any major purchases as long as possible. So, unless something really goes wrong with my current phone, I’ll stick to the status quo for as long as possible. Keep in mind that my last Samsung kept going for over four years (although the last year was a bit touch and go). Once I do have to make a new smart phone purchase, the camera feature is the one I consider most important. So any advice on such matters is always appreciated. Occasionally I get to use my old 35 mm, but one of my daughters commandeered it. Presumably she’ll return it before she moves out. So it goes.

This series of posts is in honor of a number of our ancestors. At one point, there were some seriously great photographers who graced Booman Tribune with their work. They are all now long gone. I am the one who carries the torch. I keep this going because I know that one day I too will be gone, and I really want the work that was started long ago to continue, rather than fade away with me. If I see that I am able to incite a few others to fill posts like these with photos, then I will be truly grateful. In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and I am sure between Booman and myself we can pass along quite a bit of knowledge about the photo flog series from its inception back during the Booman Tribune days.

Since this post usually runs only a day, I will likely keep it up for a while. Please share your work. I am convinced that us amateurs are extremely talented. You will get nothing but love and support here. I mean that. Also, when I say that you don’t have to be a photography pro, I mean that as well. I am an amateur. This is my hobby. This is my passion. I keep these posts going only because they are a passion. If they were not, I would have given up a long time ago. My preference is to never give up.

My memory for personal things is nothing like my memory for things in the political world. I’m kind of defective that way. I know that at some point beginning in around 2008 it became clear that I really had to stop drinking. I’d been a heavy drinker since I turned 21, but I really developed a problem after a pit bull nearly killed my dog and put in me in the hospital in 2002. I kept having a recurring nightmare of the attack in every gory detail, and the only way to prevent it was to drink heavily so I didn’t dream. I had a really serious case of PTSD but I didn’t seek any counseling for it.

Ironically, my solution to drinking too much was initially to stop drinking at all times except when it was time to wind down for sleep. So, for years I didn’t go to bars or drink at sports events or when I went out to eat. I did my best to hide my drinking from my family, and it was mostly invisible to them until it wasn’t, like someone needed me to wake up in the middle of the night. The nightmares had stopped years before, so I really had no reason to continue the night drinking, but I had become addicted and couldn’t sleep without booze.

At first, a couple of martinis would do the job, but soon it was a half a fifth of vodka every night and I didn’t even bother with the vermouth. One bottle every two days. And then, by 2014, I’d wake up and realize I’d drank three-quarters the night before and didn’t have enough to get me through the next night. This also coincided with the onset of physical problems, like falling down and being dysfunctionally hungover. My body had had enough and couldn’t take much more. I decided to quit a week before my 45th birthday. Of course, my family thought I had already quit.

And it was true, I had quit. My longest break was for six or eight months, something like that. It was a sustained period of time. But addicts are funny. I was going to a support group for parents of children with substance abuse problems, and that was helping to keep me sober. But one day the woman next to me told the group that her daughter, whose struggles we’d all been following, had overdosed in a fast food restroom while home visiting from rehab. That night on the way home, I stopped at a liquor store and began the final binge of my drinking life. Why did I react like that?

I just wanted to mask the pain I was feeling.

Later on, when my brother died after his own struggle with drinking, my first impulse was to go get drunk, but I didn’t do it. At that point, I was only 13 months sober but I already had the tools to cope.

One week after I quit drinking in 2014, one side of my body started to go numb and I drove myself to the emergency room. By the time I got there, I discovered that I couldn’t make my mouth form the words I was thinking. I was tested to see if I was having a stroke, but I was actually suffering from alcohol withdrawal. I spent the night of my 45th birthday in a rehab, and I spent another three weeks there until my insurance cut me off.

It took me a long time to reestablish trust with my family. I’d been hiding my drinking, after all, and suddenly they realized I was boozing hard enough to land myself in the hospital when I tried to quit.

But today I can proudly say that I’ve been sober for ten solid years. It’s a big accomplishment even if it seems pretty effortless at this point. Every anniversary, I write about getting sober, but I never before shared the embarrassing details. I did it this year because it’s a big milestone, and I hope my story can lend encouragement to people who know they need to quit alcohol or some other bad habit, and don’t have the will power or courage to get started.

I know quitting for some is harder than it was for me, but my example proves it can be done. My example also shows that it’s a good idea to start with some honesty so you don’t have to try to do it alone. Alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous but that doesn’t have to be an excuse to keep drinking. After all, drinking heavily is far more dangerous. And if you wait too long, it could be too late to repair the damage to your health, your family, or both.

My first thought on reaching my 10th Anniversary was that I should have some reward. I was like, “What? This is it? There’s nothing special?”

It’s a stupid thought, since life, health and a happy family is my reward, every day. But if you want to give me a reward, signing up for our podcasting Patreon would make me happy and grateful. This is in part because half the money will go to my podcasting partner Brendan who provides half the talent and all the editing.

Either way, it’s a big day for me. And if you’re someone who realizes it’s past time to quit, just know that you can get to 10 years sober, too.

It’s been one heck of a week. Did you watch the debate? I know I did. So did Jon Stewart:

So did Stephen Colbert:

And one more for the road:

I did take some time last night after the debate to catch Allan Lichtman’s take on the debate as well. Although not comedic, he can be entertaining and informative at the same time.

What was your favorite moment from the debate? What caused you to really cringe? Now that Kamala Harris has Taylor Swift’s endorsement (a big deal when you consider that her music empire probably makes her the seventh largest economy in the world), is it all over for old Grandpa Caligula? I am not great with predictions, so I have no answer to that last question. But yeah, it was quite a spectacle where Kamala Harris met the moment, and the moderators actually made an effort to, I don’t know, moderate. What a novel concept. It was definitely not like any of the usual debates where Trump has been a candidate: the moderators didn’t act completely hapless like the refs while the Harlem Globetrotters break every rule known to basketball. Maybe there is hope yet.

Cheers, everyone.