Author: Raymond

 
From John Pavlovitz:

As I watched McCain’s memorial service yesterday (as with some of the best funerals) life surprisingly and defiantly showed up in the face of death. Not unlike this country in the wake of 9/11, unity seemed to briefly return. It felt like mutual respect had been resurrected in America, if only for a few hours. Hope somehow felt tangible again, even in a time set aside for grieving.

It’s no small coincidence that this brief moment of national renewal happened in the physical absence of the current President. His non-presence was profound and powerful—reminding us how toxic America has become since he arrived, and how we are better off, more compassionate, and far closer to our shared greatness when not continually goaded into bitterness or exposed to ranting.

Supporters of this President will tell you that everyone at Senator McCain’s memorial service and all those expressing kindness this week, have just been “politically correct;” that it was all a symptom of their weaknesses and their inability to “tell it like it is.”

I think it was far more than that.

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From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:

Nobody will forget how Waukesha County became the center of the political universe when a former county clerk forgot to include the city of Brookfield’s votes in the vote totals for a Wisconsin Supreme Court race. But could we be facing a similar crisis this November in Milwaukee? Or elsewhere?

Jerry Bader of Media Trackers is reporting that the Milwaukee County Clerk’s office, through a software error in the WisVote program, managed to double the number of Democratic votes cast in the Milwaukee County sheriff’s race. The canvass showed the total votes cast in the Democratic primary as 219,300 but the ward-by-ward count showed only 109,473 Democratic votes for sheriff.

“Problems with the WisVote software are being blamed for the Milwaukee County canvass of the August 14 Democratic Sheriff’s primary showing almost exactly double the number of votes actually cast on Election Day,” Bader reported.

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From Michael Kinsley:

The smooth and yet dramatic reversal in direction that followed the transfer of presidential power in 2016 is a tribute to American democracy. Especially when you consider that twice in the past five presidential elections — that is, almost half the time — the majority turned over power to the minority (in straight who-got-more-votes terms). How many other nations could pull that off?

But smoothness isn’t everything. The constitutional rules for electing a president are almost comically complex, potentially involving both houses of Congress in different capacities, the entire Cabinet, 50 state legislatures and a two-thirds vote of the people running food trucks along Pennsylvania Avenue. And in the end, we’ve got a government run at almost every level by people whose philosophy of government most citizens voted against. Talk about the silent majority! Every morning we wake up to discover that some corner of government has been taken over by zealots of the right. Trump has been peacefully handed the keys to the car by folks who think he can’t drive and shouldn’t be on the road.

So the election of 2016 — another Republican “victory” on a technicality — still sticks in many a blue craw.

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From Blue in the Bluegrass on increased hate crime:

These people are not bumbling goofs to laugh at. They’re not political incompetents in need of adult supervision. They’re not even anti-government idiots determined to burn the house down around themselves.

They are war criminals, turning their sick fantasies into atrocities.

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From The Journal of Improbable Research:

44 undergraduate students were asked to listen to white noise and instructed to press a button when they believed hearing a recording of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas without this record actually being presented.
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