3 Days to Go

It's hard to make the case for voting on Tuesday without citing the transfinite number of reprehensible acts carried out by the Trump administration.  But the point of 15104, at least through 11/06, is not to bash Mr. Trump, but rather simply to urge readers to vote.  Given that, Bodhi has arrived at a topic for today.

Posse comitatus originally meant a group, summoned by a local police official (usually a sheriff), to keep the peace or enforce an unpopular law.  More recently, the term translates from legal-speak as the statute, passed just after our Civil War, that makes it illegal for our military to be used to uphold domestic ordinances.

Given that, the policy Trump put forward recently - to station as many as 15,000 troops on our border with Mexico, and to allow those troops to shoot to defend themselves from stones and rocks -  is arguably illegal and unconstitutional.  What's more, it will, should he insist upon it, cost taxpayers a bat-bleep load of money - approximately $150,000,000.00 (one hundred fifty million).

As few as 23 seats in the House of Representatives would allow Democrats to act as a guardrail to instances like this of the reality TV President.

4 Days to Go

Yesterday, the Cook Report, a paragon among political prognosticators, predicted that Democrats will pick up 30 to 40 seats in the House of Representatives.

Let's prove Cook wrong.  Let's turn his numbers into 50 to 60.  We can, if we all vote on November 6.

5 Days to Go

Looking for an alternative to Trumpian demagoguery and jingoism?  Look no further.  Listen to Oprah Winfrey.  Vote your beliefs and conscience.

6 Days to Go

I've never been so proud of the place and the people from which I came as I was yesterday.

Disregard Donald Trump's tweets dismissing protests in Pittsburgh as small, or as his classic,  fake news.  In Squirrel Hill on October 30th, several thousand marchers, of every age, race, and faith, peacefully protested Mr. Trump's fear-mongering.

Related, and as objectionable, is his move today to send several thousand more troops to our border with Mexico.  That last xenophobic flourish for the base will cost taxpayers about $150,000,000.00 - one hundred fifty million dollars.  Par for the course for the reality show Presidency ...

Vote on November 6.  Vote for the empathy and common sense the current administration lacks.

7 Days to Go

On or before November 6, vote.  If you don't, you may never have the chance again.

Today, Donald Trump is considering using an executive order to rescind birthright citizenship - to eviscerate the 14th Amendment.

8 Days to Go

W. E. B. DuBois founded the Niagara Movement in 1905.  At the group's annual meeting in August 1906, he addressed the importance of the right to vote.

With the right to vote goes everything: freedom, ... the right to work, ... the chance to rise ...

More than a century later, Representative John Lewis (D-GA) echoed DuBois.

The vote is the single most powerful tool we have for no-violent social change.

Listen to them.  Vote on November 6.

9 Days to Go

Federal hate crimes laws, like those under which the alleged shooter in yesterday's attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue has been indicted, lacked real teeth until 2009.  Its analog in Pennsylvania, the Ethnic Intimidation Act, was similarly hanstrung earlier in its existence.

Call me partisan if you like, but I find it salient that in both these cases the Democratic Party had a sgnificant degree of control of the legislative bodies in question.  In fact, regarding the Federal government, Democrats took over the House during the 2006 midterms, and retained control not only of it but of the Senate from Jan. 2007 to Jan. 2011.

Ergo, midterms can be critically important.  Ergo, vote on November 6.