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CORRECTION
StandardPlease see the Correction on the most recent Election Connection about Renee Good. When I publish a mistake, I correct it as soon as I’m aware it exists. I apologize for any confusion.
Election Connection – Renee Good
I’m struggling today.
Yesterday and this morning have been very difficult for me; my spoons have clattered to the floor, and the idea of picking them up and beginning again isn’t there yet.
I’ve called this Election Connection because it is connected to our recent past elections and the two future ones in 2026 and 2028. It’s the people.
And it’s also more than the elections and the consequences of an illiterate and ignorant electorate.
It’s that the lack of fundamental thought processing is gone. Media literacy is gone. Impartiality on behalf of our journalists is gone.I’m not sure if we will ever get any of this back.
There are not always two (or more) sides to every issue. Sometimes there is the fact side and the anti-truth side. Good versus evil.
A woman and her spouse were driving home with their dog after dropping their six-year-old off at school. They never arrived home. That trauma will never go away.
I watched in real time as side-by-side, the video of the murder next to the government lying about it, and I was stunned. I truly was. I still am.
Anyone who’s watched the video saw what happened. A woman, trying to follow the direction of one ICE agent and leave was murdered by another ICE agent who then calmly walked to her car, turned around and walked away. Not limped. Not taken to the hospital. Not injured in any way. He walked away.
The federal agents on the scene refused to let a doctor attend to her. The federal agents on the scene refused to allow an ambulance to reach her.
The EMTs had to walk into the scene and them carry her limp, dead body back to the ambulance.
At the same time that her spouse was sitting on a snowy curb sobbing, the President of the United States, the Director of Homeland Security, and other federal officials claimed that the driver was a terrorist, that she attempted to harm the ICE agent. We know this is not true. It has been described in the media as the government gaslighting the rest of us.
I will say it more clearly:
The federal officials, the director of Homeland Security, the President and Vice President of the United States are lying to us. They are, in George Orwell’s words, asking us not to believe what we see, but to believe what they tell us. They are lying. Over an over again.
And this morning, we are being told that the FBI, led by a corrupt, unqualified director will be solely in charge of the investigation; that they are refusing to share any evidence found with the Minnesota State Police or the Minneapolis City Police. We cannot be expected to trust them. Not one iota when they’ve been lying to us as we watched the video of Renee Good’s murder.
We know her name because she was a white, middle class suburban woman, a mother of three.
I ask you to search the internet for the following two names:
Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez (Chicago).
Keith Porter (Los Angeles).
We know of others who’ve died in ICE custody, several not wanted on any charges, not undocumented immigrants. We don’t hear their stories because they are not white suburban women, but men of color, and we should be following their deaths and their stories equally as close.
The first man (Villegas-Gonzalez) was allegedly killed by the same ICE agent that killed Renee Good, at least that’s what Director Noem seemed to say in her press conferences.
CORRECTION: While the ICE agent who killed Renee Good was dragged by a car, it was not Mr. Villegas-Gonzalez who was driving. These were two separate incidents with two different ice agents.
The government went too far on January 21. It continues to push us to the brink of the end of democracy, the end of civil rights, the end of life in the United States as we know it.
CBS has capitulated. CNN has capitulated. AP News, the NY Times, the Washington Post have all capitulated. Who will be left to tell the true story? When will actual journalists stand up and remember their commitment to unbiased, truthful reporting, of speaking truth to power, of not showing two sides of a single truth?
I hope it’s soon, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Election Connection – Nobody Voted For This!
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On a road near my house, there are two of the same sign directly across from each other. For months now, I’ve been trying to take a photo because I loved and agreed with the sentiment. I finally got that photo, which you can see in this post. Once I got the photo however, the more I looked at it, trying to decide where to use it, and the more I thought about it, I realized that it’s a nice thought, a way to absolve voters, and get them to speak out and stand up. I agreed that even people who voted for the current president didn’t want this to be the outcome. But I’ve only just recently realized that it’s a lie.
“Nobody voted for this.”
That is a lie.
People did vote for this, greedily, happily, with determination and glee at what the other side would get, and indeed “get what’s coming to them.” I don’t have to give them the redemption arc they so desperately crave because the bad things are happening to them, and they’ve suddenly decided that the monster in the room is actually the monster in the room.
I can’t possibly list all the depraved, petty, destructive things this president and his Congress cohorts have wrought upon us.
Just because they’ve changed their minds because their landscaper was deported or their cousin the farmer is going to lose his farm because of tariffs or your health insurance is going up, like we told you it would, doesn’t mean that you get a pass because you’ve joined the suffering.
What did they vote for exactly if not for this?
They voted for lawlessness, for terrorism in our streets, for pulling people out of court hearings when they’ve immigrated “the right way,” for canceling citizenship swearing in ceremonies when these almost citizens met every hurdle, for “papers please,” for higher taxes, for lies upon lies upon lies, for pettiness that would put a toddler to shame, for misogyny, transphobia, antisemitism, and white supremacy. Yes, even if you’re not white, you voted for white supremacy. You’ve allowed him to denigrate our press, and the press has allowed him to do the same also by ignoring his outlandish and despicable behavior and their complicit silence. You’ve allowed him to call our women journalists names, and ignore the questions he dislikes. You voted for war, and disrespect for our country, our military, and put our citizens here and around the world in danger. You voted for murder and the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, the paving over the Rose Garden because the dementia-addled resident of the White House can’t remember where he is or what he’s doing. His made up grievances are on repeat, his whines are pathetic, his falling asleep at the cabinet table would be cute if it was Grandpa at Thanksgiving dinner sated by the turkey, but not for the President of the United States.
He’s so narcissistic that he needs to deface a national monument, a memorial to a fallen President; yes, it’s sad, even for this joyless man, but it’s also pitiable.
His need to pull himself up by tearing everything and everyone around him down would be sad if he wasn’t also pulling down the future for my kids, for your kids. Will the next generation have a country to be proud of? Will they even have a country? Will we be able to recover from the nastiness he unleashed? Will the White House recover from the sad, gold accents that reduce this once great house, the people’s house to a tacky golf club?
Nobody voted for this.
Lies.
*I* didn’t vote for this. Many of the people reading this didn’t vote for this. But others, there are others who DID vote for this. They’re only upset that it affects them too and not just the brown skinned people they were “punishing” simply for not being white.
But make no mistake – this is exactly what you voted for, and for those of you who didn’t vote because “they’re both the same…” shame on you.
I, and many of us, won’t forget, and forgiveness is a long way off…if it ever comes.
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Today is the day that we remember those victims of transphobia, hate, and violence. One day, may the terror and horror they face be eliminated.
The week leading up to today was Trans Visibility Awareness Week, and it’s important to recognize that trans people are in the world and of the world.
Especially this year, when trans people are at higher risk because of our government, and others across the globe, we need to remember those that gave their lives, those that are both out and closeted, and respect their choices.
I would also like to remind people that while LGBT+ youth are at the highest risk for abuse and violence (both from strangers and from domestic abuse/violence), trans youth have even higher rates of homelessness, assault, and suicide. Pay attention to the words you use and what you may post on social media. That clever quip may not be that clever. Take away the stigma and let us all use anti-stigma identifying and inclusive language.
My pronouns are she/her. Yours are?
This missive encompasses many issues, so I’d like to end with the reminder that today is for the commemoration of the trans dead. Please remember them – all of them, especially trans youth and trans people of color who have lost their lives to too much hate and too soon.
Election Connection – Senators, Stand Your Ground, Stand Our Ground
Note: This didn’t even get a chance to age poorly.
I hate this timeline.
We are one week beyond the historic Election Day. We reached Presidential year numbers in voters and we made our position clear:
Do NOT give in. Do NOT cave.
Anything the Republicans say – we know from experience is a lie.
They’ve made these promises and commitments before. They will say anything. And then they will laugh at us, and take the credit for ending the shutdown. They know we are the better people and that we trust our better angels. They have NO better angels. I don’t care if John Thune used to be a decent person. (I actually question that.) He is part of the Trump Administration – rubber-stamping ALL of Trump’s crazy and illegal executive orders, not standing in the way of Trump’s murder of foreign nationals in the Caribbean, not putting a stop to the illegal and extrajudicial ICE tactics as they tear gas children on Halloween in Illinois, and commit perjury in court.
They will say and do anything and then when we let them kick the can down the road, they block the road and “forget” their “promise to address the needs of the people.” Their people are the rich, the wealthy, and the connected.
They will never return to the table if we let them walk away from this.
And why should they?
They’re Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football, and they know it.
And just yesterday, Trump pardoned Rudy Giuliani and many of the other election deniers. What happens to the compensation they were supposed to pay? What happens to the jail time? What happens in the next election?
We are on the brink of the failure of democracy.
Senators would do well to stand their ground. No ACA extension through all of 2026; NO VOTES to end the shutdown.
Stand firm.
We, the people are with you.
Are you with us?
November Inspired
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These leaves, the first before I voted, and the second, after stuck with me throughout the day. I ignored pundits. I ignored mainstream media. I ignored social media. And in the end, for the most part the inspiration held.
Blue.
Blue.
Blue.
From Pennsylvania to Mississippi to Georgia, even to Florida.
In 364 days, change is coming, and there is nothing the corrupt, the sychophant, the traitorous, the racist can do about it.
We will take back our democracy.
Tomorrow, I’ll share with you some of those people doing the work for democracy, for our future, and for our children.
See you tomorrow.
Election Connection – The Disgrace at the White House
This is both a week early and a week late. Next Tuesday is Election Day.
A lot of people still think that off-year election days are less important that presidential or mid-term years. There are no more off-years. We need to be done with that nonsense. Just look at the past year to know the truth in that. Trump should not have won. I don’t say that as a conspiracy theorist, and I don’t know if anything untoward with Elon Musk caused the obvious change in the election, but what I do know is that if you look directly at Trump and his allies, he was losing and he knew he was losing. By the end of the campaign, he could barely stand up or string two coherent words together. And then someone “tried to kill him” in Butler, Pennsylvania. Do I think someone tried to kill him? I don’t know, but I’ll let my quotation marks speak to that. What I do know is that a man who is still whining about an escalator and toilet water has said not one word about his “assassination attempt.” So you tell me, what part of this man’s personality allows him to let this go?
My next point is that Congressional Republicans and the Supreme Court have completely shirked their responsibility and their obligation to their oath with the embarrassing failure of keeping the checks and balances on the Executive Branch. Almost none of his executive orders are legal. His tariffs most certainly aren’t. His murder of fishermen in the Caribbean is absolutely illegal and extrajudicial. His indictments of Comey and James are the pathetic cries of his own incompetence, and I swear on all that is holy that if the Justice Dept gives him one penny of the “settlement” he’s asking for, I will not be held responsible for my actions.
And if trampling over the Constitution and using its parchment to wipe his and his sycophants’ asses wasn’t enough, last week (it is hard to believe that it’s only last week) he took a bulldozer to the East Wing of the White House. No permits filed. No money disbursed by Congress. Private companies don’t get to work on an historic building, one that is one of the foundations of our capital city without the proper protocols in place: environmental impact studies, historic preservation, toxic safety. A wing of the building built in 1942 will certainly have asbestos in those walls they just ripped down. I’ve read that the company doing the destruction doesn’t have a permit or a hazardous waste certificate to clear asbestos, but what do I know. The East Wing also rests atop the secure bunker where the President goes when there’s a credible danger or threat. I guess not anymore, right?
Continue readingElection Connection – Opinion
Should military honors be given to traitors?
What about settlement money? What if we call it reparations?
Ashlii Babbitt was a traitor. Full stop. No question. She was killed after she didn’t comply with officers’ instructions to stand down while breaking into the Capitol building. She was attempting to overthrow the government, and she (and her fellow traitors) nearly succeeded.
In the video of her death, she pauses at the broken window, then proceeds to go through. She briefly hesitated, and then followed through on her attempts at overthrow. She knew exactly what she was doing, and after the warnings, she knew the risks.
Was she an Air Force veteran? In her past, yes. But at the time of her death, she was an insurrectionist. She was trying to stop the legitimate certification of our elections. She was impeding the work of the government. Had she lived, she’d be in jail after her arrest and due process.
She absolutely does NOT deserve reburial with full military honors any more than Nathan Bedford Forrest, Robert E. Lee, or Benedict Arnold deserves it. Let her family bury her with respect; that’s their job.
A $5 million handout to her family for her death is outrageous! Where is the compensation for the families of the Capitol police who died that day?!
I could go on with a rant, but there isn’t anything else to say – traitors do not deserve compensation. It goes against everything this country used to stand for, and should stand for.
Election Connection – Rant Incoming
[Caption for above photo: Your Voice, Your Vote: Many forgot this. Yes, use your voice, but also use your vote. Look at the big picture, not just the soundbites. Pay attention. We’re running out of time to make this right. (c)2025]
Everyone online has all the answers, don’t they? Our current president certainly thinks he does. And the “journalists” flocking to twist and pretzel themselves into sycophants for him is truly astonishing, a little disheartening, and a lot disgusting that in my lifetime we’ve gone from Woodward & Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, Katherine Graham to Jake Tapper and Hamas terrorists. That’s not to say W&B were perfect; no one is, but the hit job Tapper did on President Biden while ignoring the dwindling mental capacity of the current occupant of the White House is not only repulsive, but journalistic malpractice. And don’t think I forgot about you Pod Bros, a big fuck you to you.
But…this isn’t about my grievances against the “fourth estate”. Republicans and far-left “progressives” are equally responsible for this shitshow. Ratings and money. That’s all that matters to these cult members.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 