Category Archives: 2020 Presidential Race

2020 Presidential Race, American Politics, Changes, Extremism, Hope, Life

What Can We Agree On?

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The seed that sparked this post was a comment made recently on one of my blog posts. In that post, I simply stated “Yay-Biden/Harris won”. Now those aren’t fighting words, are they? Yet, another blogger chose to tell me they were glad that I expressed this. Because then they could “block” me.

I found her comment humorous and ridiculous. When I read a blog post and don’t agree with what the blogger is saying, I tend to keep it to myself. Choose in silence to not follow them. It was the first time I can recall that anyone on the interwebs stated they would not follow me because of my political persuasion.

Of course, my response to this blogger was not helpful at all. I said “You do you, Sweetheart!”. That was admittedly snarky of me and later made me feel like a jerk.

But here’s the thing: aren’t we all in this together? Aren’t we all Americans? Aren’t there some basic things we can all agree on?

The extremism is really pissing me off these days.

Yes, I am very pleased that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be our next President and Vice President. I think they are earnest and are going to try their best to unite us and enact policies to put us all on a better path. I’m not going to take that back.

But there are almost half of us that don’t agree with that, which of course is their right. But is it helpful that a percentage of those folks are digging in their heels and refusing to acknowledge that Trump really truly lost this election? Doesn’t it make sense for them to put down their weapons, so to speak, and acknowledge reality?

I sure think it does. I’m hoping that they agree with that before long. It’s in everyone’s best interest, regardless of what particular political party they are aligned with.

For those of us on the other side, many of whom were often spouting re: Trump “well he’s not my President” after he was elected in 2016, they need to stop gloating. It is not helpful. While I was unhappy when he got elected, I didn’t go around saying “well, he’s not my President”, because I did not think it was helpful in any way. And it wasn’t the reality.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this blog is not a political one. It is however, my blog. And since I see my blog as being running commentary of life from my perspective in the here and now, it would not feel right for me to keep my politics completely off the table.

Ultimately, I want to be helpful here. I want to engage with others and lift them up. I want to be radically hospitable and open minded within this blog and in my real day to day life.

So, that leads me to this final question: what do you think we can all, as Americans, agree upon?

I think answering this question is a way to start healing. To start coming together. We have to start somewhere.

I will go first with: I think we can all agree that (more) change is coming in American society, whether we welcome it or not. We are all going to have to accept that. We’re going to have to get off our high horses for the greater good.

2020 Presidential Race, Covid-19, Gems, Girl Power, Halloween, Hope, Inspiration, Positivity

You Ought To Know About This Gem

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Okay, so here’s the deal: I am anxious as hell right now about what the outcome will be of the Presidential election happening in approximately 48 hours from now.

It’s good that I’ve been busier at work lately, having increased my hours. It was good for my soul to participate in a “Trunk or Treat” event (where everyone wore masks and gloves) yesterday afternoon. Seeing all the kiddos in their costumes really lifted my spirits. Distractions for me right now are a blessing.

Today I am determined to remain positive and share something positive with you all. Maybe it’ll give you some hope for our collective future as it did for me.

I caught this story on the news earlier this week about a 14 year old Indian American girl from Frisco, Texas who just won 3M’s “America’s Top Young Scientist” prize for discovering a key for a possible treatment for Covid-19.

Now, I don’t know what you were doing at 14, but I know I was not winning any contests based on my intelligence. The only “contest” I was trying to win at that time was “girl all the boys want to date”.

This brilliant young woman’s name is Anika Chebrolu and I think she is amazing. She gives me hope for the future. Her parents must be so very proud.

It astounds me that at 14, she has such a massive intellect and she is so well-spoken. So composed and mature beyond her years. She is an example of the kind of “Gem” that we ought to pay attention to and support.

I read a few articles about her and this is the one I found most informative. I’m certain this “Gem” is going places in the scientific world!

***Amazingly perfect header photo courtesy of https://seattleawis.org/awis-events/gems/

2020 Presidential Race, American Politics, Climate Change, Compassion, Hope, Positivity, Spirituality, Voting

After November 3rd 2020

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I refer to former Vice President Biden as “The Bridge” because that is how I see him.

Assuming he wins the election, it doesn’t seem likely he will have two terms as POTUS to me, given his age. But I think of him as “The Bridge” that will get us from the shitty place we are in as a country to a better place. He’s going to get the ball rolling, with the help of Kamala and all the other smart and capable people he will put in his cabinet.

Then after his 4 year term is done, the torch will be passed to someone who will continue Joe’s legacy.

Here’s what I’m hoping to see once (fingers and toes crossed) Joe and Kamala are in their new jobs:

Everyone gets masks, hand sanitizer, easy access to free and reliable Covid-19 test kits, a vaccine, and clear health education and guidance (supported by the administration) from the world’s top health experts. Like…Yay Science!

So that’s quite obviously Job #1.

Then we will see them utilize our DNA scientists. To use DNA kits on each one of those over 500 immigrant kids living in detention centers. Get a whole team of smart IT folks to work collaboratively on matching them with the DNA of their relatives. Engage mental health professionals and social workers to be the supports that are needed to reunite the families and guide them through getting set up as a family unit together, whether it be in the U.S. or their home country. Wherever the families choose to begin their lives together anew is where they will land.

They will get “BidenCare” up and running. They will make sure that health insurance does not have to be tied to employment. But if you have health insurance via your employment and you’re happy with your plan and your health care providers, you can keep it. Additionally, our new administration will make sure our out of pocket costs for medical care (including mental health and those complementary services like chiropractic care) are as low as they can possibly be. Whether we keep our health insurance through our employment or we choose the public option.

The new administration will incentivize Americans to pay more attention to climate change. To accept it as fact. To make it easier to recycle, standardizing the process across the whole country. It will bring jobs, man! As will switching to solar energy!

The Biden/Harris administration will address racial injustice and reform how we do policing in this nation. Cops will be partnered w/social work and/or mental health professionals for the majority of calls. President Biden will install a “pit bull” as AG to oversee this.

These are the things I pray for on the daily. You can call me a bleeding heart liberal, a snowflake, whatever. That is not going to stop me from hoping and praying for a better future for all Americans.

****Header image courtesy of https://fourseasons.teleioscn.org/blog/good-grief-1-0-1-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

2020 Presidential Race, American Politics, Climate Change, Education, Hope, Voting

Dear Undecided And Non-Voting Americans

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I know some of you personally. That is why I’m writing this letter. Because I care about you. I want good things for you. Sometimes it helps to hear the advice of someone in your life that you didn’t know you needed to hear. The unsolicited variety.

I’m going to cut to the chase here. You need to vote in this election. I know you say you’re not “political”. You tell me that you’re confused. Your ears and eyes pick up bits and pieces of what the candidates are doing and saying but your life so busy you haven’t had time to process it all. You brain is full of other things that feel more important to you. Your kids. Your job (or lack thereof). Your spouse. Trying to follow all the Covid-19 restrictions and maybe worrying about the health of those who are not.

You’re doing the best you can to get through each day. You’ve got a good heart. And you are smart. And you can think for yourself.

But. The man who is elected President in another couple of weeks is going to impact your life. Whether you like it or not.

I know you care about education, for example. You want your kids and your friends kids, and your kids friends and all the kids you don’t even know to have access to a great education.

I also know you care about health care. That’s the number 1 concern in American voters minds right now. You may have have health insurance. Maybe you don’t. If you do, you might think you’re paying too much for your premiums. Or you think your prescriptions or your co-pays are too high. Or maybe, God forbid, you or a loved one were surprised by an astronomically high medical bill because insurance only paid so much. And you have no idea how you’re going to pay that bill. Or you don’t have health insurance at all. So you are not getting the routine care you need. So you have to get yourself to an emergency room and hope it isn’t too late to get the care you need to get better.

I also know you, like the rest of us, want our country’s leaders to do all they can to combat Covid-19. You’re troubled by seeing the cases and the deaths from this monster climb each day. You want to get back to a time where masks are not required everywhere you go. You want this to be dealt with so you and your loved ones can get back to “normal”. You’re just plain sick and tired of it all.

I suspect you also care about our climate. You may not see yourself as educated in scientific matters but maybe you don’t like seeing news coverage of whales dead on the beach from pollution in our waters. You don’t like that this summer was oppressively hot where you live. You don’t think it’s right that big companies pollute our waters to the point where in some places in this country the water is not safe to drink.

I am certain that you worry about how Americans are treating each other these days too. The hatred, the violence, the injustices. The self-righteousness that gets spewed on the daily by extremists on both sides of the political aisle. Everyone thinks they are right but none of us actually are. Everyone seems to be distracted by their own opinions.

I urge each of you to give some serious thought to what you see around you and in this country as a whole and decide what it is you think ought to change for the better. Maybe it’s the topics I mentioned already: education, health care, climate change, violence. Or maybe it’s that and more.

Give yourself the courtesy of thinking about which Presidential candidate is more likely to bring about the changes you believe need to happen going forward. Or the one who you believe will attempt to do so to the best of their ability.

Make a plan. If you’re lucky like I am and live in a state where your ballot is mailed to you, sit down and fill that thing out. Bring it to your nearest drop off place. If you don’t, find out where your nearest polling place is and if and when they are open for early voting. Or look at your calendar and think through what 11/3/20 will look like. When can you get there to vote? After work, before work? Or maybe in the middle of the day, because you are unemployed because of Covid-19?

Then follow through. Don’t let yourself be that person who didn’t exercise their right as an American to vote.

Because I know that you know America is messed up right now. And I hope that you also know, as I do, that the only way to expect anything to change at this point is to vote.

***Header image courtesy of https://www.pine.edu/current-students/student-life/student-senate/get-out-the-vote

2020 Presidential Race, Hope, Humor, Politics, Voting

Impeachment and Beyond: A Political Pipe Dream

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Disclaimer: My blog is not a political one. I am not aiming, nor do I believe I possess the energy/skill-set/desire for it to become one. However, I’m an avid political news consumer. And I’m simultaneously sickened by the current political state of affairs and hopeful that with our next election, there will be positive changes in this country. For every single one of us.

And I have a blog. A space where I can spout off my opinions and ideas, political or otherwise.

So, here I go.

Having a positive mind-set does not mean one doesn’t ever have negative thoughts or feelings. Negative opinions of others.

For instance: I have numerous negative thoughts and opinions about Donald Trump. Such as: He’s an awful human being. He lacks compassion. He is narcissistic. He is unintelligent. He is a racist and a misogynist. He is wholly untrustworthy. He’s in over his head, has been since he got elected POTUS, but he’s so delusional he’s unable to admit that; likely even to his own self.

We as a country need him to be impeached. Or he needs to resign. We need him out of the fucking Oval Office, stat. However it happens is however it happens. It just needs to happen. Like yesterday.

Impeaching “Don the Con” needs to be the focus right now, in this moment. Granted, we all know he and his minions (until they all scatter away from him like drowning rats of course) are going to do their damndest to provide “distractions” from the looming impeachment. We need to call out those distractions for what they are: a manipulative means of switching the American voters focus on anything other than the immediate threat: Donald Trump as our President. He is a tumorous cancer on our country.

Daniel Dale on Twitter: "Going on MSNBC with @NicolleDWallace to talk about Donald Trump, the president."

 

So once all has been revealed and Donald Trump is unequivocally out the door, I think the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders need to take themselves a respite, as a team, and come up with a comprehensive plan for our country’s future. I think if they do this, there’s no stopping them from taking the White House, the Senate, and the House.

Allow me to channel my inner political strategist.

So we’ve got 10-ish Dems currently running for the Democratic nomination who are far more capable of running this country than the Douche who’s currently in the White House. They are all, in my view, upstanding, hardworking, sincere, intelligent and trustworthy folks. They all have their own experiences, talents, and ideas to bring to America’s table.

Image result for images of democratic presidential candidates

These Democratic Presidential candidates would be wise to  hit the pause button on their own races for a bit and have themselves a meeting of the minds. Maybe a weekend retreat somewhere in the mountains where they have the space and time to relax individually; catch up on their sleep, have a massage, go for a hike.

Bernie can do some guided meditation. Elizabeth can decompress in a sauna. Kamala and Amy can get a massage.

Then, if I had my way, they’d have a couple of professional, experienced mediators equipped with white boards and plenty of erasable markers to come up with a plan that answers the question: “What do Americans most need from us as elected officials to ensure a healthy, prosperous, and sustainable future for themselves, their loved ones, and our planet?”

I would posit that the most important outcome of this whole experience would be that they would create charts of who of each of them (including some who have officially dropped out of this race) would be in what cabinet position, depending upon who is POTUS and who is Vice POTUS. Then when the time is right, make the final chart, aka plan, public.

Thing is, when we vote for our next President, we need to understand that we are entrusting this person not only to lead our country and all that entails, but also to choose their cabinet members wisely. Put the right people in the right positions. As in, the complete opposite of what Chump has done.

This is what I envision:

POTUS: Elizabeth Warren (a no brainer at this point to me)

Vice POTUS: Pete Buttegeig or Julian Castro

Secretary of Energy: Jay Inslee

Attorney General: Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar

Secretary of State: Joe Biden

Secretary of Defense: Tulsi Gabbard

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Cory Booker

Secretary of Labor: Bernie Sanders

I fully realize this is a pipe dream, which some of you readers may completely disagree with. But it is my pipe dream. As an American who has become deeply concerned about where our nation is headed since the Liar-in-Chief took office and enlisted the help of his kids and other reprehensible characters to do his bidding, I fervently hope the Dems can truly get on the same page and figure out how to win this next election and get to work on making America sane, functional, and respectable again.

Image result for donald trump pumpkin meme

 

 

 

 

 

2020 Presidential Race, Climate Change, Politics, Voting

Political Ponderings on the 2020 Race

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When it comes to politics in America right now, I just have so many thoughts and opinions. And I probably watch too much MSNBC. I agree with the many people who have recently said that it’s too early to pick a candidate for 2020. After all, there are over 20 people who have put their hats into the ring for the democratic nomination. I get it.

That said, I still find it interesting from a socially/politically curious standpoint, to pay attention to what the candidates are saying. And what they’re not saying. Follow their campaigns. Call me a political nerd, but seeing how things play out for the Dems fascinates me.

Let me start with some thoughts about  Joe Biden. Now, I think he’d make a fine POTUS. He’s certainly got the experience necessary for the job. The temperament. The skills. But I don’t know that I’m likely to vote for him. I found his YouTube announcement of his candidacy to be earnest, yet lacking. Earnest as he was emphatically and unequivocally stating that he is running to get Trump out of office. Fair enough. I agree with this 100%. But he forgot the part about what he’s aiming to accomplish once he’s (conceivably) the actual Commander-in-Chief.

But as we are all aware, there’s still plenty of time for him to articulate to the American public what he’s going to do for us to improve the state of affairs in this country.  Coming out of the gate identifying himself as the “one” who can defeat Trump in 2020 may have been a genius move on his part. It got everyone talking. It got our attention. Perhaps now that he’s clearly stated that he wants to be the one to evict the Con-Man-in-Chief from the White House, he can move on to substantive issues, such as how he’s going to address the #1 issue (according to me anyway, and for god’s sake hopefully multitudes of other voters), which is climate change. How he’s going to fix our health care system so people are no longer losing their homes and their life savings over medical diagnoses that are out of their control. How he’s going to address immigration, the opiod epidemic, our crumbling infrastructure, our broken educational system, income inequality…I could go on.

Do not take what I have said thus far as an endorsement of Joe Biden. Because there are numerous other viable contenders. Right now, and certainly this is completely subject to change, I’m paying a little extra attention to what Kamala Harris has to say. And Elizabeth Warren. And Jay Inslee. Cory Booker and Mayor Pete of course. There can only be one candidate for the democratic nomination, and by God the Dems better pick a good one. The one who can actually defeat Trump. The one who will move us forward as a nation.

My advice to the Dems is this: work together, people. Be smart. Don’t run each other down. Focus on the issues. Lift each other up when one of you drops out of the race. Communicate to the American public who would be on your cabinet. I think an argument can be made for appointing most of the current democratic contenders a cabinet position, in fact. Examples: Jay Inslee as Secretary of Energy. Cory Booker as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Amy Klobuchar as Attorney General. Joe Biden as Secretary of State. Elizabeth Warren as Secretary of Treasury. Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of the Veterans Affairs.

Bottom line: the Dems need to use the skills, passions, and experience these folks possess and put them in the right positions for this time in our country. No matter who ends up as POTUS.