Change Happens Quickly (when it's supposed to happen)

Bateman is the early voting location for Chicago's Ward 33. Photo by me, taken today, rights reserved.  The Blogger stats say this blog has over 100 visits now.

 Both photos taken today by me, rights reserved. 

Proposed amendment on voting rights: Section 1. The people who are eligible to vote shall have the right to vote. Section 2. The people who cast legal votes have a right to have their votes counted. Section 3. Within states, the process of casting votes shall be substantially the same throughout the state. Section 4. The government shall not erect barriers to people voting. Casting a vote shall be equal in difficulty throughout a state. Section 5. The voting process shall be recorded in a way that close elections can be recounted & all elections can be audited for accuracy of the results. Section 6. States, Congress, the executive branch & the courts shall all be empowered to enforce these goals. States, Congress, the executive branch & the courts shall not be empowered to undermine or diminish these goals. Section 7. Courts shall be particularly vigilant to protect the voting rights of those historically excluded from the voting & electoral process. Section 8. Con...

 Photo taken today by me. Rights reserved. 

What could make it a threat to the United States is if Biden has a credible claim he may have won two or more of Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas except for cheating at the state level by the GOP.

Remember, according to Democrats you are obligated to vote for harm reduction. 

 

 While I'm OK with voting "no" on all judges, on the theory that so few judges are voted out that there is no possibility of voting out a good judge... I do respect the people who want to vote "yes" on good judges. I do have a list. Basically, I went out to a number of practicing attorneys and asked for their recommendations and filled in the rest with my judgment of whether they would be replaces with someone better. I did use the Injustice Watch site for information. I recommend viewing positive endorsements from the bar associations with skepticism. As the official sources of recommendations, judges know how to manipulate the bar associations. Name, in order on ballot Pucinski, Aurelia Marie (appellate court) no Rochford, Mary Katherine (appellate court) no Toomin, Michael P. no Flannery, Jr., James Patrick yes Coghlan, Mary Ellen yes Sutker-Dermer, Shelley Lynn no Martin, Patricia Manila no Wadas, Kenneth J. no Wojkowski, Gregory J. yes Gordon, Robert E. ye...

 I recommend a "no" vote on "access to broadband", skipping the second question and "no" on the firearms question. Generally, I dislike & distrust these referendum questions. As I understand the system, there's a limit of three advisory referendums on the ballot. So, elected officials put bogus stuff on the ballot to keep more meaningful questions off the ballot. My objection is that "access" is a vague enough term that it leads to debates about what "access" means. Think of the "access to healthcare" debate. If the question is intended to mean, "Shall every household in Chicago be connected (high-speed) to the internet?" then they should have been asked this way.  Further, the question seems to be built on the assumption that people will be purchasing "access" to the internet from private providers. I reject this model. Hasan Minaj has a good episode of Patriot Act that makes the case for publicly ...

 Picture taken today. Rights reserved.

  'm so old, I remember Hillary Clinton supporters arguing that it was impossible for Democrats to win the U.S. House on the 2012 map. This was the defense offered for Hillary For America hoarding resources in a way that undermined Democrats running for US House. See " DNC sought to hide details of Clinton funding deal " by Kenneth P. Vogel & Isaac Arnsdorf (Politico).

 In the United States, the Right embraces, a well armed society is a polite society. The quote is attributed to Robert Heinlein , a US Naval Academy graduate. Recently Samuel Paty was killed for being rude. Rather than portraying the death as accountability for bad manners, corporate media in the West is portraying Samuel Paty as a victim. These same corporate media outlets refuse to see Julian Assange 's case as a free speech issue. Like they didn't see Edward Snowden 's. Or Chelsea Manning 's. Or almost any national security state whistleblowers. ( Reality Winner does get a tiny bit of sympathy because of the partisan political nature of her whistleblowing.) Corporate media isn't embracing Samuel Paty b/c of their commitment to free expression; they embrace him b/c of their Islamophobia.

 Photo taken today in Evanston, rights reserved. 

I have avoided loading Facebook on my phone, including things attached to Face, eg Words With Friends. Now Facebook is saying I need to jump through hoops that involve logging into Facebook on my phone b/c my computer is a "new device". It's not. Getting closer to deleting Facebook. UPDATE: Facebook's story about why I can't log in has evolved. Also, Facebook decided to have me "logged in" for Facebook's purpose of gathering data on websites I was visiting, but not for the purpose of allowing me to access the Facebook content I wanted.

Get your shit together, USA.  

 Photo taken today by me. Rights reserved. 

 photo taken today b y me, rights reserved. 

 I happen to think the Democrats are on the way to big gains in Congress. But no matter if Dems have a good election or the GOP has a good election, there will be close results somewhere. Whether the Dems have a good election and the close states are Kansas, Mississippi & Texas or the GOP has a good election and the close states are Maine, Michigan & Minnesota or the pundits/pollsters have a good election Iowa, Maine & North Carolina... there are going to be close election results. And how these elections results get resolved is not going to reflect well on the U.S. electoral system. The above graphics are screenshots from Five Thirty Eight . The below screen shot is from Sam Wang's Princeton Election Consortium .

The legacy of Bush vs. Gore is that judicial rulings on election matters will be Dem judges rule in favor of Dem litigants & GOP judges rule in favor if GOP litigants.

Photo taken today by Carl Nyberg, rights reserved.

 Richard Mellor reminds me that blog posts are supposed to have pictures. Amy Coney Barrett's "originalism" is a fraud . Pretending a bad faith argument is being made in good faith is itself a bad faith argument rooted in power.

 One of my differences with many political activists and issue activists is that I do not accept the "go slowly" or "incremental" approaches to social change. I think you're supposed to demand something big that fixes the problem and then you are supposed to change the people in power, not water down the demands to make elected officials and foundation donors more comfortable. I generally think people who spend a bunch of time telling you what they did in the past are a waste of time. But allow me to waste your time. In 1993, I was an active duty Navy lieutenant assigned to the USS Independence (CV-62) . I was eating in the wardroom when I was told that there was a request for Navy officers to volunteer to be UN military observers (peacekeepers) in Cambodia. I was assigned to the engineering department and the chief engineer was one of the most brilliant (prob #1) officer I worked for in the Navy. CDR Bill Goodwin was also, a strong supporter of the careers and ...

 It's October 17, 2020. In the American (USian) theological tradition of being "born again", it seems like 2020 is a good point to be born again. So, my name is Carl Nyberg. I'm a blogger. I've been born again with this blog. And I'm here to criticize stuff that should be changed.