Archive for August, 2022

Wanna Bet?

August 15, 2022 By: Half Empty Category: Uncategorized

So there are 85 calendar days until the mid-term elections. Any day now we should be seeing a major uptick in political ads on TV (and radio, I guess). But here on the Left Coast we’ve been subjected to an avalanche of ads for months now on one ballot proposition, Proposition 27. We even had ads before they knew what the proposition’s number was. That was new. Not so new is the subject of the proposition: legalizing online sports betting. We’ve seen that one before.

Many states have legalized online sports betting, but California, the sugar plum that the gambling industry has tried to pick before, has not. And the “Yes on 27” campaign has vigorous opposition from the “No on 27” campaign. Hundreds of millions of dollars in TV ads are being spent across both campaigns. It could go as high as a half a billion.

See, California has lots of native American tribes that have enjoyed the profits from our many, many “Indian Casinos”. They’re big here. Seeing a cut in casino profits, the casino tribes are behind the “No” campaign and huge out-of-state online gambling concerns are behind “Yes”.

So this should be an interesting tug-of-war in this deep blue state. Vote “Yes” and the taxes levied on online sales go to help house the homeless, and vote “No” to protect the sovereign rights of California’s casino tribes. A conflict worthy of the California Woke to mull over.

I guess ultimately I’ll vote for the cause that tells the fewest lies.

The Worst Traitor In American History*

August 15, 2022 By: Primo Encarnación Category: Uncategorized

Generally, in American history, Benedict Arnold is considered the epitome of a traitor. But I think there’s a better candidate than that emo, money-grubbing glory hound: a certain New Yorker.

The son of a powerful family, who from childhood to adulthood seethed with resentment over other people getting more attention or accolades, he became a sometimes-successful politician, who built a mere social club into a political organization so crooked, it became the avatar of political corruption in America, which he helped along by creating a shell company, ostensibly for one purpose, only turn it into a political slush fund making “loans” to business associates who would then support his candidates.

A power-hungry social climber who nearly destroyed the Electoral College in an attempt to turn a loss into a win, this ego-maniac thought he could kill a fellow New Yorker in broad daylight and not hurt his political fortunes.  And once those fortunes did tumble after one term, he conspired with foreign powers to set himself up as a kind of client-king in North America, beholden to the other strongmen who put him there.

He single-handedly stress tested the political experiment of our Constitutional Republic, blowing past norms and guardrails of gentlemanly patriotism in pursuit of raw power that he deemed was his by right, and it was only thanks to the incompetence of his co-conspirators that we didn’t end up with Aaron Burr the First, King of America.

Gotcha!

Yes, TFG emulates him in so many things, but let’s hope there’s one major difference: other than the political fallout, Burr got away with the rest, including two treason acquittals for playing a game of thrones with England and Spain. He got away with creating a clean water company that instead became a bank and gave loans to allow small business owners to have enough property to vote. He got away with creating Tammany Hall. He got away with lying to Jefferson as a running mate and trying to steal the election from underneath him via the Electors.

And he was never even charged for shooting that one guy who became a musical.

Now I’m the villain in your history.

Let’s hope that the knock on the door at Mar-a-Lago last week is just the first of many, and that Burr’s title gains an asterisk:  The Worst Traitor in American History*

*who got away with it

Red Sox, You are the Only Only Only

August 15, 2022 By: Fenway Fran Category: Uncategorized

A customer asked about my relationship with Fenway. I started to answer in the comments but it got a little long. I thought y’all might like to know as well. So here’s my story, you won’t need to subpoena me for details. I didn’t know what to title this, so I stole from Dropkick Murphys.

Basic history: I was born in Brighton, but my parents moved to Waltham, the Watch City, when I was 2. Dad and my Uncle Dick worked at Buck Printing on Ipswich St, at the corner of Landsdowne St. It has been a nightclub-The Ark- a roller rink, an arcade/bar. I googled the address, it’s now a bowling alley and bar, Lucky Strike Fenway. You can see the old building from the Mass Pike. The Buck Printing sign on the roof could be seen from the park, before the Jumbotron days. Dad said they’d sometimes take their breaks up on the roof on game days/nights. Uncle Dick was always scoring tickets, and would take me and my brother to games when we were kids. They lost a lot back then, but we always had hope. I loved keeping score, and trying to convince Unk that we shouldn’t leave before the end to beat the crowds because they just might come back. During my college years at Northeastern, I lived in an apartment along the Green Line half a block from the Fenway stop. You could still get really cheap bleacher seats and SRO tickets. We’d get the latter, then roam around sitting in empty seats until someone kicked us out. I loved that old place, but it’s gone crazy upscale in the 40 years since I left New England Last game I witnessed was Jon Lester’s no hitter, May 19, 2008. Reminds me, I’m overdue for a pilgrimage. I try to catch games in places I’ve lived, so I’ve been to Oakland, Houston, and Seattle. Juanita Jean and I share a deep love of baseball, but sadly we never did get to one together before I left Fort Bend. About the Fran, both of my grandmothers were Frances, so it’s my middle name. I always liked it better than my real first name, but don’t tell my mother.

And Then There’s This…

August 13, 2022 By: El Jefe Category: Russians, Sedition, Trump, Uncategorized, unprecedented

Russian state media is laughing at the US, saying that the files in TFG’s basement contain information about new nuclear weapons, and that they’ve already seen them.  Let that sink in.

Where There Is Will, There Is A Way

August 12, 2022 By: Half Empty Category: Uncategorized

For decades now, decades, I have lived in either a right-leaning or a full-on batcrap crazy Republican congressional district. I was being represented by people that didn’t represent me. The doozy to beat all doozies was (not) being represented by Tom DeLay, whose house, by the way, was 3 blocks from my workplace.

All of the negatives of that last experience was more than balanced by meeting a bunch of the scrappiest Democrats that I had ever seen. The Fort Bend Democrats. Texas politics invaded my life and I was hooked. Out here on the Left Coast we Californians are much more calm and soft-spoken. In large part because we all agree (for the most part) and pass blue urine.

But when I landed here in CA CD-42 my congressman was a guy named Ken Calvert, who was at the time, a 20-year veteran who never had a serious Dem opponent and never accomplished anything. Basically he’s office furniture, maybe a credenza, but I prefer him as a chair.

A La-Z-Boy.

So the only good thing about him as my congressman was that he didn’t ever do anything which was fine with me.

Then came The Former Guy (every time I see the shortened TFG reference I think of the other phrase that must have been invented in New York (starts with “this”, ends with “guy”) and you say it with a Queens accent). Calvert obeyed and went totally MAGA. Then in ’21 came the redistricting, and Calvert lost his comfortable 62-38 edge. He was moved to CD-41, currently represented by Mark Takano, a Dem (Takano is running in CD-39), and CD-41 is now a by-god swing district.

But wait, it gets better. Ken Calvert’s new district is only half California redneck. The other half, new to him, is the Palm Springs area. To those who don’t know, Palm Springs is dominated by the largest LGBTQIA+ community in the country. He doesn’t fit in at all. No one east of Banning is going to vote for him.

And his Democratic opponent? Will Rollins, a young, energetic former federal prosecutor who brought many a 1/6 insurrectionist to justice. My sister calls him “eye candy”. And you can see from the photo of him and his partner, Paolo, that she isn’t far off.

Calvert is flush with corporate funding, chiefly oil companies to the tune of over half a million. He hasn’t held a town hall in 10 years. Will depends on small-dollar donors, and has gotten the attention of the DCCC. But if you wanted to support Will I don’t think he’d mind. Go here.

And yes, I buried the lede again.

My Friend Pam

August 12, 2022 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

My friend Pam is a perfect lady, an AKA with pearls, a graduate of the University of Texas with a degree in English, and attends the Methodist Church.  She is about the same age that I am.  Having been friends with her for 30 years, I have rarely heard her curse and even then it’s mild.

She defended Beto’s speech by telling me, “That was not cussin’. That was punctuation. That was an exclamation point.”

She’s right, you know.