The things that look fixed in the world, child—mountains, wealth, empires—their permanence is only an illusion. We believe they will last, but that is only because of the brevity of our own lives. From the perspective of God, cities like this come and go like anthills.
—“Cloud Cuckoo Land” Anthony Doerr
1.
Abortion rights are on the ballot in Ohio this Tuesday, driving a surge in early voter turnout. The results in Ohio will be closely watched as abortion rights groups work to put ballot questions before more voters next year, including in key presidential battleground states like Arizona and Florida.
Desiree Tims, who leads a progressive Ohio think tank and has been working on the Vote Yes campaign, said "What the Republicans, frankly, have done in this environment is they have created a window for advocates on the left to say, 'See, look! This is what we've been talking about.’ Our greatest fears, our nightmares, are coming true. And this is our time to stand up and fight back." Stay tuned…
Next November, let’s send all the Republicans home where the worst they can do is sit on their porches and yell “Get off my lawn!”
2.
This week, Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans unveiled a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel that cuts the IRS budget by about the same amount, while also leaving out Ukraine assistance and other bipartisan priorities. But, as ABC News reported, for each dollar spent auditing the top 1% of U.S. earners, the IRS brought in $3.18; for each dollar spent auditing the top 0.1%, it brought in $6.29. In September the IRS noted that it recovered $38 million in delinquent taxes from 175 high-income taxpayers within a few months and would be increasing that effort. A 2021 study showed that people whose income is in the top 1% of earners fail to report more than 20% of their earnings to the IRS.
But fuck that…let’s stick it to Democrats.
To read up a bit more about what a dick Mike’s Johnson is, check out the reporting from lee Papa: For years, Mike Johnson represented the shittiest fucking people in trying to halt others from having rights or enjoying life in a way that harmed no one. As a dick lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom (motto: "'Freedom' should probably be in quotation marks in our name"), Johnson was on the fucked up side of issue after issue in our bullshit culture war. He fought the city of New Orleans to stop it from offering domestic partnership benefits in the pre-Obergefell days. The law had been in place since 1999, and they sued in 2003 in a case they lost in 2005. He opposed the Obama abortion pill mandate, he sued in favor of various school prayer cases, and more. When it comes to abortion and LGBTQ rights, Johnson is the hardest of the hardcore opposing both. And when he was a state representative, in the panicked days before the Obergefell same-sex marriage decision in 2015, Johnson sponsored legislation that would allow businesses to refuse to serve same-sex couples and, going back to his earlier case, would allow a business to deny benefits to same-sex couples because of "religious" reasons.
And Mother Jones reported that the Johnsons are diehard fundamentalists who believe every religion other than their brand of Christianity is false and that whatever is written in the Bible should dictate all conduct, rules, policies, and laws. And toward the end of a video seminar he and his wife Kelly conducted in 2016, they said you better sit down any candidate who says they’re going to run for legislature and say, “I want to know what your worldview is. I want to know what, to know what you think about the Christian heritage of this country. I want to know what you think about God’s design for society. Have you even thought about that?” If they hadn’t thought about it, you need to move on and find somebody who has…We have too many people in government who don’t know any of this stuff. They haven’t even thought about it. I can’t even…
Next November, let’s send all the Republicans home where the worst they can do is sit on their porches and yell “Get off my lawn!”
3.
And, of course, the House decided that George Santos was just OK by them and will retain his seat after being charged with one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud, in addition to the seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives that were charged in the original indictment. I guess he just messed up and should be excused.
Next November, let’s send all the Republicans home where the worst they can do is sit on their porches and yell “Get off my lawn!” (Are you catching the theme here?)
4.
The Biden administration will spend $1.3 billion to build three large electrical transmission lines across six states to upgrade the nation’s power grid so it can better handle more renewable energy, as well as extreme weather. The lines, built with money from the bipartisan infrastructure law, will span from Arizona to New Mexico, Nevada to Utah, and through Vermont and New Hampshire and into Canada. Together, the three transmission lines will add 3.5 gigawatts of additional electric capacity to the grid – enough to power about 3 million homes – and create roughly 13,000 new jobs. Even so, the Energy Department said the U.S. needs to expand its transmission line network by two-thirds or more to meet Biden’s goal of 100% clean electricity generation by 2035.
One of the problems is that the federal government has limited authority to direct grid planning, in contrast to the way it oversaw the Interstate Highway System. Some regions, like Texas and the Southeast (you, know, the Confederates), have resisted expanding transmission ties with their neighbors. And some utilities are wary of new long-distance lines that might undercut their local monopolies.
I have to say that, speaking of the Biden Administration, I have to agree with the anti-war protesters who called for a cease-fire and the end of U.S. funding for Israel during Secretary of State Antony Blinken's testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. Funding the Netanyahu regime is like funding Putin. But just yesterday the Daily Beast reported that a reckoning is coming for the Biden’s administration’s partnership with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government in Israel. As Israel’s offensive in Gaza has begun, the carnage it has produced has been awful and the weeks ahead promise worse to come. The language of Netanyahu—the total war framing of the conflict by him and his team—has been confirmed by the high civilian toll of their military operations to date.
One of the unfortunate side-effects of this horrific conflict is the rise in threats against Arab, Jewish and Muslim communities here in good ol’ freedom-lovin’ ‘murica. Brian Levin, the former director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino, said “We are seeing a diversity of attacks, which range from noncriminal incidents all the way to threats, assaults, vandalism and bomb threats. If we continue seeing these horrific images coming out of the Holy Land, we are going to see an even greater spike, not only in hate crimes, but also in much more violent types of plots, if history teaches us anything.”
5.
Strange things happen in Kansas. Witness Republican Sen. Alicia Straub (Ellinwood) writing in an installment of the state Republican Party’s newsletter that the Koch influence machine makes or breaks politicians and policies. Huh? Are you sure you’re a Republican, Alicia? She penned:
“This behemoth of a business uses their unfathomable wealth to manipulate and control politicians worldwide,” the senator wrote. “They enjoy playing politics. In fact, their political ‘advocacy’, is what they claim ‘truly sets them apart’. They have created and funded countless think tanks, non-profit organizations, and lobbying groups, most notably, Americans for Prosperity (AFP).
“Americans for Prosperity, is not Republican. They are self-proclaimed Libertarians. AFP likes to control politicians so much, that if one dare ‘Pass’ on playing childish games with ‘leadership’ they try to punish and deter others from voting their moral principles. AFP has been known to spend over $100,000 against a legislator in a non-election year. They do this with letter size full color mailers that contain blatant lies about voting records. AFP in fact did this, when no one had even filed to run for Senate Dist. #33 in June 2023. I guess being worth over $200 billion has its downside; boredom must set in. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, and play they do.
“A maxed out $1,000 Kansas Senate campaign contribution is nothing to a company that makes over $200,000 per MINUTE. In fact, they could max out contributions to every single member of the Kansas Legislature (165 legislators) in under 1 minute of their earnings. That’s not Republican, that’s not democracy … That’s the sheer power of money.”
This was all reported in the Kansas Reflector but mysteriously has not shown up, or was taken down, in the actual GOP newsletter site. Gee, I wonder who’s influence might’ve had it taken down?
6.
And in other news, the orangeman’s sons blame accountants for everything, and old white man who hates women making their own decisions and abortion rights still blocks military promotions.
7.
And in a rare appearance, the Carnivaleros will be taking the stage at the TENWEST Impact Festival tomorrow, November 4th. We'll be playing one long set at 2:30pm on the stage in the parking lot just south of Exo Roast Co on 6th Avenue in Tucson, AZ. Come see us!
And now…
keeping us informed, great seeing you in the Moon light, thanks Gary. kw