With Joe Biden joining the picket line with union workers in Michigan recently it appears that the tide may be turning with regards to the union vote. Even though Reagan did all he could to bust unions back in the 1980’s it seemed like the Republicans somehow successfully stole the support of union members and it’s stayed that way. Until now.
Recall that in his 2008 presidential campaign John McCain successfully made a connection with the labor movement by trying to help “Joe the Plumber.” Joe was your average private business owner out there trying to scratch his way to the American Dream and finding it difficult. McCain was there to help and it provided a boost to his campaign. The average “Joe” connected with the idea.
Given that unions are making a comeback and republicans are no where to be found for support, I came up with a novel idea for democrats to latch onto for 2024.
My son Rob is a 2nd year plumber apprentice. He too is out there trying to make some scratch towards the American Dream and he’s a proud union member, solid democrat and about as anti-MAGA as a person can be. Maybe Biden should latch onto this idea and mimic McCain’s successful attempt at connecting with the working class. It’d be fun to turn the tables on those guys.
Perhaps the funniest thing my cousin Mike Eady has ever written. Fortunately I remembered to ask him to send me a copy recently because I couldn’t find the old one – which is why it’s in scanned .pdf format.
Suppose that you entered a golf tournament and did pretty well, winning the front nine by one stroke but lost the overall championship by four strokes. Suppose further that you felt your opponent to be an inferior golfer who didn’t have as many followers on the course as you did. There’s just no way this guy could have beaten you.
Then suppose that you raise holy hell with the tournament officials about how the other guy had to have cheated to win. You assert your opponent took birdies on holes he bogied. That he had a secret deal with the greenskeepers to move the flag to a tougher position when you played the hole. That he had someone steal your ball on the 16th fairway in order to jigger your score on the back nine.
Your large following of supporters agree with you that this absolutely has to be true and put pressure on tournament officials to review the tapes to stop the steal of the tournament.
The tournament officials then agree to review the tapes and find no evidence of cheating on your opponent’s part. Your supporters then claim that the tournament officials are in on the fix and order an investigation of the investigation.
Then suppose that the very investigation you ordered shows that not only did you lose the tournament, you cheated on the front nine by having your caddie pay a woman in a tank top $130k to flash her bare chest at your opponent right before he addressed his ball on the first hole. Not only did you not win the back nine, YOU cheated on the front nine.
In the words of the oft colorful Jeff Tiedrich, Republicans appear to have their priorities upside down. As it turns out real problem is that they are bought off by the gun lobby who rakes in billions on gun sales, (even more-so after a mass shooting at a school), but be that as it may, I felt his observations are worthy of being repeated here, and I love the fact that he even provided links to actual examples.
Republicans were so busy protecting children from learning that Rosa Parks was black that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.
Republicans were so busy protecting children from eating a subsidized school lunch that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.
Republicans were so busy protecting children from discovering why Anne Frank had to hide that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.
Republicans were so busy protecting children from knowing how their own bodies work that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.
Republicans were so busy protecting children from having access to healthcare that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.
We humans have a tendency to believe if we exit our hard earned leadership positions that the world will fall apart yet nothing could be further from the truth.
On the work front, having been retired for almost a year I can assure you the positions I have left behind are in good hands. On the political front it’s just time to pass the baton to the younger generation and get out of the way. This applies to all political persuasions.
There are two main reasons that are driving this post. The first is, I have closely observed what kids today have to offer on a technical level and I couldn’t be more impressed. There is no shortage of talent and enthusiasm out there that should be tapped into, if only my generation would step aside. At Xerox I spent some on College Campuses recruiting grands and getting to learn about their projects and internships. The resumes are extremely impressive. Below the college level, kids as young as 9 are pumping out code on complex game projects and robotics, competing with peers using technologies we only dreamt of as kids. I have no worries that the kids can step up if they want to. The talent is there.
The second reason has more to do with politics. There’s never been a more convincing case for term limits than the current House, Senate, and Presidential leadership. I realize that at the core of governing this country with its constitution is by design a very slow change management system. That was put in as a feature, not a bug. The reason for mandatory turnover in politics isn’t complicated. New blood can cut old ties to lobby interests. The biggest reason of all though is my generation has had control of the wheel for much too long. It’s time to pass the baton to the people who will have to live in this world 40 years from now. They should be the ones having the conversation about Supreme Court justices, climate change, gun control, the national debt, and human rights… and from leadership positions.
Poor Mike Lee lookedabsolutely incredulous at last night’s State of the Union message after Biden called out the ultra conservative Tea Party group headed by Rick Scott for having formally proposed phasing out Social Security. He has this look of “what the heck could you possibly be talking about?” on him. He may have gotten away with it except Meidas Touch was clever enough to embed side-by-side videos of Lee looking stunned by the news at the SOTU and in the next panel, talking to a small group about his plans to phase out Social Security. Republicans sure like to fly under the radar with their secret plans when they can.
Republicans will need to spare me the faux outrage of the Chinese weather balloon incident. It’s been quite entertaining to watch the pundits on the right second guessing Biden’s decision making process as if it were the second coming of Benghazi. Oh wait, that was a nothing burger too.
Up until the acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk was seen as this sort of eccentric guy, a little on the weird side but nonetheless a highly successful business mogul. He had to be. How else to you get to hold the title of the world’s richest man? With the Twitter purchase though, it turns out maybe the emperor has no clothes, or perhaps just enough clothes to make you want to get the guy some sunblock.
I applauded the powers that be at Twitter after the decision was made to ban Trump after the Jan. 6th insurrection. People died as a result of his recklessness. It was the right thing to do and it didn’t matter if you were an ex-president or not.
Like many others I had concerns about the buyout of Twitter by Elon. His motives seemed suspect. He claimed twitter interfered with free speech and promised to bring back open dialog. I decided to stick around and see how things unfolded. It didn’t take long at all to unmask the real Elon. He just can’t help himself. He overestimates his sense of humor and his intelligence.
The first thing I noticed was that he seemed to be running his newly acquired $44B business from tweets in full public view. It started with some push-back from Stephen King who complained about the $20 fee for being a blue-check. Keep in mind that even at $20 for every blue-check, Twitter’s revenue shortfall would be far from resolved. That’s why I was surprised when Musk replied back to King with “How about $8?” Say what? You just dropped your price by over 50% in about 2 seconds without giving it any thought. It was one of the most puzzling and impulsive things I’ve ever seen by a company leader, in real-time no less. My thoughts were wow, this is weird. I better stick around, this could be entertaining.
The next rather odd thing Elon did was retweet a conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi (82) who had been attacked in his own home by an intruder with a hammer. For some reason Elon thought it would be wise or funny or ? to propagate the lie that Mr. Pelosi’s attacker might well have been his gay lover trying to get out of the house instead of in. It was neither wise nor funny. It was careless and sick. By this time I’m getting the sense that Mr. Musk is not only impulsive but possibly a bully and immature.
The next several days we were witness to Musk getting absolutely roasted over the coals by the vast majority of users on his own platform that he just paid $44B for (well, maybe $22B of his money and $22B from the Saudis). It turns out some of his advertisers were not amused by the Paul Pelosi retweet and decided to leave. I was definitely sticking around for this. Logging in to scan the feed for the barrage of insults as the wheels were falling off added high amusement factor to my day. One can imagine if this scenario happens to any other company they are going to step back, re-evaluate the events of the day and try to lure those advertisers back. Nope, not Elon. Someone tweeted that Elon should retaliate by organizing Twitter users to boycott the advertisers for leaving. In his infinite wisdom Musk opines in a tweet that he will go “thermo-nuclear” on the advertisers for causing him loss of revenue. Really? I’m starting to think this guy doesn’t really know that much about business or is just plain dumb.
Now faced with a significant drop in advertising dollars, Musk launches in to the next project on his agenda: Fire 1/2 the employees. In 42 years in the corporate workforce I had never heard of a company axing 50% of its payroll in one knee-jerk event. That’s a real risky number to just pick out of the air. Clearly Elon is a risk taker in a big way. One thing Elon didn’t consider is that by pissing off half his workforce by unceremoniously firing them on short notice, they might not all go quietly. Witness the new nickname he got assigned by his ex-employees the day after they were given the heave-ho: Space Karen. It wouldn’t surprise me if a fair amount of Twitter source code now lives in a private Github repo. I was waffling between him being bad at business or just plain dumb and now I’m leaning more towards dumb.
Elon, unable to sense any consequences from his actions so far, then doubles down on his emperor status and starts dictating terms of employment for the remaining employees. These include a 12×7 work schedule, no more work from home and oh, pledging allegiance to Elon The Great. As it turns out, a goodly portion of the remaining employees told Musk to pound sand and went their merry way. Now he’s down to bare bones.
Having fired most of his content moderation employees, Musk is now at risk of his platform spewing hate speech to the point of getting kicked out of the Apple store, which would be the final blow for Twitter.
The internal conflagration has been very enjoyable thus far, but I felt I’ve seen about enough. Elon as a person is no longer a mystery. He’s an impulsive, arrogant, mean spirited, risk taking fool. That’s why when he announced he intended to re-instate the account of Donald Trump I deactivated my account. No need to stick around for the rest of this clown show. I can read the highlights on my next platform. Maybe Mastodon, Tribe Social or Post. Something will work out. At this point it’s just embarrassing. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
Most pundits predicted a pretty good shellacking of Democrats in the midterm but that never materialized. The Dems held the Senate and lost only a few seats in the house. At present we see a lot of finger pointing going on within the Republican Party. Was it Trump? McConnell? Rick Scott? The Hobbs decision?
The way I see it, there were 4 main reasons. 1) Trump as kingmaker picked some terrible candidates. 2) Women broke hard for Democrats because of the Dobbs decision. 3) Gen Z turned out in big numbers which coincided with the 65+ crowd having fewer people on the voting rolls. 4) People rejected mean.
We don’t have to spend any time on the lack of candidate quality for Republican Senate races. Oz and Walker are bottom of the barrel, end of story. The Dobbs decision is a classic case of “careful what you wish for.” After 50 years of trying, republicans finally overturned Roe v. Wade at a time when 70% of the country supported abortion with some restrictions. Republicans underestimated the fallout from the Dobbs decision big time.
Gen Z turned out in big numbers and broke for Democrats 70-30. Of all the issues republicans need to deal with in their post-mortem this one has to be the most concerning. It’s not going to get any better in 2024, in fact it’ll get worse for them.
Lastly, voters rejected mean. Marjorie Taylor Green and Kari Lake and many of the election denier crowd came off as just plain mean. Nasty, nasty politics in an effort to be even more Trumpier than Trump himself. Bombastic behavior played well to the crowds in 2016, but after 6 years people are tired of it and have had enough.
View from my PDX Window 