As the Year 2025 Ends

The thing about New Year's Eve is that it allows you to say farewell to the previous year - 2025 - while greeting the incoming year - 2026 - with a certain level of cheer and optimism. 

So the best I can say about 2025 - all of the damage and disaster and human rights violations and destruction of national norms (and buildings) - is "What that trip really necessary?"

And the best I can say about going into 2026 is "Are we all ready to fight our way out of the bullshit storm trump and his lackeys are about to overwhelm us with, as they escalate their war on everyone who's not Rich, White, and Male?" 

I don't have much optimism or cheer this evening. I do have resolve and a willingness to stand up for myself and others when the Far Right thugs are going to come for everything - our freedoms, our communities, our love of people - that makes us true Americans.

Come at us, 2026. We're not going anywhere without a fight.

The Year of Dread Incoming: 2024

It's a little hard to wish everybody I know a Happy New Year when I know damn well that the coming year 2024 is going to be the most stressful, anxiety-fueled year most of us will ever see.

We're going to be dealing with the most consequential Presidential election cycle since the Great Depression, the fate of the nation facing the reality that donald trump will be the Republican candidate for 2024: We are facing the reality trump is openly promising dictatorship and the end of every constitutional norm just so he can avoid felony convictions.

That trump is facing felony convictions is something we've never seen before in a candidate from one of the two major political parties. Sure, there was Eugene Debs in a jail cell back in 1920 but he was with a minor third party and never stood a snowball's chance in West Palm Beach. The most Debs could wrangle were 1 million voters. trump will claim the Republican voter base at 62 million at least.

And this is with trump facing state criminal charges in both New York (tax fraud) and Georgia (election interference and RICO), and then federal charges in DC (for insurrection) and South Florida (for stolen classified documents). This is the first presidential cycle where the primary elections between Feburary through May are intermixed with trial dates between March through May for a leading candidate. 

And that's not even touching on trump's many civil court cases including the wrap-up of the New York fraud case by mid-January, his second defamation trial with Carroll, and several others.

Remember the phrase "Trial of the Century" whenever a scandalous crime took place and a sordid circus of a trial would follow? Trials like the Stanford White murder, or the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping and Death trial, or the Chicago Eight Seven, or the Manson Family murder sprees, or that whole OJ spectacle?

All of 2024 will be TRUMP TRIALS, every Trial of the Century in one year, on steroids. Unless trump succeeds in delaying all his criminal matters until after the election, which increases the horror that he may yet steal (not win) the November election and avoid any accountability as he abuses the legal immunity of the office to his whims.

Which leaves the other legal battle over trump's possible disqualification under the 14th Amendment on the table, as the Supreme Court may be forced to decide on that matter before November comes.

I once thought the 2012 election cycle was too stressful. Then 2016 happened. Now every presidential election is a nightmare while that con artist threatens to undo everything I've ever believed about America.

Gods help us.

2024 is two hours away.

It's 2017. Time To Fight

New Year Resolution:

Keep telling Trump and the Republican Party you won't accept their incoming regime of misrule, corruption, and destruction.

Always tell them NO.

Okay, So I've Been Thinking About This New Year's Project

First off: HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone this 2016 and OH GOD IT'S AN ELECTION YEAR THE MADNESS IS GONNA GET WORSE. There, got that out of the way. I can write about that in greater detail as the chaos deepens.

Moving on...

One idea that's gotten into my head is putting together a set of the blog articles I've written on this site and getting it published in print form.

The practical reasons aren't entirely there, if I have to argue against this idea. I've developed a bit of a readership - Hi, everybody! - but it's not like there's a clamor for me to get something wrapped up in a book with a nice hardcover and a fresh off-the-press scent.

In terms of marketability, I'm not entirely credible as an expert on some of the political and social issues I discuss here. It's not like I'm a PhD in Public Administration or a constant presence on a cable channel talk show. Anything I have as 'experience' is a degree in Journalism (just not a career in it), and eight years worth of ranting on a blog with about 1500 views a month on average (unless Crooks and Liars promotes an article on the Mike's Blog Round-Up, which bumps up the monthly stats to about 3500, which is why I'm always ever so grateful). It's not exactly something to burnish as credentials to get a book like this on a Barnes & Noble store shelf.

One idea I've been having is taking the articles I've written about Obama's tenure as President - during which most of my blogging's been done - and putting them together as a sort of pro-Obama critique of his administration. One of the things that keeps bothering me at the library are all these anti-Obama diatribes getting shelved and checked out. I can count on one hand the number of pro-Obama books I've come across. I just feel there's a need for a book that would point out the positives of the presidency and the follies/fallacies - my Shoelace Hypothesis - of the haters.

I could focus on just the overall craziness of the American political landscape. One of those "this is what the nation was like, future generations" diaries that were so popular in the 19th Century. Only with more profanity.

(The real reason I'm thinking of this is because I overpurchased a Print-on-Demand book service about 10 years ago, it's still sitting there, and I really want to get that taken care of as quickly and without consuming any more time away from other projects as possible)

I dunno. To the seven regular readers of this blog, is any of this a good idea? You think this has merit? Leave a comment please.

What to Expect in 2016

This IS after all A Year of Election, this coming 2016.

Predicting how it will all play out is ridiculous, because the future isn't set yet from our perspective and anything can change everything else. The best we can say for certain is that the Tampa Bay Bucs are going to draft in the top ten spots of the April rookie draft.

What I can say about 2016 with regards to politics is that:

• This is a year we'll find out of the polling numbers for the Republicans truly match the actual voter turnout results. They have before - within the margins of error - but this year the polls may be over-inflating Trump's numbers. Despite the facts that multiple polls show him leading by comfortable margins, and there's no real sign of him slipping out of First in the states that really matter (Trump can lose Iowa because that state is so skewed into social conservative thought it regularly votes the best Bible Thumper who ends up losing everywhere else), the pollsters are still thinking Trump really isn't going to get 30 or even 20 percent of the real votes.
• If the Republican primaries retain at least six candidates all the way through to the July convention in Cleveland, it will likely mean enough of them earned enough delegates to force it as a brokered convention... which will likely mean Jeb? wins the rigged nomination with the fewest ever delegates in political history.
• Republicans are going to go so overboard in voter suppression efforts that the federal courts may have to charge the whole party with civil rights violations.
• Marco Rubio is not going to happen.
• Hillary Clinton - despite the best efforts of Republicans to BENGHAZI her - will win enough state primaries by comfortable margins to secure the Democratic nomination. Sorry, Bernie, the numbers just aren't there for you. The question then becomes how to get enough Democrats eager and active enough to actually show up to goddamn vote.

What I can say about 2016 itself is that:

• Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice better NOT SUCK.
• Also, I really think the NFL is making a big mistake forcing - and they are - the San Diego Chargers to relocate to LA. Let the Raiders have that market, okay? Sheesh.
• Also, I need to market my ebooks better. 

Happy New Year to ye, and hope to see you in 2016.

Things We Learned in 2015

As the year comes to a close, these lessons:

• There is no such thing as Peak Wingnut. The Republican Party has gone so far Right Wing that there's no sign they can ever move back to any moderate stance on any issue.
• Any act of effective government actually angers the Far Right. They're already turning on the once-fair-haired-golden-boy Paul Ryan because as Speaker he actually avoided a government shutdown and passed a workable budget.
• Having the Presidential campaigns start in 2015 rather than its actual election year of 2016 gave us a whole year of sound and fury. On the one hand, all that fury has exposed the Republican voting base and the candidates they support as two separate yet equal groups of ill-informed hate-filled sociopaths. On the other hand, all this exposure is making them - both candidates and followers - act worse.
• Gun violence has become so ingrained into our culture that most Americans are resigned to the body count. This is horrifying.
• As of this last week of 2015, Obamacare works. So of course Republican governors are gonna keep trying to kill it.
• Mad Max Fury Road deserves to win every Best Picture award out there. Also Best Director, Best Actress, Best Fight Scene, and Best Catering.
• Canadians have declared war on my librarian blog. I'm not even a Royals fan, people.
• Florida politics are still screwed up.

Oh, and I'm thinking of putting some of the blog articles I've written into print format as a book. Think there'd be a market for it?

Thus Ends 2014

It wasn't the best of times, although there were good moments to enjoy.

2014 was more CRAZY than anything, and tragic with the scale of death and war both here and abroad.

The coming year doesn't hold much promise.  With the Republicans in full control of Congress, there's the dread of them delving further into the wingnut hate against Obama, with all the risks (for them and for our nation) that entails.  We haven't resolved our issue of out-of-control police, and while the fighting has officially ended in Afghanistan it really hasn't, while Syria remains in Year Four (FIVE?) of its civil war with ISIL leveling carnage in there and in Iraq, with Libya's civil war stewing and due to get worse.  There's still the Ukraine/Russia standoff, the Greek debt crisis (alongside the ongoing EU recession), and the ebola crisis in West Africa.

One can hope that sanity for 2015 is on its way, that it can't stay this crazy forever.  But the social and political and natural forces are out of control right now.  Just hang on tight to the roller coaster safety bar and pray for a safe ride.

On a personal note: I am invested in getting a novel written soon soon very soon, to keep up with all the epublishing I've been doing lately.  For this political blog, I am looking at doing something I really shouldn't do: diving into the 2016 primary madness and using Professor James David Barber's Presidential Character traits to map out the major candidates to determine which ones are Active-Positive (yay) and which ones are Active-Negative (ack) and which ones are Passive-Positive (meh).  Passive-Negatives are so rare it's unlikely.  Anyhoo, that's my projects for next year.

See you on the other side of the calendar.

It's a New Year. I Need Resolutions.

I hereby resolve for this year of Common Era Two Thousand and Thirteen that I will do everything in my power to increase traffic to this blog site.

Shouldn't be too hard.  I've finally paid notice to the statistical trends on my blog and found out that my most popular entry has been the Iran Day Six article.  And that was because it had pictures that came up in search engines under "funny" "Iran" "pictures".

Shouldn't be too hard to do that, either.  I got a bunch of captioned photos already on my I Can Has account:

also

also wik

Gonna have to make more of them by hand, though.  I Can Has website dumped their political funny caption maker.  Sigh...

Another way I can uptick the blog traffic is to do a regular series of articles.  I'm thinking of writing up entries on Presidential Character - the personality tracker developed by James David Barber - much like I did pointing out what Character a President Romney could have been.  It'll be tricky coming up with Character profiles for a lot of the One-Termers of the 19th Century... but I'm damn sure Millard Fillmore is gonna be a doozy when I get some research on him done!

Also, my other New Year's resolution: get some writing done and e-published!

See ya.

Last Thing to Say About 2000-2009

Goodbye and good riddance.

On a personal note, my loss of employment, and growing atrophy of whatever social skills I have left.

On a broader scale, the entire Bush the Lesser era should be viewed by historians as one of the greatest debacles - two quagmire wars, prolific spending and massive deficits, cultural warfare, an entire political/media culture without accountability - in American history. Forget any nostalgic feeling for the 1970s, of which there are actually few (Star Wars, the advent of punk). The 2000s were horrifying.

See ya all in 2010.